IPCC Climate Change Report Calls For Urgent Overhaul Of Food Production, Land Management

ABC Science - Nick Kilvert

Changes to land management, deforestation and food production are necessary to combat climate change. (Getty Images: Ted Mead)

Key points: Land sector produces around a quarter of global emissions Diets need to move to low emissions sources Desertification will hit poorest and arid nations hardest

We must urgently revolutionise what we eat, how we grow it and the way we use land if the world is to combat dangerous climate change, according to today's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.
Transforming to clean energy, clean transport and industry alone will not cut global emissions enough to avoid dangerous warming beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius, the report authors warn.
Today's IPCC Special Report: Climate Change and Land builds on last year's dire warning from the panel on the consequences of 1.5C and 2C warming, which we're currently on track to reach by 2040 and the 2060s respectively.
"The stability of food supply is projected to decrease as the magnitude and frequency of extreme weather events that disrupt food chains increases," today's report authors state.

"At around 2C of global warming the risk from permafrost degradation and food supply instabilities are projected to be very high."

Shifting our farming practices presents an opportunity to cut emissions and improve health, the report states. (Getty Images: Glow Images)

Improving land management, reforestation, and soil regeneration are essential steps in reducing emissions from the land sector, according to report co-author Annette Cowie from the University of New England.
"We really do need to take drastic action urgently to reduce greenhouse gas emissions," Professor Cowie said.
"When we plant trees, when we do sustainable land management practices that build organic land and soil, we actually take carbon out of the atmosphere and we store it in the land."
Emissions from the global food system, including peripheral activities like packaging and transport, are estimated to comprise between 21 per cent and 37 per cent of the world's human-generated greenhouse gas emissions, according to the report.
"About a quarter of the Earth's ice-free land area is subject to human-induced degradation," the authors state.
And changing the way we farm could improve things for ourselves, as well as for the planet: "Balanced diets featuring plant-based foods such as those based on coarse grains, legumes, fruits and vegetable, nuts and seeds and animal-sourced food produced in resilient, sustainable and low-greenhouse-gas-emission systems present major opportunities for adaptation and mitigation while generating significant co-benefits in terms of human health."
In Australia, where our meat consumption is particularly high on a global average, that means things like switching to low-emissions meat sources, ditching non-essential foods, and sourcing locally grown produce.
Reducing food waste is also identified as a key area to gain efficiency and reduce the environmental impact of agriculture.
Between 25 and 30 per cent of food is wasted worldwide, including crop waste, transport and store loss and personal waste.
"By 2050, reduced food loss and waste can free several million square kilometres of land," the authors write.
The report confirms the world has a double-edged sword hanging over its head, according to IPCC vice-chair Mark Howden.
"We ignore the interactions between climate change and the land at our peril."

Reforestation key to carbon reduction

Reforestation can help draw down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. (ABC Newcastle: Robert Virtue)

Systemic changes to agriculture to reverse soil erosion, rehabilitate degraded lands, minimise water and fertiliser use and increase carbon capture and storage are all identified as short- and long-term strategies for reducing greenhouse gases.
IPCC scientist Peter Newman from Curtin University said that while the energy sector has surged ahead in forging a path to low-to-no emissions, the land sector is dragging behind globally.
"Land has been a laggard because across the world there has been continued deforestation, which is fundamental to keeping carbon in the landscape," Professor Newman said.

"If you're cutting trees down more than you're planting, then that's not a great success story. And that has started to increase in recent years."

Deforestation in the Amazon has surged recently, but Australia's own deforestation rate has also climbed, drawing comparisons to Brazil.
"There was a lot of reforestation occurring right across Australia. It was certainly helped with the carbon tax because that was one way you could offset," Professor Newman said.
"[But] there's been an increase in deforestation, especially in Queensland, and that means we haven't been able to do nearly as well as the Federal Government has been saying."
One essential action that can immediately help reduce emissions, the report suggests, is protecting carbon-storing ecosystems such as forests, peatlands, rangelands and mangroves.
And rehabilitating these carbon-sink ecosystems can also achieve significant greenhouse-gas draw-down in the near future.
Recent research estimated that reforesting a billion hectares of degraded land globally could stall atmospheric carbon dioxide increase by around 20 years.
This could buy precious time while we continue to clean our energy, land-use, transport and industrial sectors, the researchers told the ABC earlier this year.
And there are dual benefits to reforesting and restoring ecosystems, according to today's report.
They include increasing habitat for threatened species, reducing invasive species and improving human health.
Alleviating poverty and empowering women in developing nations are two strategies that could improve land management and slow population growth, said ecologist Hugh Possingham from the University of Queensland and the Nature Conservancy.
"If you improve women's education and give them autonomy over reproduction and their lives, birth rates drop and infant mortality drops," Professor Possingham said.
"Everything is win-win — you can't complain about women's education and you can't complain about children not dying."

Impacts will hit the poor and arid nations hardest

Desertification is expected to increase under climate change. (Getty Images: Alexander Nicholson)

Under future climate change scenarios, droughts are predicted to become more intense and more common. While this is the first IPCC report to have been produced with a majority (53 per cent) of authors from developing countries, it is developing nations that will likely feel the worst effects of food security, according to report co-author Priyadarshi Shukla.
"We will see different effects in different countries, but there will be more drastic impacts on low-income countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean," he said.
Desertification in arid regions, including Australia, is expected to increase as tropical and subtropical climate zones expand poleward.
This is projected to put increasing pressure on already stretched agricultural sectors, driving up prices and threatening food security.
"Asia and Africa are projected to have the highest number of people vulnerable to increased desertification," the report says.

"The tropics and subtropics are projected to be most vulnerable to crop yield decline."

Already, the impacts of desertification are being felt due to land-use changes and climate change.
"The frequency and intensity of dust storms have increased over the last few decades due to land use and land-cover changes and climate-related factors," the report states.
"[Which is causing] increasing negative impacts on human health in regions such as the Arabian Peninsula and broader Middle East [and] Central Asia."
As well as educating and empowering women in developing nations, restoring indigenous land management practices can help rehabilitate land and curb emissions, according to the report.
"Agricultural practices that include indigenous and local knowledge can contribute to overcoming the combined challenges of climate change, food security, biodiversity conservation, and combating desertification and land degradation," the report states.
That position has the support of environment groups including the Nature Conservancy, according to country director Richard Gilmore.
"Give Aboriginal people the tools and resources to manage their land as they have done for thousands of years," he said.
"The Roman Empire was around 2,000 years ago, Aboriginal people have been managing the land here for 2,000 generations."

Links

• Climate Change and Land — IPCC
• Land is a Critical Resource, IPCC report says
• Eat less meat: UN climate change report calls for change to human diet
• Report: Adapt plant-based diets and 'look after the land' to tackle climate change
• Eat less meat to save the Earth, urges UN

Commonwealth Bank Warns Climate Change Could Slash Farm Productivity

Sydney Morning Herald - Peter Hannam

Climate change could slash the viability of farms in some parts of Australia over the next forty years as rainfall totals shrivel and days of heat stress increase, the Commonwealth Bank said in a new report.
The bank - which also reported a modest drop in annual profit and a plan to exit lending to thermal coal by 2030 - said it had done the analysis to "understand the risks [and] identify ways to support our customers".

Hard times down on the farm - and they may get even harder as climate change bites, Australia's biggest bank says. Credit: Christopher Lorrimer

The bank found grain-growing regions could see profitability declines as productivity falls by 50 per cent in some areas by 2060, compared with a 2018 baseline, with "changes in predicted rainfall" the driver.For the livestock sector, profitability could drop by 40 per cent over the same time period because of a decline in pasture quality and quality.
The dairy industry, too, faces "falls in most regions" of as much as 40 per cent drop in profitability by 2060 because of the rising likelihood of significant heat stress, the bank said. After five consecutive days of extreme conditions, cows can stop lactating and producing milk.

The CBA sees climate change hitting farming hard in some parts of the country. Credit: Glenn Hunt

The Commonwealth Bank is among the first big lenders to signal concern about farming productivity in the future.The bank, though, said "adaptive measures" could be moderate and even reverse those declines, such as the introduction of genetically modified grain able to increase the crop's resilience to extreme weather.
Similarly, new technology could help reduce overgrazing, while shade and water sprays could help keep cows cool, the bank said.
Even so, conditions may still deteroriate too much for some farms to cope.
"[T]he trend of declining rainfall could result in some regions becoming significantly less viable for crop production in the long term," the bank said.
Erwin Jackson, director of policy at Investor Group on Climate Change, said the physical effect of climate change was "increasingly recognised as a systemic financial risk requiring the same levels of governance and active management as any other dimension of material financial performance".
"Sophisticated investment tools are rapidly emerging to strengthen the resilience of infrastructure, the economy and our communities to the effects of climate change," he said.
"However, there are a number of practical barriers to investing in and supporting climate change adaptation [and] governments have a clear role in helping overcome these barriers."

Links

• Commonwealth Bank Risk Report (pdf)
• Action Now’: The Farmers Standing Up Against ‘Wilful Ignorance’ On Climate
• This Is A $15 Trillion Opportunity For Farmers To Fight Climate Change
• Act Now On Emissions Says Farmers For Climate Action
• Life After Solving Climate Change: Not Mud Huts And Gruel But Clean Air And Warm Homes
• The Future Of Farming In The Era Of Climate Change
• Climate Change Making Drought Worse, Farmers' Federation Chief Says
• 'No Real Appetite': Former Farmers Chief Lashes Ministers Over Climate Link To Drought
• Australia Is Devastated By Drought, Yet It Won't Budge On Climate Change
• Australia Struggles With A Devastating Drought While The Government Ignores Climate Change

How The World’s Dirtiest Industries Have Learned To Pollute Our Politics

The Guardian - George Monbiot

The fossil-fuel lobby is threatened by public concern over the climate crisis. So it’s buying influence to get the results it wants

A fracking rig in the US. Photograph: grandriver/Getty Images

The tragedy of our times is that the gathering collapse of our life support systems has coincided with the age of public disservice. Just as we need to rise above self-interest and short-termism, governments around the world now represent the meanest and dirtiest of special interests. In the United Kingdom, the US, Brazil, Australia and many other nations, pollutocrats rule.
The Earth’s systems are breaking down at astonishing speed. Wildfires roar across Siberia and Alaska – biting, in many places, deep into peat soils, releasing plumes of carbon dioxide and methane that cause more global heating. In July alone, Arctic wildfires are reckoned to have released as much carbon into the atmosphere as Austria does in a year: already the vicious twister of climate feedbacks has begun to turn.
Torrents of meltwater pour from the Greenland ice cap, sweltering under a 15C temperature anomaly. Daily ice losses on this scale are 50 years ahead of schedule: they were forecast in the climate models for 2070. A paper in Geophysical Research Letters reveals that the thawing of permafrost in the Canadian High Arctic now exceeds the depths of melting projected by scientists for 2090.

In the US, legislators in 18 states have put forward bills criminalising protests against pipelines

While record temperatures in Europe last month caused discomfort and disruption, in south-west Asia they are starting to reach the point at which the human body hits its thermal limits. Ever wider tracts of the world will come to rely on air conditioning, not only for basic comfort but also for human survival: another feedback spiral, as air conditioning requires massive energy use. Those who cannot afford it will either move or die. Already, climate breakdown is driving more people from their homes than either poverty or conflict, while contributing to both these other factors.A recent paper in Nature shows that we have little hope of preventing more than 1.5C of global heating unless we retire existing fossil fuel infrastructure. Even if no new gas or coal power plants, roads and airports are built, the carbon emissions from current installations are likely to push us past this threshold. Only by retiring some of this infrastructure before the end of its natural life could we secure a 50% chance of remaining within the temperature limit agreed in Paris in 2015. Yet, far from decommissioning this Earth-killing machine, almost everywhere governments and industry stoke its fires.
The oil and gas industry intends to spend $4.9tn over the next 10 years, exploring and developing new reserves, none of which we can afford to burn. According to the IMF, every year governments subsidise fossil fuels to the tune of $5tn – many times more than they spend on addressing our existential predicament. The US spends 10 times more on these mad subsidies than on its federal education budget. Last year, the world burned more fossil fuels than ever before.

Icebergs near Ilulissat, Greenland, in August 2019. Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

An analysis by Barry Saxifrage in Canada’s National Observer shows that half the fossil fuels ever used by humans have been burned since 1990. While renewable and nuclear power supplies have also risen in this period, the gap between the production of fossil fuels and low-carbon energy has not been narrowing, but steadily widening. What counts, in seeking to prevent runaway global heating, is not the good things we start to do, but the bad things we cease to do. Shutting down fossil infrastructure requires government intervention.
But in many nations, governments intervene not to protect humanity from the existential threat of fossil fuels, but to protect the fossil fuel industry from the existential threat of public protest. In the US, legislators in 18 states have put forward bills criminalising protests against pipelines, seeking to crush democratic dissent on behalf of the oil industry. In June, Donald Trump’s administration proposed federal legislation that would jail people for up to 20 years for disrupting pipeline construction.
Global Witness reports that, in several nations, led by the Philippines, governments have incited the murder of environmental protesters. The process begins with rhetoric, demonising civil protest as extremism and terrorism, then shifts to legislation, criminalising attempts to protect the living planet. Criminalisation then helps legitimise physical assaults and murder. A similar demonisation has begun in Britain, with the publication by a dark money-funded lobby group, Policy Exchange, of a report smearing Extinction Rebellion. Like all such publications, it was given a series of major platforms by the BBC, which preserved its customary absence of curiosity about who funded it.
Secretly funded lobby groups – such as the TaxPayers’ Alliance, the Adam Smith Institute and the Institute of Economic Affairs – have supplied some of the key advisers to Boris Johnson’s government. He has also appointed Andrea Leadsom, an enthusiastic fracking advocate, to run the department responsible for climate policy, and Grant Shapps – who until last month chaired the British Infrastructure Group, which promotes the expansion of roads and airports – as transport secretary. Last week the Guardian revealed documents suggesting that the firm run by Johnson’s ally and adviser Lynton Crosby has produced unbranded Facebook ads on behalf of the coal industry.
What we see here looks like the denouement of the Pollution Paradox. Because the dirtiest industries attract the least public support, they have the greatest incentive to spend money on politics, to get the results they want and we don’t. They fund political parties, lobby groups and thinktanks, fake grassroots organisations and dark ads on social media. As a result, politics comes to be dominated by the dirtiest industries.
We are told to fear the “extremists” who protest against ecocide and challenge dirty industry and the dirty governments it buys. But the extremists we should fear are those who hold office.

Links

• The Pollution Paradox
• United States Spend Ten Times More On Fossil Fuel Subsidies Than Education
• Global Fossil Fuel Subsidies Remain Large: An Update Based on Country-Level Estimates
• Big Oil Is Set To Spend $5 Trillion On Fossil Fuels We Can’t Afford To Burn
• Committed emissions from existing energy infrastructure jeopardize 1.5 °C climate target
• Climate now biggest driver of migration, study finds
• Humid heat and climate change
• Greenland's ice wasn't supposed to melt like last week until 2070
• Boris Johnson ushers in radical new era of special advisers
• Extremism Rebellion
• BP Statistical Review of World Energy (pdf)

Climate Change Is A National Security Issue

The Interpreter Lowy Institute - Pat Conroy

The Morrison government’s Pacific “Step Up” will stumble before it starts unless global warming is taken seriously.

An Australian army vehicle in floodwaters near the Queensland town of Bowen in March 2017 following Cyclone Debbie (Photo: Peter Parks via Getty)

If only a minister of the Morrison government would be as forthright in identifying climate change as a massive destabilising force in Australia’s region as the Chief of the Defence Force Angus Campbell has been.
In a private speech in Bowral in June, General Campbell is reported to have sounded a clear warning that climate change and Australia’s national security are inextricably linked. We live in the most disaster-prone region in the world – he is reported to have said – and a further rise in global temperatures would likely put more pressure on the Australian Defence Force’s ability to respond.
In 2016, Australia’s Defence White Paper identified the risk that climate change would drive natural disasters and political instability in the Pacific. As the number of disasters increase, so do the number of disaster relief missions that are likely to involve the Australian Defence Force.
Since that White Paper the ADF has supported disaster relief missions in Fiji, Tonga, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and New Zealand, as well as in Queensland and the Northern Territory following cyclones, and New South Wales and South Australia following floods. Those missions involve thousands of troops at a time, some times more than Australia deployed at the height of our involvement in Afghanistan. For example, we sent 1,000 troops to support Operation Fiji Assist, about 1,600 to help after Cyclone Debbie hit Queensland, and close to 3,000 to help North Queensland clean up after floods earlier this year.

Flooding from the sea leaves damaged roads in Kirbati (Photo: Jonas Gratzer via Getty)

Disaster relief takes resources. Indeed, the largest vessels our Navy has ever deployed – HMAS Adelaide and HMAS Canberra – are more often likely to be contributing to humanitarian missions in response to climate-related disasters than fulfilling a traditional combat role. General Campbell reportedly reiterated what Pacific leaders have been telling us for years – that climate change is a threat to their very existence, and they are looking to Australia to do more. Through loss of land, undermined economies, and threatened sustainability, an influx of climate refugees from affected islands would be a humanitarian disaster that could destabilise the region.
As early as 2007, then senior Papua New Guinean diplomat Robert Aisi, representing the Pacific Islands Forum, told the United Nations Security Council that Pacific islands were already impacted by climate change. Aisi spoke about how Cyclone Heta had left one-fifth of the population of Niue homeless in 2004. How the Cook Islands had experienced five cyclones in one month when previously they were uncommon. How PNG was experiencing more malaria and dengue fever. And how rising sea temperatures and winds were expected to push major tuna stocks westwards, causing economic problems. He said:

the impact of climate change on small islands was no less threatening than the dangers guns and bombs posed to large nations.

Leaders from Fiji and the Solomon Islands have made similar pleas. And as recently as last month, New Zealand Foreign Minister Winton Peters said that any country that wanted to “step up” in the Pacific needed to take climate change concerns seriously.

It is not that climate change itself causes conflict, but it puts pressure on natural resources, on the security of land, water, health and food which are critical to human survival.

In the US, the military understands the risk climate change poses to security. US military combatant commands are integrating climate-related impacts into their planning cycles. They are doing this because the Pentagon understands that climate change will “aggravate problems such as poverty, social tensions, environmental degradation, ineffectual leadership and weak political institutions that threaten stability in a number of countries”.
In April, the US Air Force Chief of Staff General David L. Goldfein, cited the conflict in Syria as an example of how climate change’s impact is already destabilising some nations. “Most don’t remember what caused the Syria conflict to start,” he told a Senate Armed Forces Committee. “It started because of a 10-year drought.”
It is not that climate change itself causes conflict, but it puts pressure on natural resources, on the security of land, water, health and food which are critical to human survival.
The Pacific is a foreign policy priority for the Morrison government, yet its “Step Up” in the region, important as it is, is being undermined by the Government’s inaction on climate change.
The Pacific Islands Forum’s Boe Declaration, signed last year, identified climate change as the number one existential threat to the region, yet it’s well known that the Australian government did everything it could to seek to water down that declaration. In diplomatic forums in the Pacific, Australia is seen to be acting to remove words around climate change from communiques and negotiating positions. This undermines the entire region’s attempts to adapt to climate change, and would appear to undermine what General Campbell says is the ADF’s position, in that they have been preparing for the impact of climate change “for years”.
Recently Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister James Marape agreed to work towards elevating the relationship between our countries to the status of a Comprehensive Strategic and Economic Partnership, a move which Labor welcomes.
But without adequate development funding and without addressing climate change, the Morrison Government’s Pacific Step Up stumbles before it starts.
Morrison must, as General Campbell does, recognise the intrinsic link between climate change in the Pacific and Australian national security. The Government must act to mitigate climate change – making sure the Paris Treaty is implemented properly so that we limit global warming, the effects of climate change in the Pacific and the potential destabilisation of our region.

Links

• Australia’s Climate Stance Is Inflicting Criminal Damage On Humanity
• A Brief Introduction To Climate Change And National Security
• Australia’s Strategic Thinkers Can’t Continue To Ignore Climate Change
• Young Climate Activists ‘Most At Risk’ Of Being Spied On By AFP
• Defence Chief Sounds Warning On Surge Of Climate Change Refugees
• Defence Lacks 'Overarching Strategy' To Deal With Climate Change Conflict, Internal Notes Warn
• Defence Chief Sounds Climate Warning
• Climate Change Poses Security Risks, According To Decades Of Intelligence Reports
• Veterans Are Concerned About Climate Change, And That Matters

Here’s How The Hottest Month In Recorded History Unfolded Around The World

Washington Post - Brady Dennis | Andrew Freedman

Icebergs are seen at the seashore of King's Point in July in Newfoundland. Formerly the center of cod fishing, the island province now sees more and more icebergs that made their last trip from Greenland to Newfoundland. (Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty Images)

During the hottest month that humans have recorded, a local television station in the Netherlands aired nonstop images of wintry landscapes to help viewers momentarily forget the heat wave outside.
Officials in Switzerland and elsewhere painted stretches of rail tracks white, hoping to keep them from buckling in the extreme heat.
At the port of Antwerp, Belgium, two alleged drug dealers called police for help after they got stuck inside a sweltering shipping container filled with cocaine.
On Monday, scientists officially pronounced July 2019 the warmest month the world has experienced since record-keeping began more than a century ago.
How hot was it?
Wildfires raged across millions of acres in the Arctic. A massive ice melt in Greenland sent 197 billion tons of water pouring into the Atlantic Ocean, raising sea levels. And temperature records evaporated, one after another: 101.7 degrees Fahrenheit in Cambridge, England, and 108.7 in Paris. The same in Lingen, Germany.
“We have always lived through hot summers. But this is not the summer of our youth. This is not your grandfather’s summer,” U.N. Secretary General António Guterres told reporters as July gave way to August.

People cool off on a hot afternoon at Flushing Meadows park in New York City on July 21. (Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty Images)

The Copernicus Climate Change Service, a program of the European Union, calculated that last month narrowly edged out July 2016 for the ominous distinction of hottest month on record. The month beat July 2016 by about 0.07 degrees (0.04 Celsius).
Scientists found that the planet is headed for one of its hottest years, and the period from 2015 to 2019 is likely to go down as the warmest five-year period on record.
“July has rewritten climate history, with dozens of new temperature records at [the] local, national and global level,” Petteri Taalas, secretary general of the World Meteorological Organization, said in announcing the month’s historic implications. “This is not science fiction. It is the reality of climate change. It is happening now, and it will worsen in the future without urgent climate action."
The Copernicus ranking was generated by taking millions of readings from weather balloons, satellites, buoys and other sources on an hourly basis and feeding them into a computer model.
The results still must be checked against data from thousands of temperature-measuring sites around the world. Those readings ultimately will be reported by NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and other agencies in the coming weeks. While their rankings could vary, the final results are not likely to differ significantly, according to scientists.

An aerial image of beach umbrellas and deck chairs as beachgoers enjoy the hot weather at a beach in the Netherlands on July 24. (Sem Van Der Wal/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)

Notably, July’s monthly temperature record comes without the added influence of a strong “El Niño” in the tropical Pacific Ocean, which adds heat to the oceans and atmosphere and helps boost planetary temperatures. The 2016 record, for example, occurred during a year with an extremely strong El Niño.
“While we don’t expect every year to set a new record, the fact that it’s happening every few years is a clear sign of a warming climate,” said Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist with Berkeley Earth.
From scorching heat in Europe to gargantuan wildfires in Siberia and Alaska, the record heat of July 2019 left its mark on people and the ecosystems they depend on.

Surface air temperature anomoly for July 2019 relative to 1981-2010 

Surface air temperature anomalies during July relative to the average from 1981 through 2010. (Copernicus Climate Change Service)

Surface air temperature anomalies during July relative to the average from 1981 through 2010. (Copernicus Climate Change Service)
The monthly temperature spike was driven largely by record warmth in Western Europe, including the searing heat wave that made its way to the Arctic and culminated in one of the most significant melt events ever recorded in Greenland. The Greenland ice sheet poured 197 billion tons of water into the North Atlantic in July alone — enough to raise global sea levels by 0.5 millimeters, or 0.02 inches.
Alaska also saw its warmest month on record. There and elsewhere across the Arctic, simultaneous and massive wildfires erupted, consuming millions of acres and emitting startling amounts of greenhouse gases. Arctic sea ice was at a record low for the month.
In Canada, a military installation in Alert, Nunavut — the northernmost permanently inhabited place on Earth — recorded 69.8 degrees on July 14, breaking a record set in 1956. The average July high for the outpost, some 600 miles from the North Pole, is 44.6 degrees.
In Belgium, one zoo fed its tigers with chickens frozen in blocks of ice. In Paris, local officials set up impromptu “cooling rooms” in each neighborhood where people could find air conditioning and cold water.
In parts of Germany, authorities were forced to lower autobahn speed limits over concerns that the high-speed motorways might suffer heat damage. Undeterred, one motor scooter rider took to the roads of eastern Germany but was stopped after officers spotted him wearing nothing aside from a helmet.
Residents took matters into their own hands in the German capital of Berlin, circulating maps on social media that showed the locations of air-conditioned public spaces. Portable air conditioners and fans quickly sold out, and one company that installs air conditioners suspended its phone service. A recorded voice message cited a flood of calls that it was no longer able to handle.

Brighton beach in Brighton, Britain, on July 25. (Peter Nicholls/Reuters)

Damodhar Ughade, a cotton farmer in the village of Seeras in western India’s Vidarbha region, felt like he was reliving a nightmare in July after a devastating heat wave the month before.
While droughts due to delayed monsoons are not infrequent, this year was the worst since 1972, when scores of people left their arid villages and migrated to cities. As temperatures soared to 102 degrees, Ughade’s fields lay parched, his livestock starved, and the village ran out of drinking water.
“There were two-foot cracks in my field. It was impossible to even walk on it,” he said by phone. The lack of reliable water led women to walk two hours to other villages, carrying earthen pots on their heads in search of water. Men rented small vehicles and carried tankers to nearby cities to buy water.
The scarcity was so severe that there was not enough water to share with the oxen. About 15 died in the village, he said.
In England, 22-year-old Andrea D’Aleo had the unenviable job of shuttling passengers down the River Cam — the main river that flows through Cambridge, a scenic university town about 60 miles north of London. He was standing at the back of a long, flat-bottomed boat, digging a long pole against the river bed. Normally, he said, umbrellas are used to fend off rain showers, but on Thursday, tourists used them as parasols.
“It was challenging,” D’Aleo said of working as a tour guide in the intense heat. “I was talking to a bunch of umbrellas while dying in the sun.”
Four years ago in Paris, world leaders committed to doing all they could to prevent the globe from warming more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (two degrees Celsius), with the goal of keeping warming to no more than 2.4 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 Celsius), compared with preindustrial levels.
But the commitments that countries made in Paris are far too modest to meet those targets. Last week, as the head of the United Nations recognized the likelihood that the world had just experienced its hottest month on record, he pleaded with national leaders to summon the will to take the kind of aggressive action that could put the globe on a more sustainable trajectory.
“This year alone, we have seen temperature records shattered from New Delhi to Anchorage, from Paris to Santiago, from Adelaide and to the Arctic Circle,” Guterres said. “If we do not take action on climate change now, these extreme weather events are just the tip of the iceberg. And, indeed, the iceberg is also rapidly melting.”

An iceberg floats near the seashore of King's Point in July in Newfoundland. (Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty Images)

 
Links

• July Was the Hottest Month in Recorded History
• Last Month Was the Hottest July in Recorded History
• New data reveals just how hot it was across the globe in July
• What it was like living through the hottest month in Earth’s recorded history
• Greenland Lost 12.5 Billion Tons Of Ice In One Day, A Grave Reminder Of Our Changing Planet

Greenland Lost 12.5 Billion Tons Of Ice In One Day, A Grave Reminder Of Our Changing Planet

Forbes - Trevor Nace

Getty

As many people were looking forward to the weekend last Thursday, Greenland experienced something it has never experienced in our records. The glacier-covered island lost 12.5 billion tons of ice in one day.

Scientists in Greenland took videos of raging rivers of ice melt and endless shallow seas of water on ice sheets. Meteorologists, climate scientists, and geologists all combined data to determine the exact extent of melting on the island and where it sat with regards to the world record of ice melt on Greenland.

A record-setting European heat wave hit Greenland, causing a major melt on 60 percent of its ice sheet. (Associated Press/Caspar Haarløv “Into the Ice”)

Climate Scientist Martin Stendel calculated that the amount of ice melt last Wednesday and Thursday was enough to cover the entire state of Florida in five inches of water.
The loss of 12.5 billion tons of ice in 24 hours was the largest since advance measurements began in 1950. Looking over the entire island, about 60% of the entire island's surface ice experienced melting during those days. With elevations as high as 12,000 feet and the latitude equivalent to the high northern Canadian Arctic, it is surprising that such a large portion of the island reached melting temperatures.

This is a roaring glacial melt, under the bridge to Kangerlussiauq, Greenland where it's 22C today and Danish officials say 12 billions tons of ice melted in 24 hours, yesterday. pic.twitter.com/Rl2odG4xWj

— Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) August 1, 2019

Many of you remember the record-breaking heatwave in July in Europe. Dozens of records were broken during this event with Paris reaching 109 degrees F. This same heatwave migrated to Greenland and caused temperatures on the island up to 30 degrees above average for this time of the year.
It is well documented by NASA and many others that high latitudes like the Arctic are warming twice as fast as the tropic.
This rapid warming is causing a positive feedback loop. The more warming in the Arctic the more melting. This melting, in turn, causes the landscape to turn from the reflective white ice/snow to sunlight absorbing dark basalts and granites. This means the more ice melts the more it will push the local temperature warmer.

The Naujatkuat River in West Greenland running high in end of July, my gauging station is perched on the bedrock. With the exceptional heat wave coming I have my fingers crossed for it not being washed away. pic.twitter.com/JPofxDIELN

— Irina Overeem (@IrinaOvereem) July 30, 2019

In total, 197 billion tons of ice melted this past month, pouring the equivalent amount of water into the Atlantic Ocean. It was enough water that satellites picked up on the change in global average sea levels from just one month of melt.
While these are summer months in Greenland, ice melt has never been this significant and the addition of ice during the winter months won't overcome the massive loss we've seen this summer and in recent summers.
What is increasingly clear is that these headlines of record-breaking heat, never before seen melting in the Arctic and unprecedented storms are becoming the new normal for our planet.
As we continue to see Earth change and we notice our local communities change we are forced to both adjust to the new normal and take a step back to evaluate how and if we will play a role as stewards on this planet.

Links

• The Greenland ice sheet poured 197 billion tons of water into the North Atlantic in July alone
• Images show staggering extent of melting on Greenland ice sheet because of heat wave
• Here’s how the hottest month in recorded history unfolded around the world
• Before and after pictures show Greenland's rapid ice melt from space
• A Heatwave in Greenland
• Historic Greenland Melt Is a “Glimpse of the Future”

Queensland Police Arrest 56 Climate Change Protesters In Brisbane

The Guardian - Ben Smee

It’s the latest climate protest by environmental group Extinction Rebellion to hit Brisbane

'Tear the system to the ground': Brisbane climate protesters chant, block street video

Queensland police have arrested and charged 56 people at continuing climate protests in Brisbane, amid accusations officers employed heavy-handed and aggressive tactics to deal with the escalating civil disobedience.

The action, which was ongoing in the city centre on Tuesday afternoon, is the latest and largest in a series of protests by the environmental group Extinction Rebellion.
The first “rebellion day” protesters stopped traffic in William Street, near the state parliament, about 7am. Police made arrests for contravening directions, obstructing traffic and breaches of the peace. Those arrested were aged 19 to 73.
One of the protesters, Ben Pennings, was arrested after crashing a press conference by the Brisbane lord mayor, Adrian Schrinner, on Tuesday morning.
Pennings raised concern police were starting to get “heavy handed” in response to the protest and anger from media outlets and the state Liberal National party.

CLIMATE PROTESTS: Police say a member of the public tackled a protester being chased by police during today's "Rebellion Day" protests in the Brisbane CBD. So far 56 people have been charged.

More tonight from 5 on 10 News First. pic.twitter.com/qcfauPBTq9

— 10 News First Queensland (@10NewsFirstQLD) August 6, 2019

“It’s a concern to see police crash tackle a young man simply trying to avoid getting off the road,” Pennings said of an incident early on Tuesday. “A doctor also protesting had to take care of him until an ambulance arrived.”

.@QldPolice starting to get heavy handed, as demanded by the @couriermail and @LNPQLD. Shame to see young people getting injured when all #ExtinctionRebellion folk so peaceful and friendly. #qldpol

— Ben Pennings (@BenPennings) August 6, 2019

Police told Fairfax media it had been “some time” since so many people have been arrested at one time in the city.
Concerns about police response follows the arrest of French journalists at Abbot Point coal terminal last month, and subsequent criticism that their actions, including the imposition of bail conditions were an “abuse of power”.
“The Queensland Police Service acknowledges the right to lawful and peaceful protest, and the QPS is committed to working with groups that are cooperative and facilitating protest through lawful activities,” police said in a statement.
“Police and partner agencies are working closely to manage the protest and minimise as much as possible disruptions to transportation networks.”
Protests, calling for action on climate change and a transition away from thermal coal, have increased in frequency and intensity since the Adani Carmichael coalmine received key approvals from the Queensland government.

Links

• I’m An Ordinary Person Who Joined An Extinction Rebellion Blockade. Here's Why You Should Too
• Young Climate Activists ‘Most At Risk’ Of Being Spied On By AFP
• US Philanthropists Vow To Raise Millions For Climate Activists
• This Is The Only Way To Tackle The Climate Emergency
• Good News For Climate Activists: Marching Might Work
• Environment Leaders Reflect On Their Role In The 'Climate Election'
• Kids Suing The US Over Climate Change Are Getting Global Support
• Students From 1,600 Cities Just Walked Out Of School To Protest Climate Change. It Could Be Greta Thunberg's Biggest Strike Yet