A Photographic Exploration Of The Cryosphere

The Guardian

When Records Melt is an exhibition by Project Pressure premiering at Unseen Amsterdam of artists’ interpretations of the cryosphere: the part of the planet’s surface where water is frozen into solid form

Amphulapcha Tsho, Nepal, 2016

Christopher Parsons joined forces with a research team to study glaciers and permafrost in the Sagarmatha region of the Himalayas. Water, sand and rock samples taken on location were analysed and cultured by a microbiologist in the UK. Parsons displays these microscopic elements alongside the Nepalese landscapes.
Photograph: Christopher Parsons/Project Pressure

Thjorsa River, Iceland, 2012

Ed Burtynsky explores the water storage and transport systems that can be found in glaciers, focusing on how they release water into the world’s river systems. The resulting images depict the beauty and monumental scale of the meltwater runoff. Burtynsky reminds us of what we are losing as glaciers continue to diminish across the globe.
Photograph: Ed Burtynsky/Project Pressure

In an attempt to preserve the Rhône glacier, as well as the ice-grotto tourist attraction that is dug into the ice every year, Swiss locals wrapped a significant section of the ice-body in a thermal blanket. In their collaborative work, Simon Norfolk and Klaus Thymann created images illuminating the glacier and its protective shield. The title Shroud sums up the dying glacier under its death cloak.
Photograph: Simon Norfolk and Klaus Thymann/Project Pressure

Mount Shuksan from Mount Baker Lodge Lakes, Washington, US, 2014

Peter Funch uses vintage postcards as a model for his images of Washington’s Mount Baker to capture the effects of glacial recession. These effects are highlighted through his use of RGB tricolour separation, in which individual colour layers are recorded separately and then merged into a single image. Through his representation of the landscape, Funch aims to address humanity’s influence on nature.
Photograph: Peter Funch/Project Pressure

Bone from 4000BC, Switzerland, 2017

Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin show how the rapidly shrinking glaciers are suddenly revealing artefacts that have until now been perfectly preserved in the stable, frozen mass for thousands of years. Their images, created in collaboration with archeological institutions and glaciologists in Switzerland, hint at intimate and complex human stories buried beneath the ice.
Photograph: Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin/Project Pressure

Rhône glacier, Switzerland, 2016

In order to mirror the shifting glacial landscape and make the changing environment tangible, Noémie Goudal constructed a large-scale photo of the glacier printed on biodegradable paper that disintegrates in water. As the image dissolves, the artificial landscape can be viewed against its natural form.
Photograph: Noémie Goudal/Project Pressure

Iceberg Calving in Antarctica, 1 March 2013

Michael Benson’s work is focused on the intersection of art and science, using a variety of image-processing techniques. Rifts extend across the Pine Island glacier’s shelf in this striking image of incipient iceberg calving taken through light cloud cover. Eight months later, a large iceberg of about 21 x 12 miles broke free from the glacier’s southwestern edge. The Pine Island glacier is thought to be responsible for about 25% of Antarctica’s sea ice production.
Photograph: Michael Benson, Kinetikon Pictures/USGS Earth Explorer/Nasa/Project Pressure

Still from Tarfala Valley film, 2018

For this film, Project Pressure developed a new way of visualising the changes in glacier landscapes through photography in collaboration with Dutch film company Post Panic and geologist Erik Schytt Holmlund.
Photograph: Project Pressure

Still from Tarfala Valley film, 2018

By sourcing images from 1946, 1959, 1980 and 2017 of the Tarfala Valley and Kebnekaise mountain in Sweden, the team created 3D models of these landscapes through photogrammetry. Throughout the film, viewers can see the landscape fade in and out with each year. As it progresses into more recent times, the devastating impact humans continue to have on the melting glacier landscape is undeniable.
Photograph: Project Pressure

Still from Tarfala Valley film, 2018

In 2018 the highest point in Sweden changed; excessive heat melted the south peak of the Kebnekaise mountain, making the north peak is now Sweden’s highest point.
Photograph: Project Pressure

Links

• Earth Alert: A Photographic Response To Climate Change
• 8 Artists Taking On The Big Global Challenge: Climate Changes
• 'Art Can Play A Valuable Role': Climate Change Installations Appear In New York
• Could Cli-Fi Help Inspire Real Climate Change Action?
• Rising Seas: 'Florida Is About To Be Wiped Off The Map'
• 6 Must-See Movies About Climate Change
• Margaret Atwood: Women Will Bear Brunt Of Dystopian Climate Future
• New Documentaries Bring Climate Change To The Big Screen
• ANU Presents Climate Change In Beer Coaster And Bracelet Form
• 7 Novels That Will Fire You Up About Climate Change
• The Art Of Climate Change Gallery 4: What Can We Do To Address Climate Change?

8 Artists Taking On The Big Global Challenge: Climate Change

Huffington Post - Laura Paddison

“We should (and may) die trying to render climate change issues accessible."

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We are bombarded with evidence of climate change. We can see the impacts through scorching summers, wildfires and increasingly intense extreme weather events. We hear about it through terrifying scientific reports that say we have just a few years before we’ll have missed the boat on holding back our slide into catastrophic climate change. And yet few people act; most don’t even talk about it.
Increasingly, artists are trying to use their work to beat back a sense of apathy and inaction, to visualize the effects and threats of climate change.
For some, this means using empathy and emotion to try to reach people; for some, it’s turning to technology to engage people in a virtual image of what our future will look like if we don’t change course; still for others, it’s about making a brutal reality visible and tangible for people, even when their own hope in change has dissipated.
Here we look at eight artists taking on the ultimate subject: climate change.

‘Climate Signals,’ Justin Brice Guariglia

Climate Museum

 Ten solar-powered highway signs have appeared across New York City providing orange LED warnings of climate doom. The signs by artist Justin Brice Guariglia form an installation running in each borough of the city between Sept. 1 and Nov. 6 as part of a project for The Climate Museum.
The signs are located in areas particularly vulnerable to climate change and are in the languages frequently spoken in that particular neighborhood. They flash a number of messages including “Climate Change At Work” and “Fossil Fueling Inequality.”
“The arts are a critical vector for climate engagement,” Miranda Massie, director of The Climate Museum, told HuffPost. “Only 5 percent of us speak about [climate change] with any regularity. We need a cultural transformation to break that silence ― we need to offer diverse pathways into climate dialogue and action, including soft ones. Art is a crucial pathway because it works through emotion and the senses, and because it provokes without prescribing.”

‘Ice Watch,’ Olafur Eliasson

"Ice Watch", an art installation by Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson, on display in Paris in December 2015.
OEL SAGET via Getty Images

Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson’s work involved transporting 12 blocks of ice that came from free-floating icebergs from the Greenland ice sheet, then arranging them in a clock formation to indicate the passing of time. The ice sculptures were left to slowly melt.
His first installation was in Copenhagen in 2014, the second in Paris to coincide with the United Nations climate change conference in December 2015.
He firmly believes art has the power to make a difference. “There is a tendency today to feel untouched by the problems of others, to shut down at the immensity of an issue like climate change,” he told HuffPost. “Just informing people, giving them knowledge, often leaves them feeling overwhelmed and disempowered.” But a piece like “Ice Watch,” he said, “offers people an immediate experience of the reality of climate change ... It makes the larger world felt. It is my hope that this encounter and the feelings it evokes can spur action and move worlds.”

‘Unmoored,’ Mel Chin

Pedestrians walk past artist Mel Chin's mixed reality climate change themed art installation,
"Unmoored," in New York City on July 11, 2018.
Lucas Jackson / Reuters 

New York City is one of the world cities most vulnerable to sea level rises – by 2100, scientists predict sea levels could be up to 75 inches higher than they are today along the city’s coastline and estuaries.
Artist Mel Chin’s Times Square multimedia installation, “Unmoored,” sought to show New Yorkers what their city might look like deep under water. A 60-foot high sculpture of a shipwreck sat in the square, while viewers used smartphones to see the underside of virtual ships floating far above their heads.
“It is a surreal experience invented to connect us with our reality,” Chin said at the opening of the installation.
“We should (and may) die trying to render climate change issues perceptually accessible as a means to reactivate wonder and rekindle empathy,” he told HuffPost,

‘The peo-ple cried mer-cy in the storm,’ Allison Janae Hamilton

"The peo-ple cried mer-cy in the storm," by Allison Janae Hamilton.
Jerry L Thompson

On an island at Storm King Art Center, in Mountainville, New York, are three vertiginous stacks of tambourines all painted white. They form an installation by Kentucky-born, Florida-raised artist Allison Janae Hamilton. The title – “The peo-ple cried mer-cy in the storm” – comes from a 1928 hymn, “Florida Storm,” written about the Great Miami Hurricane, which in 1926 devastated large parts of southern Florida, killing nearly 400 people.
Hamilton says the piece also references the Okeechobee Hurricane of 1928, which claimed between 2,500 and 3,000 lives in Florida and the Caribbean. Many of those in Florida who lost their lives in the disaster were black, migrant farm workers who were later buried in mass, unmarked graves.
“As climate change continues to threaten our environments, so increases the vulnerability of those already exposed to longstanding environmental injustices,” Hamilton told HuffPost. “Through the narratives in my artwork, I explore the changing climate as a palpable, human experience.”

‘What Future Do You Choose for Miami?’, Miami Murals/Before It’s Too Late

A viewer uses their smartphone to view ‘What Future Do You Choose for Miami?’,
an augmented reality mural in the city.
Before Its Too Late 

A group of artists and technologists, anxious to better engage people in the threats posed by climate change, have banded together to create an augmented-reality mural in the city under the banner of an initiative called “Before It’s Too Late.”Miami has been called the ground zero of climate change. By 2030, Miami sea levels are projected to rise by six to 10 inches above 1992 levels. Extreme weather events have battered the city – 2017′s Hurricane Irma swept through Florida leaving a trail of devastation in its wake and claiming more than 80 lives in the state.
The 96- by 14-foot mural features a canary, designed to symbolize the city’s status as a “canary in the coal mine” when it comes to climate change.
Viewers download an app that allows them to point their smartphones at the wall and see it come to life by way of an augmented-reality film. The film shows two future realities for the city. In one, no action is taken and the city becomes unliveable – flooded, decaying and dirty. The second shows a hopeful future powered by renewable energy.
“Our message is in order to create change for a better future, we have to first be willing to shine the mirror on ourselves as we are each participants who help create the moral and cultural values of this world,” “Before It’s Too Late” founder Linda Cheung told HuffPost.

‘Western Flag (Spindletop, Texas 2017),’ John Gerrard

Western Flag (Spindletop, Texas 2017), a virtual art installation by Irish artist John Gerrard,
 uses a haunting image to symbolize our complex relationship with oil.
Courtesy John Gerrard Thomas Dane Gallery London and Simon Preston Gallery New York

The focal point of his work is a towering, computer-generated flag belching out black smoke. The flag runs as if in real time: The landscape turns dark when the sun goes down in Texas and is lit during the daytime.
Spindletop, Texas, is the site of the world’s first major oil discovery, made in 1901. Where once 100,000 barrels of oil were extracted in one day, the land is now barren. Irish artist John Gerrard flew a drone over the area, taking 10,000 to 15,000 photos, to recreate it virtually for his artwork Western Flag.
Gerrard wanted to take on oil as something that is central to our reality, a material that has become essential to the way we live our lives both in terms of the advantages it provides and the climate damage it causes.
The flag aims to make manifest this uncomfortable dichotomy. “One of the greatest legacies of the 20th century is not just population explosion or better living standards, but vastly raised carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere,” Gerrard told HuffPost. “This flag gives this invisible gas, this international risk, an image, a way to represent itself.”

‘Cascade,’ Alexis Rockman

Cascade, 2015, oil and alkyd on wood, Collection Grand Rapids Art Museum.
Alexis Rockman Collection Grand Rapids Art Museum

Alexis Rockman has been tackling climate change through his art since 1994, when a paleontologist described the danger heading our way and why he was frightened about it. Rockman decided to used his position as an artist “to visualize these things that were very abstract and remote in terms of people’s life span and comprehension,” he told HuffPost.
“I realized that art was one of the few places where you don’t have censorship pressure from capitalism from powerful industries,” he added. “They don’t have a say if you decide to focus on ideas that might challenge their business model.”
Many of his images show landscapes ravaged by climate change and environmental destruction. “Cascade” is part of his “Great Lakes Cycle,” a series that explores the past, present and future of America’s Great Lakes. These lakes form one of the most important ecosystems on the planet, holding over 20 percent of the world’s freshwater reserves. But they are exploited and vulnerable to climate change. Rockman depicts both their beauty and the devastating threats they face.
When asked if he thought art can spur change when it comes to global warming, he replied: “No. When there is open warfare on empirical facts my feelings include rage and disgust to go along with despair.” But, he added, “Part of the reason to be an artist is to get yourself out of bed every morning and try to do something about it, or at least cope. The thing about being an artist is that it’s so self-motivated and self-determined that it has to be an act of defiance to get through it.”

"Rococo Remastered," by Noel Kassewitz. Kassewitz Kassewitz Productions 2018

"Rococo Remastered," by Noel Kassewitz.
Kassewitz Kassewitz Productions 2018

Washington, D.C.-based artist Noel Kassewitz makes “climate change ready” art. Using found flotation devices and color palettes from different periods of art history – such as rococo – she makes pieces that aim to bring attention to climate change with humor.
“Today, we are facing unprecedented levels of chaos with our climate,” Kassewitz told HuffPost, “While there are myriad ways the change is occurring, one most concerning to me – an artist and Miami native – is rising sea levels.”
She has been floating down the Potomac River on her artwork, showing its buoyant abilities as well as trying to send a message to those who ignore the problem.
“Humor catches people off guard, and through my current bodies of work I am often able spark conversations with people otherwise reluctant to engage with the topic. As for my own amusement, I imagine some day in the flooded future an art collector will be safely sitting on top of their floating artwork exclaiming, “Thank goodness we bought a Noel Kassewitz!’

Links

• A Photographic Exploration Of The Cryosphere
• Earth Alert: A Photographic Response To Climate Change
• 'Art Can Play A Valuable Role': Climate Change Installations Appear In New York
• Could Cli-Fi Help Inspire Real Climate Change Action?
• Rising Seas: 'Florida Is About To Be Wiped Off The Map'
• 6 Must-See Movies About Climate Change
• Margaret Atwood: Women Will Bear Brunt Of Dystopian Climate Future
• New Documentaries Bring Climate Change To The Big Screen
• ANU Presents Climate Change In Beer Coaster And Bracelet Form
• 7 Novels That Will Fire You Up About Climate Change
• The Art Of Climate Change Gallery 4: What Can We Do To Address Climate Change?

Opera House Goes Carbon Neutral Five Years Ahead Of Schedule

Fairfax - Helen Pitt

The Sydney Opera House was notoriously behind schedule on most things during the 14 years it took to build but on Monday it will be five years ahead of schedule when it meets its target to reduce emissions and become carbon neutral.
This move puts it up there with New York's Empire State building and Paris's Eiffel Tower as global  architectural icons which are actively working to become world symbols of energy efficiency, its Environmental Sustainability Manager Emma Bombonato said.

Officials at the Sydney Opera House have been working to increase its energy efficiency and decrease its waste for the past decade. Photo: Supplied

To celebrate the fact it has achieved certification against the Australian Government’s National Carbon Offset Standard (NCOS), its famous white sails will turn green on Monday night at 6pm. Melbourne's Pixel building was Australia's first carbon neutral building in 2011.
Officials at the Sydney Opera House have been working to increase its energy efficiency and decrease its waste for the past decade. In 2014 it replaced incandescent bulbs in the Concert Hall with custom LED lights to achieve a 75 per cent reduction in the venue’s electricity consumption. In 2017 it introduced a new building management control system to monitor energy and water use and manage climate control. It also optimised the heating and cooling of the building by replacing chiller units connected to the Opera House’s pioneering seawater cooling system in that same year, resulting in a 9 per cent energy reduction.
"One of the biggest benefits of changing the incandescent bulbs to LEDs, means that instead of changing them in the Concert Hall once a year, now it is needed only once every nine years," she said.
By becoming more energy efficient and streamlining day-to-day operations, it reduced its carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, and offset its remaining emissions for the year 2017-2018 with help from its major partner EnergyAustralia. To reduce its carbon footprint, Australia's most recognisable building invested in renewables, tree planting and biodiversity projects to offset its greenhouse emissions. The 2015 Paris Agreement set a goal of limiting a rise in world surface temperatures, and last month the mayors of 19 cities, including Sydney, put in place regulations requiring all new buildings to be carbon neutral by 2030 and all existing ones to reach the same goal by 2050.
Each year the Opera House hosts 1800 events, serves 2.6 million food and beverage orders – producing 5000 cubic metres of waste and uses electricity equivalent to 2500 households (16 gigawatts). A new waste management program, including the introduction of new recycling streams and transferring food waste that would have otherwise gone to landfill to an organics facility to be turned into energy last year, improved the waste recycling rate from 25 per cent to 60 per cent. An educational program on waste management for staff and contractors also helped reduce waste.
"It’s the Opera House’s responsibility to find innovative solutions to reduce its carbon footprint and inspire the community to do the same," Opera House CEO Louise Herron said.

The Opera House goes green, Monday night at 6pm. Photo: Fiora Sacco 

When designing the Opera House, Danish architect Jørn Utzon was inspired by nature
and integrated features now recognised as sustainable design which included an innovative seawater cooling system that continues to efficiently power the Opera House’s main heating and air-conditioning. An early interpretation of the "chilled ceiling" design (in wide use today to reduce energy consumption) remains in the Drama Theatre to help control the venue’s air temperature.
The building was designed with durable materials to meet a 250-year lifespan, much more than the 80-year standard of the day. Utzon’s requirements for minimal finishings on building materials reduced resources used and maintenance requirements such as the white shell tiles of the sails which are self-cleaning.
The Sydney Opera House has also pioneered the use of green cleaning practices, rare for a public building, which include using baking soda for concrete cleaning, olive oil for bronze restoration, ozone-treated water for disinfectant, Lux soap flakes used in Western Foyers and a mixture of clay and Lux soap flakes used in the Uzton room.
“Sustainability is in the Opera House’s DNA," Ms Herron said.

The Concert Hall will go green this Monday. Photo: Prudence Upton

"Architect Jørn Utzon incorporated sustainable design into the fabric of the building in the 1960s. We aim to honour and enhance this legacy by embedding sustainable thinking into everything we do. I’m proud to announce that thanks to long-term focus, creativity and the support of our partner EnergyAustralia we’ve become carbon neutral five years ahead of target," she said.
The next step in the Opera House’s Environmental Sustainability Plan (2017-2019) is to reduce its energy use by 20 per cent, achieve 85 per cent recycling of operational waste; achieve a 5-star Green Star Performance Rating (it is currently 4-star); and maintain its certified carbon neutral status year-on-year in time for its 50th anniversary in 2023.
"By slashing energy use and ramping up recycling the Opera House has truly set the stage for others to follow," NSW Minister for Energy and Utilities and Minister for the Arts Don Harwin said.

Links

• Sydney Opera House to go carbon neutral by 2023
• Empire State Building Awarded LEED Gold Certification
• Paris Has Turned the Eiffel Tower Into a Wind Energy Machine
• National Carbon Offset Standard
• 19 Global Cities Commit to Make New Buildings “Net-Zero Carbon” by 2030

Climate Change Must Be Dealt With Before It Unleashes Millions Of Global-Warming Refugees

South China Morning Post - Mike Rowse

Mike Rowse says mass migration, driven by war and politics, has already fuelled social discontent in Europe and America. But things may get much worse if climate change continues unchecked and leaves millions in at-risk countries homeless

Rohingya refugees fleeing Myanmar arrive at the border of Bangladesh in 2017. War and politics are common factors in mass migration, but soon climate change may be too. Photo: AFP

Millions of people around the world are being forced from their homes by violent circumstances. Many more aspire to move to another country in search of a better life for themselves and their families. These twin drivers of mass migration are already triggering political trauma in destination countries. And now there’s a third factor with the potential to cause human suffering on a massive scale: climate change.
There are two broad groups of reasons why people up sticks and move to a different country: the necessity-push and the opportunity-pull. Up until now, probably the most common push factors have been war and politics. During the violent partition that accompanied the birth of India and Pakistan in 1947, millions scrambled to get on the “right” side of the new borders. Closer to home, the Vietnam war ended with hundreds of thousands of those associated with the losing regime fleeing from the south, many stopping over in Hong Kong on their way to safety in a sanctuary country.
More recently, the appalling civil war in Syria has displaced millions of its citizens, mostly to adjacent countries such as Turkey and Jordan, though about a million flooded into western Europe, and many settled in Germany. A military crackdown in Myanmar has forced over 700,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee to neighbouring Bangladesh. A question mark hangs over the residence rights of four million people in India, who have been left off a citizens’ register on suspicion of being illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
The pull factor in migration has undergone a step change in recent years, thanks to technological progress. The possibility of a better life somewhere else has historically been uncertain because of a lack of reliable information about what life “over there” was really like. It took time for news to filter back and it was safer to maintain the status quo.

A Canadian immigration officer interviews a Vietnamese family in a refugee camp in Sham Shui Po in 1979. Photo: C.Y. Yu

 But with the prevalence of mobile phones now, everyone can see for themselves pictures of what life is like in wealthy countries. The certainty of misery in poorer parts of the world can now be contrasted with images of well-fed people living more comfortable lives overseas.
The most desirable destination countries have struggled to cope with the throngs of arrivals both practically and politically. Recent election results in Europe have shown conclusively that anti-immigrant feelings run high. Italy’s new government has taken a hard line against would-be migrants from Africa, even turning ships away.
In Sweden, an anti-immigration party finished a close third behind two established middle-of-the-road parties in recent elections. German politics is still affected by the arrival of a million migrants in 2015 and 2016, mostly from Syria; the hard-right Alternative for Germany is now the main opposition party.
In Denmark, Austria and Hungary, to name a few, general public sentiment is against large numbers of people being allowed entry and settlement. Some analysts believe that immigration was a major factor in the Brexit vote in Britain, and in the election of Donald Trump in the United States. In Australia, the treatment of asylum seekers is a hot-button issue.

One of Donald Trump’s campaign promises was to build a border wall between Mexico and the US. Photo: AFP

In all of the cases, the exact causes vary, but cultural differences, religious beliefs and sometimes naked racism play some part.
Into this tricky mix, let us add climate change. The world’s climate has always varied through the ages, as the deniers never cease to point out. But the scientific community has reached a high degree of consensus that human activity – in particular, the widespread use of coal and other carbon-emitting fuels since the modern industrial era began – is causing global warming.
According to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2018 is on track to be the fourth hottest year on record. Just three other years have been hotter: 2015, 2016 and 2017.
We in Hong Kong have just experienced the strongest typhoon on record. Scientists say there may be fewer – but bigger and stronger – such storms in future. At a global level, a real danger is that melting polar caps will cause sea levels to rise and leave several countries under water. Already, the government of the Maldives has held a cabinet meeting underwater to highlight the threat.
The islands’ population is under half a million – perhaps they could be squeezed into Sri Lanka. What about Fiji and other islands at risk in the Pacific? Maybe New Zealand could take them in. But what are we going to do if Bangladesh should slip beneath the waves? Where do we expect 163 million people to go?

An aerial view of an atoll in the Maldives, which faces dangers such as rising sea levels and more intense storms. Photo: Reuters

The world knows what it has to do to avert tragedy. The problem is the costs of coping with climate change, which have to be paid right here, right now, and which voters must be persuaded to cover. But in such a critical hour, the leader of the free world has abdicated responsibility.
Not content with pulling the US out of the Paris climate accord, Trump has put new emphasis on the coal industry in America. At his age, he might not need to worry about the long-term consequences of his pro-coal policy changes. But as a father and grandfather, he should be. His grandchildren in particular – like the rest of the world – will not forgive him.

Links

• Australia’s new PM ditches plan for climate targets law
• Why Malaysians need to adapt to harsh realities of climate change
• How climate change can cause more super typhoons
• Death by heat is real: here’s how Hong Kong can save itself
• Typhoon Mangkhut’s message to Hong Kong: rethink reclamation
• As typhoons wreak greater havoc, what is the link to climate change?
• Our ruined planet: land decay set to unleash mass migration

NASA launches Satellite To Precisely Track How Earth's Ice Is Melting

The Guardian - Emily Holden

The $1bn, decade-in-the-making creation can measure height and thickness of ice sheets to within a centimeter

The new satellite will provide a more complete picture of the planet’s ice loss. Photograph: Modis/Aqua/NASA

The world will soon have a much clearer picture of how quickly humans are melting Earth’s ice and expanding the seas, with data collected by a sophisticated satellite launched by NASA.
Every 91 days, the $1bn, decade-in-the-making creation will orbit over more than 1,000 paths. The satellite, about the size of a Smart car, will point six lasers at ice sheets in the Arctic and Antarctica. It will then calculate how long the beams take to bounce back. NASA will be able to more accurately measure the heights of ice sheets and the thickness of remaining sea ice.
“With sea ice, we’ve been able to measure the extent (or area) really well since about 1980 … but what we haven’t been able to measure is the thickness,” said Tom Neumann, NASA’s deputy project scientist for the mission. “Thickness is a key piece of the puzzle because thinner sea ice is broken up more easily by storms. It melts faster. So it gives you some insight into why the area is changing the way it is.”
Melting ice in Greenland and Antarctica has increased the global sea level more than a millimeter per year, a third of the overall increase, according to NASA. Sea-level rise is getting faster, and seas could be several feet higher by the end of the century.
The IceSat-2, launched Saturday, replaces an original satellite that has been out of commission since 2009. Between 2003 and 2009, the measured sea ice lost 40% of its thickness, Neumann said.
Since then, NASA has used a plane to take more rudimentary measurements of ice melt for about a month per year in the Arctic and Antarctic. That covered less ground but allowed NASA to monitor the fastest changing parts of the ice sheets and sea ice.
Neumann said it’s possible the satellite will find ice loss beyond what NASA has measured so far. Gaps in data, including in east Antarctica, could show ice shrinking or growing.
The new satellite will provide more complete coverage and measure to within a centimeter.
“In the time it takes someone to blink, sort of half a second, IceSat-2 is going to collect 5,000 measurements in each of its six beams, and it’s going to do that every hour, every day … it’s a tremendous amount of data,” Neumann said.

Melting ice has increased sea levels more than a millimeter per year. Photograph: NASA

While Donald Trump doubts the scientific consensus around man-made climate change and his administration is rescinding standards to stall warming, Neumann said multiple federal agencies want to see the satellite data when it starts coming back in October.
The US Geological Survey is interested in the elevation data, and the navy would like to look at how changes will affect shipping channels, he said. With ice melt, new routes are expected to open through the Arctic, significantly reducing shipping times.
NASA has an entire fleet of satellites observing Earth, including for signs of climate change. Trump this year proposed cutting the budget that funds many of the others.
Private companies and public interest groups and even the state of California have announced their own plans for climate-related satellites.
A collaboration between the Environmental Defense Fund and Harvard University is expected to launch in 2021 and as will pinpoint methane leaks from oil and gas operations.
Steven Hamburg, chief scientist for EDF, said researchers realized they could build the satellite faster and cheaper than the government. EDF research suggests oil and gas companies in the US leak 60% more methane than environmental regulators estimate.
Methane traps far more heat than the more common carbon dioxide. Because it is short-lived, cutting emissions would have a rapid impact on temperatures, Hamburg said.
The European Space Agency has a satellite that measures greenhouse gases, but it doesn’t specify in detail where leaks are happening. GHGSat, a private company, expects to launch a second greenhouse-gas-monitoring satellite soon.

Links

• Antarctic ice melting faster than ever, studies show
• Could sprinkling sand save the Arctic's shrinking sea ice?
• Global warming is melting Antarctic ice from below
• Melting ice sheets are hastening sea level rise, satellite data confirms
• OMG… Greenland’s ice sheets are melting fast
• Antarctic ice shelf will fall apart, says Nasa – video
• Doubling of Antarctic ice loss revealed by European satellite
• Satellite eye on Earth: April 2013 – in pictures
• Greenland and Antarctica 'have lost four trillion tonnes of ice' in 20 years
• Melting ice is Earth's warning signal – and we cannot ignore it

Energy Policy Captive To Lobbyists And 'Mad Ideologues', Tim Flannery Says

The Guardian - Ben Smee

Five years after the Climate Commission’s axing, its former head says there has been progress as well as setbacks

‘We’re being held hostage at a federal level,’ Tim Flannery told Guardian Australia. Photograph: Eamonn McCabe for the Guardian

Five years since the Abbott government scrapped the Climate Commission, the environmentalist Tim Flannery says our energy policy remains hostage to lobbyists, political self-interest and “mad ideologues”.
But the organisation Flannery helped start from the ashes of Abbott’s climate bonfire, the Climate Council, says that attitudes have shifted substantially since 2013 – at least those outside federal parliament.
“We’re being held hostage at a federal level,” Flannery told Guardian Australia.
“It has been a disgrace. Our failures are the failures of a small group of politicians who are supposed to be acting in the national interest. Instead, they’re using energy policy as a cudgel, they’re listening to paid lobbyists and doing their bidding.”
“I don’t want to say any more because I’ll just get angry.”

Flannery was the chief commissioner of the Climate Commission, a government-backed research body whose remit was to communicate reliable and authoritative information about climate change.
The commission lasted just two years, and was almost immediately scrapped by the Abbott government after the 2013 election. Flannery and other commissioners decided to subsequently launch the Climate Council as an independent not-for-profit body.
“We raised $1.5m in 10 days,” recalls Amanda McKenzie, the council’s chief executive.
“At the time we went out, quite on a limb, because we had no funding. We said we will go ahead if the public backs us. It was the largest crowdfunding campaign in Australian history. Thousands of people were contributing.”
“I look back on that time as a really hopeful moment, thinking the community is behind us on this. More and more Australians are concerned about the issue. That concern has elevated over time.
“We had no idea that we would still be, five years later, battling for any action on an federal government level.”
Flannery points out that Australia’s emissions continue to increase “at a time when they need to be going down”. The federal government has abandoned any commitment to meeting the Paris emissions reduction targets. The new prime minister, Scott Morrison, famously used a lump of coal as a prop in parliament.

Scott Morrison with a lump of coal during Question Time in the House of Representatives. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

That state of affairs might cause some to question whether any progress had been made during the past five years. But putting federal politics to one side, both Flannery and McKenzie say strides have been made by individuals, local and state governments.
“I think [without the Climate Council] we’d be a long way behind in terms of public awareness, we’d be a huge distance behind,” Flannery said. “Those who were seeking to mislead would be [not held to account].”
“I’m immensely proud of it and I think we’ve made a huge difference”.
Flannery said the Climate Council initially sought to be a research and information body, filling the gap left by the disbanding of the commission. But in recent years it has taken on a broader remit, actively running programs to support action.
“We decided we needed to expand our remit, we’re running out of time to deal with this issue and we needed to pull out all stops.
“I think we’ve got to use every leverage point we can at the moment because we’re running out of time. We need to find those programs that work, get involved and start leading them.”
One of those programs, which Flannery says he is “most proud of”, is a partnership that supports local governments to transition to clean energy.
“What we didn’t realise [five years ago] was that state governments would step into the vacuum and that local governments would step into the vacuum,” McKenzie said.
In five years, the council has released more than 100 publications.
“If we had failed, it would not only have set back the entire climate change discussion in Australia, it would have given the conservatives an opportunity to say how little everyone cares about climate change,” Flannery said.
“There will be a need for the Climate Council I think for decades, because the problem isn’t going to be solved for decades. It’s a pretty tough thing to be pushing against this and find you’re constantly going backwards. But I’m nothing if not stubborn.”

Links

• Australia has no climate policy: a quick response to a drawn-out farce
• Energy market commission says electricity grid increasingly unstable
• At least for once, don't let politicking kill off a workable energy policy
• Coalition balks on Finkel target but will unveil energy and emissions policy
• A clean energy target is not 'unconscionable', Tony Abbott. Wrecking climate policy is
• Jay Weatherill renews warning Labor states could go it alone on energy policy
• Energy price rises due to policy uncertainty hurt poor most – report
• Australia's energy policy is a world-class failure and Abbott wears the gold medal of blame
• Energy suppliers, business and consumer groups call for climate policy certainty

We Need To Do More To Understand How Climate Change And Conflict Are Linked. Here's Why

World Economic Forum | Stockholm International Peace Research Institute

Previous studies have concluded that the effects of climate change can increase the risk of violent conflict Image: REUTERS/Amit Dave

The impacts of climate change are increasingly viewed as global security risks, which will have far-reaching implications for both human and renewable natural systems.

Most climate–conflict research has focused on East Africa and sub-Saharan Africa.
The SIPRI Insights paper, Climate change and violent conflict: Sparse evidence from South Asia and South East Asia, explores and summarizes the findings from a systematic literature review of climate–conflict research on South Asia and South East Asia.

Although these regions have been greatly affected by both climate change and conflict, there have only been a small number of rigorous academic studies that focus on the climate–conflict relationship.

Interlinked causes

While this constrains the ability to draw general conclusions, there is context-specific evidence that climate change can have an effect on the causes and dynamics of violent conflict in the region when: (a) it leads to a deterioration in people’s livelihoods; (b) it influences the tactical considerations of armed groups; (c) elites use it to exploit social vulnerabilities and resources; and (d) it displaces people and increases levels of migration.
In acknowledging that these mechanisms are often interlinked and more noticeable in some climatic, conflict and socio-economic contexts than in others, the need for more research in both South Asia and South East Asia is clear.

In summary, and acknowledging the limited evidence base, what can be gleaned about the linkages between climate change and violent conflict in South Asia and South East Asia?

The key finding from the systematic literature review is that knowledge is worryingly limited. In fact, countries such as Pakistan, Myanmar and Afghanistan, which are experiencing climate change and are host to notorious violent conflicts, are underrepresented in academic research.

Similarly, the low number of rigorous academic studies that have so far been conducted in the countries and regions of South Asia and South East Asia constrains the ability to draw broader conclusions about the regions as a whole.

Nonetheless, the studies reviewed confirm previous analyses and show that, under certain circumstances, climate change increases the risk of conflict.

Four mechanisms

Moreover, this study demonstrates that the four mechanisms identified in previous reviews of the climate–conflict linkage are also at play in the context of South Asia and South East Asia, albeit with notable differences.

Climate-related environmental change influences violent conflicts when: (a) it negatively affects people’s livelihoods; (b) it influences the tactical considerations of armed groups in ongoing conflicts; (c) elites exploit social vulnerabilities and resources; and (d) it displaces people and increases migration in vulnerable and highly vulnerable natural resource dependent contexts.

It is important to analyze and compare regions that, despite being vulnerable and highly exposed to climate change, are able to peacefully mitigate such stressors

Due to the limited amount of rigorous empirical research on the climate–conflict linkage in South Asia and South East Asia, more research will be indispensable to refining understanding of how climate change might increase the risk of violence and under what circumstances it is likely to do so.

As violent conflicts are multi-causal, context-specific and develop over time, further research is essential not only to address knowledge gaps, but also to enable a more refined understanding of the applicability and adequacy of different response mechanisms in diverse contexts.

To this end, it is important to analyze and compare regions that, despite being vulnerable and highly exposed to climate change, are able to peacefully mitigate such stressors. Nonetheless, there are relevant lessons to draw from the available research.

The climate–conflict linkage primarily plays out in contexts that are already vulnerable to climate change, and where income is highly dependent on agriculture and fishing. Therefore, it is important to support the development of alternative sources of income, to increase the coping capacity of communities to manage temporary losses of income and to strengthen communities’ resilience in order to mitigate conflict risks.

Various scholars have made suggestions that this might entail insurance schemes that smooth out the annual income of vulnerable populations, a reduction in income sensitivity to climate conditions, legal reform and improved land rights, drought preparedness programmes and agricultural assistance.
Previous programmes, such as food assistance programmes, have been followed by either a decrease or an increase in violence at different periods of implementation, as they are likely to alter the power relations in a community.

Disaster risk management

The dynamics of violence following the implementation of projects need to be considered when policy responses are planned. The research therefore points to the need to develop conflict-sensitive analyses when designing and implementing disaster risk management and climate programming.

In conclusion, the underlying review illustrates the interplay between different mechanisms that link climate change and conflict.

To further understand the relationship and advance policy guidance on how to mitigate conflict risks, future research should address resource management, conflict prevention and disaster risk reduction in an integrated manner.

Future research needs to contribute in the following three key areas.

1) Addressing spatial and temporal differences.The impacts of climate change are expected to increase over time, but many climate-related disasters are seasonal and affect the dynamics of conflicts differently throughout the year. In addition, few studies address urban contexts despite increased urbanization and the vulnerability of urban centres in the region.

2) Making use of contextual understanding.Climate change and conflict events have different effects on different societies. It is therefore crucial to understand these context-specific differences in order to enable tailored responses. These should include local and marginalized communities. To provide contextually adequate responses that empower vulnerable groups, it is important to assess the needs, vulnerabilities and resilience of affected communities.

3) Taking account of institutional capacity and governance. The transnational character of climate change provides new challenges, but also increased relevance, for institutions and organizations. Where institutional capacity is low, there is an increased risk that aid will be mismanaged and the risk of conflict after a climatic event increases. It is therefore important to analyze how local, national and regional institutions are developing their ability to deal with these risks.

Links

• Climate change and violent conflict: Sparse evidence from South Asia and South East Asia
• We can save the Earth. Here's how | World Economic Forum
• UN 17 Sustainable Development Goals
• 100 Coalitions Raise Ambition for Climate Change and Sustainable Development Goals at Impact Summit
• From clean energy to gender equality, these innovators are changing the world
• UN police don’t just keep the peace, they help prevent future conflict
• Is there a link between climate change and conflict?
• We need to address the impact climate change will have on migration