Capitalism Can Crack Climate Change. But Only If It Takes Risks

The Guardian - Larry Elliott*

Anglo-Saxon capitalism’s drive to maximise profits in the short term won’t save the planet. Perhaps the Chinese model can?

‘China is committed to phasing out coal.’ Photograph: Feature China/Barcroft Images 

This summer’s heatwave has provided a glimpse of the future, and it is not a pretty one. On current trends, the years to come will see rising temperatures, droughts, a fight to feed a growing population, and a race against time to reduce dependency on fossil fuels.
The struggle to combat climate change brings out the best and worst of capitalism. Decarbonisation of the economy requires alternatives for coal and cars that run on diesel, and that plays to capitalism’s strengths. Innovation is what capitalism is all about, and there has been staggeringly rapid progress in developing clean alternatives to coal, oil and gas. The cost of producing solar- and wind-powered electricity has collapsed. Great advances are also being made in battery technology, which is vital for the new generation of electricity-powered vehicles. Humans are endlessly creative. In the end, they will crack climate change.
But by the time they do, it could be too late. Capitalism – especially the dominant Anglo-Saxon variant of capitalism – has trouble thinking beyond the here and now. People running big corporations see their job as maximising profits in the short term, even if that means causing irreparable damage to the world’s ecosystem. What’s more, they think they should be free to get on with maximising profits without any interference from politicians, even though the fight against climate change can only be won if governments show leadership, individually and collectively.
The economist Joseph Schumpeter talked about the process known as “creative destruction” – the way in which inefficient producers are put out of business by disruptive new technologies and that, as a result, transformation happens. During wars, the best brains are employed by governments to produce more efficient killing machines.
But normally creative destruction takes time, especially if the old guard can marshall sufficient resistance to change – something the fossil fuel industry has been adept at doing. It is vital that capitalism’s Dr Jekyll emerges victorious over its Mr Hyde. More than that, it needs to be an immediate knockout blow.

In the past, politicians have only tended to focus on climate change when they think there is nothing else to worry about. Tony Blair, for example, commissioned a report from the economist Nick Stern into climate change during the years before the global financial crisis, when growth was strong and wages were rising. Margaret Thatcher only started to talk publicly about protecting the environment when the economy was booming at the end of the 1980s.
When policymakers have other things to worry about, tackling climate change drops down the list of things to do. The Paris agreement in 2015, which committed the international community to restricting global warming to well below two degrees centigrade, shows that the issue is taken more seriously than it was two or three decades ago, but that doesn’t mean that it is a top priority.
When times are tough, politicians are suckers for the argument that there is a trade-off between growth and greening the economy. There isn’t. Companies account for capital depreciation when they draw up their profit and loss accounts. If governments adopted the same principle and accounted for the depletion of natural capital when drawing up their national accounts, growth would be lower. In countries such as China and India – where the cities are dangerously polluted – it would be markedly lower.
The good news is that in Beijing and New Delhi, policymakers have woken up to the idea that green growth is better growth. China is committed to phasing out coal, in part because it is worried about climate change and in part because it sees an opportunity to be a world leader in green technology. India, although slower to act, is also starting to take advantage of collapsing prices for electricity generated by solar and wind, and has set itself demanding renewables targets.
But the bad news is that progress towards decarbonisation is still not fast enough. As things stand, fossil fuels will still account for more than 50% of energy consumption by 2050. CO2 emissions will carry on rising and global warming will continue.
Stern says technological progress has been much faster than he thought possible when his report was published in 2006, and he thinks it is quite something that all the major car-makers now accept that the era of the internal combustion engine is coming to an end.
“But the speed of action is still far too slow,” Stern warns. “Emissions have to be peaking now and turn down very sharply. We have not yet acted on the scale needed, even though the ingredients are there.”
Winning the race against time requires political leadership. It means acknowledging that the Chinese model of managed and directed capitalism might be more appropriate than the Anglo-Saxon model. A massive scaling up of investment in clean technology is needed, because the $300bn spent on decarbonisation worldwide last year merely matched the cost of the losses in the US from climate and weather-related events. It also means scaling up the lending of the World Bank and the regional development banks to help poorer countries build wind and solar capacity. And a global carbon tax set high enough so that fossil fuels remain in the ground must be implemented.
And, more than anything, it means accepting that the world needs to wage war against climate change. Powerful vested interests will say there is plenty of time to act, and they are aided by climate-change deniers who say there is nothing to worry about. These people need to be called out. They are not deniers, they are climate-change appeasers. And they are just as dangerously misguided as fascism’s appeasers in the 1930s.

*Larry Elliott is The Guardian’s economics editor

Links

• Extreme temperatures 'especially likely for next four years'
• Climate change denial won’t even benefit oil companies soon
• Don’t Despair – Climate Change Catastrophe Can Still Be Averted
• An Optimist's Guide To Solving Climate Change And Saving The World
• New Scenarios Show How The World Could Limit Warming To 1.5c In 2100
• In A Way, Climate Change Is A Straightforward Problem To Solve
• Four Radical Plans To Save Civilization From Climate Change
• How To Talk Climate Change Across The Aisle: Focus On Adaptive Solutions Rather Than Causes
• Plan B For Climate Change: Tassie Scientists Looking At What To Do If The Worst Happens

Hothouse Earth: Our Planet Has Been Here Before – Here’s What It Looked Like

The Conversation - Jan Zalasiewicz | Mark Williams | Thomas Hearing

Only you can prevent hothouse earths. Flickr, CC BY-SA

Even if carbon emissions are reduced to hold temperature rises at the 2°C guardrail of the Paris Agreement, changes already afoot in the environment such as melting permafrost and forest die-back could accelerate warming well into the future, potentially pushing our planet into what is being called a “Hothouse Earth” state.
The risk of a hothouse was raised by a recent study, though the authors stressed that it is not inevitable. But what is a Hothouse Earth state, and how will it feel for humans and the rest of nature?
The Earth has been in hothouse (often called “greenhouse”) states before, and there is not one kind of Hothouse Earth, but several. A little like Dante’s circles of Hell, they progress into ever-deeper states of heat and changes to the planet’s biosphere and climate. The end result is undoubtedly hellish, and even the early stages would be, for humans at least, decidedly uncomfortable.

Paradise lost
The first state last occurred 125,000 years ago, during the previous interglacial phase of the Ice Ages. Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were like those of pre-industrial times, at about 280 parts per million (ppm), and global temperatures were generally similar to today. Early humans were present, but in small numbers with only local impact on Earth’s ecology. We might regard it as an Eden of pristine landscapes and ecosystems.

Cave paintings depict early humans in species-rich ecosystems. Yvon Frunea/Wikimedia Commons., CC BY-SA

During this interglacial phase, sea levels rose to some six metres above today’s as part of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets melted, perhaps as changing ocean currents carried extra heat to the ice. It’s a reminder of how easily sea level can change. Then, animal (including human) and plant communities simply adapted by migrating with the shoreline. Modern civilisation, with its sprawling coastal megacities, would not adapt so easily.
We are already set for the next stage. By burning fossil fuels we have launched atmospheric carbon dioxide levels beyond 400ppm – that’s an extra trillion tons of carbon dioxide in the air. With this thicker thermal blanket, the Earth is absorbing more heat, with most of it going into the oceans. We are already noticing the effects, with extreme weather events rising and ecosystems such as coral reefs already suffering drastic change.

The world at 400ppm CO₂
The last time the Earth saw these kinds of carbon dioxide levels was 3m years ago, well before Homo sapiens appeared, in what is called the “Mid Piacenzian Warm Period” of the Pliocene Epoch. This was warm – but not yet truly hot. The Earth still had a lot of polar ice, especially over Antarctica, but ice on Greenland and West Antarctica was much less extensive, and sea levels were some ten metres or more higher. Global mean temperature was perhaps a couple of degrees warmer than at present, with more warming around the poles than at the equator. If carbon dioxide levels now hold steady, this is the kind of Earth we could be heading towards.
This period in Earth’s history was also Eden-like, with a diversity of life on land and at sea – but getting to that state may be traumatic for crowded humanity as the sea level keeps rising. A true Hothouse Earth emerged when carbon dioxide levels reached something like 800ppm – about double those of today. This was the world of the dinosaurs, 100m years ago. There was little or no ice on Earth and the polar regions had forests and dinosaurs which were adapted to living half the year in darkness.

Dinosaurs flourished in a hothouse world of swamps and rainforest - but they had millions of years to evolve alongside it. Shutterstock

The biosphere thrived, though equatorial regions tested the thermal limits of life. Much of the low-lying land had been claimed by the sea, which was now a worldwide warm bath in which animals steered a course to avoid the large, oxygen-depleted regions, a result of the sluggish ocean currents typical of an ice-free world. Even this type of Earth is not so unpleasant, though – once you’re there.
But it’s the transition that’s tricky. Some combination of unrestrained carbon emissions and the natural feedbacks of greenhouse gas released from melting permafrost and forest die-back might set us on such a trajectory in little more than a century. Humanity, in such a world, might crowd on to the remaining land and mourn its drowned cities.

Hell on Earth?
Hothouse Earths can also get hotter during “hyperthermal” events, typically triggered by sudden, massive carbon dioxide releases from extraordinary volcanic outbursts. The larger of these coincided with the times of the great dyings – mass extinction events like those at the end of the Permian Period 251m years ago, in which most life perished through extreme heat, suffocation or starvation. This is where true hell on Earth appears.
The ultimate Hothouse Earth has, thankfully, not yet been reached. If it had, we would not be here to discuss it. It is a runaway greenhouse world like that of our sister planet Venus – heated to the point where the oceans are boiled away, with water vapour streaming through a punctured stratosphere, leaving a furnace-like surface devoid of life.

The lifeless surface of Venus shows the consequences of a runaway greenhouse effect. NASA

It seems that even burning all of our hydrocarbon fuels will not yet invite such a state, which is some comfort. However, this is surely the eventual state that the Earth will reach in about one billion years, as the sun heats up. Fortunately, this is not our immediate problem.
Hothouse Earth is a journey with many stops and even the next few steps would be a bumpy ride for human civilisation. It’s the speed of the change that’s crucial. In a transition stretched out over millennia, humans could probably adapt to even a dinosaur-style hothouse. But if it’s going to come in centuries, or even in a human lifetime, there’ll be trouble ahead.

Links

• How climate change killed the dinosaurs’ underwater cousins
• Hot weather and CO2 made the tropics a no-go zone for early plant-eating dinosaurs
• Hothouse Earth: seven things you can do to stop it
• Hothouse Earth: here’s what the science actually does – and doesn’t – say

Kerala Floods: Death Toll Rises To At Least 324 As Rescue Effort Continues

The Guardian - Michael Safi

220,000 people left homeless and thousands still trapped in southern Indian state after unusually heavy rain

'Please pray for us': Kerala experiences worst monsoon in nearly a century – video report

Pressure intensified on Saturday to save thousands still trapped by devastating floods that have killed more than 300 in the Indian state of Kerala, triggering landslides and sending torrents sweeping through villages in the region’s worst inundation crisis in a century.
Authorities warned of more torrential rain and strong winds over the weekend, as hundreds of troops and local fishermen staged desperate rescue attempts in helicopters and boats across the southern state.
Kerala, popular among international tourists for its tropical hills and beaches, has been battered by record monsoon rainfall this year.
The state is “facing the worst floods in 100 years”, chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan said on Twitter, adding that at least 324 lives have been lost so far.
Roads are damaged, mobile phone networks are down, an international airport has been closed and more than 220,000 people have been left homeless after unusually heavy rain in the past nine days.

Casualty numbers are expected to increase further, with thousands more people still stranded. Many have died from being buried in hundreds of landslides set off by the flooding.

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Monsoon floods put pressure on Kerala dams

Guardian graphic

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Vijayan said the state was experiencing an “extremely grave” crisis, with the highest flood warning in place in 12 of its 14 regions.
“We’re witnessing something that has never happened before in the history of Kerala,” he told reporters.
The Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, was on his way to Kerala last night “to take stock of the flood situation in the state”, he said.
Famed for its tea plantations, beaches and tranquil backwaters, Kerala is frequently saturated during the annual monsoon. But this year’s deluge has swamped at least 20,000 homes and forced people into more than 1,500 relief camps.

People are airlifted to safety. Photograph: Sivaram V/Reuters

The toll in Kerala contributed to more than 900 deaths recorded by the Indian home ministry this monsoon season from landslides, flooding and rain.
Rescue workers and members of India’s armed forces have been deployed across the state with fleets of ships and aircraft brought in to save the thousands of people still stranded, many sheltering on their roofs signalling to helicopters for help.

Aerial view shows scale of monsoon flooding in Kerala, India – video

Officials estimated about 6,000 miles (10,000km) of roads had been submerged or buried by landslides and a major international airport in Cochin has been shut until 26 August. Communications networks were also faltering, officials said, making rescue efforts harder to coordinate.
Residents of the state used social media to post desperate appeals for help, sometimes including their GPS coordinates to help guide rescuers.
“My family and neighbouring families are in trouble with flood in Pandanad nakkada area in Alappuzha,” Ajo Varghese said in a viral Facebook post. “No water and food. Not able to communicate from afternoon. Mobile phones are not reachable and switch off. Please help … No rescue is available.”
Another man in the central town of Chengannur posted a video of himself neck-deep in water in his home. “It looks like water is rising to the second floor,” he says. “I hope you can see this. Please pray for us.”

Kerala floods: man, neck-deep in water, appeals for help from inside his house - video

The fate of the man was still unclear on Friday. The state finance minister, Thomas Isaac, tweeted in the afternoon that the last road to Chengannur had washed away before his eyes and the town was cut off.
The water has claimed parts of Cochin, the state’s commercial capital, and was still rising in some areas of the city on Friday, with residents urged to evacuate and guide ropes strung across roads inundated by fast-moving currents.

Soldiers evacuate local residents in Ernakulam. Photograph: -/AFP/Getty Images

Meteorologists said Kerala had received an average 37.5% more rainfall than usual. The hardest-hit districts such as Idukki in the north received 83.5% excess rain. More than 80 dams across the state had opened their gates to try to ease the crisis, the chief minister said.

Agence France-Presse contributed to this report

Links

• Rise in extreme weather events in India raises concerns over climate change impact
• India monsoon: At least 324 killed in Kerala floods as rescuers work to evacuate survivors
• Hundreds dead in Indian flood disaster
• 868 dead due to rains, floods in 7 states during monsoon
• Kerala floods: 324 people dead in 'worst disaster in 100 years'

New Study Reveals Evidence Of How Neolithic People Adapted To Climate Change

Phys.org - University of Bristol

In situ pottery at the archaeological site of Çatalhöyük. Credit: Çatalhöyük Research Project.

Research led by the University of Bristol has uncovered evidence that early farmers were adapting to climate change 8,200 years ago.
The study, published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), centred on the Neolithic and Chalcolithic city settlement of Çatalhöyük in southern Anatolia, Turkey which existed from approximately 7500 BC to 5700 BC.
During the height of the city's occupation a well-documented climate change event 8,200 years ago occurred which resulted in a sudden decrease in global temperatures caused by the release of a huge amount of glacial meltwater from a massive freshwater lake in northern Canada.
Examining the animal bones excavated at the site, scientists concluded that the herders of the city turned towards sheep and goats at this time, as these animals were more drought-resistant than cattle. Study of cut marks on the animal bones informed on butchery practices: the high number of such marks at the time of the climate event showed that the population worked on exploiting any available meat due to food scarcity.
The authors also examined the animal fats surviving in ancient cooking pots. They detected the presence of ruminant carcass fats, consistent with the animal bone assemblage discovered at Çatalhöyük. For the first time, compounds from animal fats detected in pottery were shown to carry evidence for the climate event in their isotopic composition.
Indeed, using the "you are what you eat (and drink)" principle, the scientists deducted that the isotopic information carried in the hydrogen atoms (deuterium to hydrogen ratio) from the animal fats was reflecting that of ancient precipitation. A change in the hydrogen signal was detected in the period corresponding to the climate event, thus suggesting changes in precipitation patterns at the site at that time.
The paper brings together researchers from the University of Bristol's Organic Geochemistry Unit (School of Chemistry) and the Bristol Research Initiative for the Dynamic Global Environment (School of Geographical Sciences).
Co-authors of the paper include archaeologists and archaeozoologists involved in the excavations and the study of the pottery and animal bones from the site.
Dr. Mélanie Roffet-Salque, lead author of the paper, said: "Changes in precipitation patterns in the past are traditionally obtained using ocean or lake sediment cores.
"This is the first time that such information is derived from cooking pots. We have used the signal carried by the hydrogen atoms from the animal fats trapped in the pottery vessels after cooking.
"This opens up a completely new avenue of investigation—the reconstruction of past climate at the very location where people lived using pottery."
Co-author, Professor Richard Evershed, added: "It is really significant that the climate models of the event are in complete agreement with the H signals we see in the animal fats preserved in the pots.
"The models point to seasonal changes farmers would have had to adapt to—overall colder temperatures and drier summers—which would have had inevitable impacts on agriculture."

Links

• Widespread evidence of prehistoric dairying discovered along the Mediterranean coast
• Europe needs coastal adaptation measures to avoid catastrophic flooding by the end of the century
• Scientists trace atmospheric rise in CO2 during deglaciation to deep Pacific Ocean
• Stronger west winds blow ill wind for climate change
• Carbon 'leak' may have warmed the planet for 11,000 years, encouraging human civilization

Official Start For Fire Season In Sydney, Most Of NSW, Brought Forward

Fairfax - Peter Hannam

Authorities will bring forward the official start to the bushfire danger period to almost the whole of NSW from the start of next month as risks of major blazes intensify.
The NSW Rural Fire Service says a huge swath of the state covering forested areas will their official fire season start from September 1. The regions join 14 local government areas already covered, and will include Sydney and the Illawarra.
Even alpine areas will be included in the move with only fairly barren regions in western NSW excluded, Ben Shepherd, senior RFS spokesman, told Fairfax Media.

An out-of-control fire burns in a national park at Bemboka earlier this week. Photo: Elaine Bateman

The move came as fire crews had another testing day,  with 78 grass and bush fires reported including 36 of them yet to be controlled as of late on Friday. Some 750 firefighters were in the field, Inspector Shepherd said.
A helicopter crashed while carrying out water-bombing activities against a fire near Ulladulla on the state's south coast on Friday, killing the pilot.
Saturday looms as another day of elevated fire risk with temperatures climbing into the mid-20s in parts of the state, with 23 degrees forecast by the Bureau of Meteorology for Sydney.
Inspector Shepherd said the day was not expected to create as severe fire danger as Wednesday. Still, winds along the coast could gust above 40 km/h and those in the mountains more than 70 km/h, he said.

Bushfire season has come early this year - with the first total fire bans announced almost two weeks earlier than in any previous year. Photo: Wolter Peeters

The Berejiklian government earlier this month declared the entire state to be in drought, amid record high day-time temperatures for the first seven months of the year, and the least rain since 1965.
RFS Deputy Commissioner Rob Rogers earlier this week said authorities were "very concerned about the season".
Inspector Shepherd said moisture indices were showing conditions "are far drier" than the 2001-2002 fire season that was marked by big blazes across the state, including near Sydney.
The official start of the fire season means tighter restrictions for burning off in the open.
Residents, though, should not wait for a date in the calendar to begin their preparations for planning to deal with bushfires, Inspector Shepherd said.
"This weekend is the time to start", he said, adding people should seek to reduce material that could burn from gutters and around their homes, and plan on maintaining those conditions through what could be a long season.
Snow falls have been the best for about 14 years in alpine areas, prompting some resorts to plan to extend their skiing seasons.
Still, grassfires had been ignited in areas up to 1000 metres elevation, so those regions had been added to the early start for the fire season, Inspector Shepherd said.

Links

• Drought, wind and heat: Bushfire season is starting earlier and lasting longer
• Sydney's bushfire season starts in winter: 'We may have to rethink how we live'
• NSW bushfire season brought forward as fires flare across state
• After the firestorm: the health implications of returning to a bushfire zone
• Future bushfires will be worse: we need to adapt now
• Where to take refuge in your home during a bushfire
• Our deadly bushfire gamble: risk your life or bet your house
• First forecasts for spring point to 'intensification' of dry conditions
• Homes saved, fire truck rolls in NSW's winter blaze emergency
• Conditions ease but NSW bushfire still burns out of control

Turnbull Ditches Legislation For 26% Emissions Cut To Head Off Backbench Dissent

The Guardian - Katharine Murphy

Government to set target by regulation in move to defuse internal opposition – and court Labor

Malcolm Turnbull has faced concerted opposition to his energy policies from within his own ranks. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP 

The Turnbull government is preparing to set the emissions reduction target for the national energy guarantee by regulation rather than legislation in a move to court Labor’s support and defuse some internal tensions about enshrining the Paris climate commitments in Australian law.
The government is working up the regulatory option ahead of cabinet deliberations next week – as well as expediting a power price fix linked to the Neg, which will likely involve setting default pricing for electricity consumers and punitive measures to stop big energy companies extracting super profits from their customers.
Some government backbenchers have dug in their heels over legislating the Neg’s emissions reduction 26% target, framing that step as a breach of Australian sovereignty. The change means they will not be asked to endorse the 26% cut in a parliamentary vote as it will be set by regulation.
Guardian Australia understands the option to be put to cabinet next week would involve setting the target by an executive order that cannot be disallowed.
The option under consideration is that the target would be set via the regulation, and if a government wanted to increase it, it would first have to seek advice from the Australian Energy Regulator and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission about the impact of a target increase on electricity prices.
That advice would be made public.
Labor has pressured the government to make it easier for future governments to be able to scale up the Neg’s pollution target beyond the current proposal of a 26% reduction – flagging a desire that it be set by an administrative instrument rather than in legislation, which is harder to change.
The states, who can make or break the Neg through the Coag energy council, have also demanded the target be set in regulation so it can be ratcheted up.
The government has been plunged into a crisis this week, with a group of 10 backbenchers threatening to cross the floor to oppose the Neg. There is also a larger group, including some ministers, concerned that the existing policy won’t drive down power prices.
Current indications suggest the government will need Labor’s backing to get the Neg legislation through the House of Representatives.
Tony Abbott has escalated his public attacks on the policy, while the home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, has held the line on the Neg but publicly articulated the circumstances in which he would have to resign from the cabinet if he reached a point of irresolvable conflict with the prime minister on the detail.
The current fraught debate shares many of the hallmarks of the Liberal party’s internal convulsion in 2009 in which Abbott took the leadership from Turnbull after a vicious internal fight about his support for emissions trading.
Turnbull loyalist Christopher Pyne sounded a warning shot to restive colleagues during his regular Friday appearance on the Nine Network, criticising Abbott’s supporters for “hyperventilating” over the government’s energy policy.
“We are not on the ropes,” he said in answer to a question about the government’s re-election prospects.
“The polls are about 50-50 and there’s a lot of hyperventilating going on and there’s a few people I think who are trying to put the band back together from the late 2000 and noughties.”
Asked who “they” were, Pyne said: “I think we know who they are.”
The government’s objective in expediting the power price package to accompany the Neg has been to reduce the number of MPs prepared to cross the floor by half.
Senior figures expect Abbott, and possibly a couple of others, to cross the floor regardless of the rework.

Links

• Malcolm Turnbull dumps plan to legislate Paris emissions targets
• Malcolm Turnbull approves radical NEG redesign in bid to prevent backbench revolt
• Malcolm Turnbull risks all with NEG policy
• Queensland coal push grows as Turnbull tries to land energy guarantee
• 'No doubt our climate is getting warmer,' Malcolm Turnbull says
• Climate 'culture war' will doom Australia to fail on emissions targets, Labor says
• Coalition balks on Finkel target but will unveil energy and emissions policy
• As the US stumbles on the Paris accord, Turnbull must step up for the future
• Renewable energy spike led to sharp drop in emissions in Australia, study shows
• Australia's greenhouse gas emissions are rising and forecast to miss 2030 target
• Turnbull was right in 2009: ruling out emissions trading is 'bullshit'

This Week In 1912, A Newspaper Printed A Spot-On Warning About Our Warming World. We're Living In The Future It Predicted.

Business Insider Australia - Hilary Brueck

• A news article from 1912 warned that burning coal was releasing dangerous amounts of carbon dioxide into Earth’s atmosphere.
• The paper succinctly summed up the problem of human-caused climate change, saying that CO2 “tends to make the air a more effective blanket for the earth and to raise its temperature.”
• The clip has gone viral on social media.
• We’re still burning tons of coal, 106 years later.

Smoke billows from a large steel plant. Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

During this week 106 years ago, New Zealand was talking about the future of our planet. The predictions weren’t uplifting.
On August 14, 1912, a newspaper called the Rodney and Otamatea Times, Waitemata and Kaipara Gazette printed a prescient paragraph in its “science notes and news” section.
The brief note warned that the Earth’s atmosphere was changing because of the way the world’s economies were ramping up production of fossil fuels.
“Coal consumption affecting climate,” the small headline read.

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Rodney and Otamatea Times, Waitemata and Kaipara Gazette 14/8/1912

COAL CONSUMPTION AFFECTING CLIMATE

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It’s a stunningly succinct explanation for how people have contributed to the warming of the Earth’s atmosphere.

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1912 Newspaper Article

Rodney and Otamatea Times
Waitemata and Kaipara Gazette

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The Kiwis weren’t the first to ink the dire notice – the same text had been published a month earlier, on July 17, 1912, in Australia’s Braidwood Dispatch. Before that, a March 1912 issue of Popular Mechanics was likely the very first printing of the words.
But the idea had already been bouncing around in the collective conscience of coal-burners worldwide for decades. In fact, the New York Times traces the scientific discussion of coal’s effect on our atmosphere all the way back to the 1850s.
Today, we haven’t changed our ways that much.
In 2016, the world consumed more than 5.3 billion metric tons of coal.
The Earth’s atmosphere now holds an unprecedented amount of CO2: the concentration has risen above 411 parts per million, the highest level in 800,000 years. The high concentration of pollution in the air is killing people at alarming rates, and the heat being trapped is fuelling fires and causing seas to rise. Higher temperatures could even slow down our brains if left unchecked, some research suggests.

Skye Gould/Business Insider

While the rate of coal production is slowing down in the US, we’re still burning tons of other Earth-warming fuels. And coal production is on the rise in other developing countries, especially in the growing economies of India and China. (Coal use is slowing down a bit in China, but it still accounts for 60% of the country’s energy mix, according to the Brookings Institution.)
This activity is leading to devastating consequences for Earth’s ecosystems, and for anyone trying to breathe in polluted areas.
But we’ve known all that for quite a while, right?

Links

• FACT CHECK: Did a 1912 Newspaper Article Predict Global Warming?
• There's More To That 1912 News Article Linking Coal To Climate Change Than You Think
• A century-old Rodney Times snippet on climate change causes a stir
• News Coverage of Coal’s Link to Global Warming, in 1912