One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts Is In Denial About The Facts Of Climate Change

The Conversation - John Cook

Malcolm Roberts was number 2 on the Pauline Hanson's One Nation ticket. AAP Image/Dan Peled

The notion that climate science denial is no longer a part of Australian politics was swept away yesterday by One Nation Senator-Elect Malcolm Roberts.
In his inaugural press conference, Roberts claimed that "[t]here's not one piece of empirical evidence anywhere, anywhere, showing that humans cause, through CO₂ production, climate change".
He also promoted conspiracy theories that the CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology are corrupt accomplices in climate conspiracy driven by the United Nations.


His claims conflict with many independent lines of evidence for human-caused global warming. Coincidentally, the University of Queensland is releasing a free online course this month examining the psychology and techniques of climate science denial. The very first video lecture addresses Roberts' central claim, summarising the empirical evidence that humans are causing climate change.

Consensus of Evidence (from Denial101x course)

Scientists have observed various human fingerprints in recent climate change, documented in many peer-reviewed scientific papers.
Satellites measure less heat escaping to space at the exact wavelengths at which CO₂ absorbs energy. The upper atmosphere is cooling at the same time that the lower atmosphere is warming – a distinct pattern unique to greenhouse warming. Human activity is also changing the very structure of the atmosphere.

Human fingerprints in climate change Skeptical Science

Not only do these unique fingerprints confirm humanity's role in recent climate change, they also rule out other potential natural contributors. If the Sun caused global warming, we would expect to see days warming faster than nights, and summers warming faster than winters.
Instead we observe the opposite: nights are warming faster than days, and winters are warming faster than summers, which is a greenhouse pattern predicted by John Tyndall as long ago as 1859.
Similarly, if global warming were caused by internal variability, we would expect to see heat shuffling around the climate system with no net build-up. Instead, scientists observe our climate system accumulating heat at a rate of more than four atomic bombs per second.

Climate patterns confirm human causation and rule out natural causes Skeptical Science

Our scientific understanding grows stronger when many independent lines of evidence all point to a single, consistent conclusion. In the case of climate change, the "consensus of evidence" has led 97% of climate scientists to agree that humans are causing global warming.
The scientific consensus on climate change has also been endorsed by many scientific organisations all over the world, including the national science academies of 80 countries.

National Academies of Science endorsing human-caused global warming Skeptical Science

Is it a conspiracy?
How does one dismiss a global scientific consensus built on a robust body of empirical evidence?
There are five characteristics of science denial. These common traits are seen when people reject climate science, the benefits of vaccination, or the research linking smoking to cancer.
The techniques of denial are: fake experts; logical fallacies; impossible expectations; cherrypicking; and conspiracy theories. This is summarised in the acronym FLICC.

The five characteristics of science denial (from Denial101x course)

Climate science denial and conspiratorial thinking are often found together. A well-known example is that of Donald Trump, who has dismissed climate change by blaming it on a Chinese conspiracy.
Several studies have linked climate science denial and conspiratorial thinking. If a person disagrees with a global scientific consensus, they’ll typically believe that the scientists are all engaging in a conspiracy to deceive them.
Malcolm Roberts’ conspiracy theories have been well documented and were once again on offer in yesterday’s speech. He espouses a conspiracy that encompasses the CSIRO, Bureau of Meteorology, international banking families, the United Nations and Al Gore.
Unfortunately, I am not optimistic that the evidence for human-caused global warming will persuade Malcolm Roberts. The scientific evidence from psychology tells us that scientific evidence is largely ineffective on those who dismiss climate science with conspiracy theories.
My own research found that communicating the science of climate change to those who exhibit conspiratorial thinking can even be counterproductive, activating their distrust of scientists and strengthening their denial of the evidence.
Furthermore, conspiratorial thinking is self-sealing. When conspiracy theorists are presented evidence that there is no conspiracy, they often respond by broadening the conspiracy to include that evidence. In other words, they interpret evidence against a conspiracy as evidence for the conspiracy.
Our course on climate science denial will be much more useful to those who are open to scientific evidence and curious about the research into the causes and impacts of climate change and the psychology of climate science denial.

Links

• The things people ask about the scientific consensus on climate change
• It’s true: 97% of research papers say climate change is happening
• The science for climate change only feeds the denial: how do you beat that?
• There is no such thing as climate change denial

Statement on Senator-elect Malcolm Roberts and Climate Science

Climate Institute

The Climate Institute makes progress in tackling climate change possible.

Senator-elect Malcolm Roberts has made a number of statements regarding climate science and empirical evidence.
There is abundant evidence that heat trapping greenhouse gases are in the atmosphere at record levels, this is causing the climate to change, and this is impacting on natural and human systems now.
Insiders host Barrie Cassidy referred to an email sent by TCI to Insiders ahead of the program.
Here are some of the facts highlighted in that email:

1. On empirical evidence, 80 academies of science around the world have confirmed the mainstream science of climate change. The Australian Academy of Science published an extensive analysis – their chapter on human causes of climate change is here. It shows the evidential pathways for establishing the human contribution to climate change and that recent climate change can’t be understood without an impact from human activities. It dismisses suggestions that volcanic and solar impacts overwhelm human impacts in recent times.
2. More detail from the thousands of scientists involved in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) process (yes, a collaborative effort – but one across multiple disciplines of science) is here. This has been reviewed and accepted by over 190 governments.
3. No one denies CO2 can be helpful for plant growth and our planet would be an ice ball without it (and has been at low levels) but any drinker on a Friday night can tell you - you can have too much of a good thing. Empirical measurements show that CO2 in the atmosphere is 40% higher than before the industrial revolution (see p11 here).
4. Warming theories aside, empirical evidence is showing the ocean, which is absorbing large amounts of the extra CO2 in the atmosphere is having a straight chemical effect with noticeable increase in acidification, explained well by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority here.
5. Science has established since 1859 the atmospheric heat trapping qualities of CO2 – John Tyndall – more of it will increase warming…
6. His closing line with Rafael Epstein ABC 774 (6/8/16) on UN “definitely” trying to establish global government through climate change is demonstrably false at the very least in the current Paris Framework. The Paris model is nationally driven where targets countries adopt are formally called “nationally determined commitments”. Countries determine what they want to commit to. Some are OK, most are inadequate like Australia’s, and some are downright shabby like Saudi Arabia – no global control there…
7. An important backgrounder on the Senator-elect from The Guardian’s Graham Readfearn is worth reading: here.
8. If it’s not a coordinated conspiracy, a term he appears to rail against, it is a remarkable effort from those banking families he fears – everyone, including the Pentagon, are apparently toeing the line.
9. A nice simple 5 min Youtube video on this from the scientists at Skeptical Science including reference to empirical evidence here. John Cook provides more detail in this piece on The Conversation 5 August 2016.
10. It is worth asking the Senator-elect why he thinks 2015 was the warmest year on record, why 2014 was, and why this year is heading to break that record again. These facts, and more empirical evidence, were set out by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration three days ago, their State of the Climate Report here.  

The Climate Institute published a primer on Carbon in 2012 and can connect you with climate scientists should you require.

Clexit: The New Heights Of Climate Science Denial

Independent Australia - DeSmog Blog

DeSmogBlog's Graham Readfearn reports on a new group, with powerful allies, espousing climate change denial and calling for, among other things, an end to the UN Paris Agreement.

(Image via Clexit Media Release, clexit.net)

IN THE WAKE of the political tsunami caused by the UK's decision to leave the EU, a group of climate science denialists has formed to jump enthusiastically onto the Brexit bandwagon.
Backed by a blitzkrieg of conspiracy theories and pseudo-science, a rapidly convened new group called "Clexit" has been formed.
The group claims to have '60 well-informed science, business and economic leaders from 16 countries' signing on to a founding statement that is chock-full of long-debunked climate change myths, together with attacks on renewable energy and the United Nations.
In a not unambitious founding statement, Clexit says:

'The world must abandon this suicidal global warming crusade. Man does not and cannot control the climate.'

Among the group's many demands are that nations refuse to ratify the United Nations Paris Agreement — a position shared by Republican U.S. Presidential candidate Donald Trump.

The right now wants a "Clexit," because Brexit went so well

As DeSmogUK and Climate Home reported, many of the UK's leading "Leave" campaigners were also climate science denialists.
The group has a committee of well-known climate action blockers and fossil fuel advocates, including British hereditary peer Lord Christopher Monckton and U.S.-based Marc Morano, of the fossil fuel funded think tank Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT).
Many of the Clexit members are linked to the "web of denial" described by U.S. Democratic Senators in a series of Senate speeches delivered last month.

Founding statement
The Clexit founding statement – all 1200 words of it – is the epitome of modern climate science denial. Here are a few samples:

Brexit was Britain's answer to the growing over-reach of EU bureaucracies. Clexit is our answer to the push for global control through climate hysteria… 

If the Paris climate accord is ratified, or enforced locally by compliant governments, it will strangle the leading economies of the world with pointless carbon taxes and costly climate and energy policies, all with no sound basis in evidence or science…. 

This vicious and relentless war on carbon dioxide will be seen by future generations as the most misguided mass delusion that the world has ever seen… 

Carbon dioxide is NOT a dangerous pollutant – it is a natural, non-toxic and beneficial gas which feeds all life on earth. Its increasing concentration is improving the environment, not harming it… 

The Clexit Campaign aims to prevent ratification or local enforcement of the UN climate treaty. Nations should not tolerate UN and EU bureaucrats manipulating science in order to justify their dreams to redistribute wealth and revert to the central planning that enslaved and impoverished the old command economies…

Global warming has occurred naturally many times in the past and is not to be feared – it is not controlled by carbon dioxide or humans…

 This is the part where we point out that these kinds of positions, while forcefully and repeatedly claimed, run counter to every national science academy on the planet and the governments of every major economy in the world.
The Clexiteers have formed their group during the hottest streak of months on global warming records. According to the U.S. government's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, June 2016 was the 14^th consecutive record-breaking hot month.
Despite this, the positions in the Clexit statement mirror those pushed by the likes of U.S. Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump, fringe right-wing Australian political party One Nation and some within the ranks of Australia's governing Coalition of the Liberal and National parties.

Hugh Morgan
The Clexit group's secretary is Viv Forbes — a director of Australian company Stanmore Coal who has long stood firm against the tsunami of evidence linking greenhouse gas emissions to risky climate change.
But one of the group's highest profile "founding members" appearing on the published list is Australian businessman and climate "sceptic" Hugh Morgan, a former board member of the Reserve Bank of Australia.
As recounted in Clive Hamilton's book Scorcher: The Dirty Politics of Climate Change, Morgan was a central industry figure in building opposition to climate action within the Liberal Party in the 90s and early 2000s.
Morgan was the president of the Lavoisier Group — an organisation set up to fight ratification of a previous UN climate agreement, the Kyoto Protocol.
Morgan, former CEO of Western Mining Corporation, continues to have close ties to Australia's governing Liberal Party.
Before Australia's July general election, The Australian newspaper reported that Liberal leader and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull had met with Morgan and other directors of the key Liberal Party funding group, the Cormack Foundation.
According to records held by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, Morgan has been a Cormack director since it was founded in March 1988.
Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) records show Cormack was the biggest single donor to the Victorian branch of the Liberal party in the 2014-15 financial year, handing over some $4.46m.
AEC records show that in 2014-15, Cormack received $5.4m in income, declaring receipts from major banks as well as mining companies Rio Tinto ($210,000) and BHP Billiton ($293,000). The receipts are not donations but more likely income from investments in those firms.
According to the Australian Financial Review, Morgan is currently trying to raise $2 billion for a mining-focused private equity firm.
Other listed members of the Clexit group include the Heartland Institute's Jay Lehr, coal backed Canadian denialist Patrick Moore and Australian mining figure Ian Plimer.

Links

• Beware Hugh Morgan and the climate sceptic zombie attack!
• The Australian's Great Barrier Reef editorial: A misrepresention of science
• Fossil fuel industry spending millions on 2016 presidential candidates
• Climate science denier Mark Steyn in Australia ... and other reptilian weirdness
• Citibank: Global cost of climate change inaction — $44 trillion by 2040
• Murdoch's Times verbals climate scientist as conspiracy theorist

Scientists Warn World Will Miss Key Climate Target

The Guardian - Robin McKie

Grim backdrop to vital global emissions talks as new analysis shows 1.5C limit on warming is close to being broken

A tropical coral reef off Fiji. Photograph: Alamy

Leading climate scientists have warned that the Earth is perilously close to breaking through a 1.5C upper limit for global warming, only eight months after the target was set.
The decision to try to limit warming to 1.5C, measured in relation to pre-industrial temperatures, was the headline outcome of the Paris climate negotiations last December. The talks were hailed as a major success by scientists and campaigners, who claimed that, by setting the target, desertification, heatwaves, widespread flooding and other global warming impacts could be avoided.
However, figures – based on Met Office data – prepared by meteorologist Ed Hawkins of Reading University show that average global temperatures were already more than 1C above pre-industrial levels for every month except one over the past year and peaked at +1.38C in February and March. Keeping within the 1.5C limit will be extremely difficult, say scientists, given these rises.
These alarming figures will form the backdrop to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change talks in Geneva this month, when scientists will start to outline ways to implement the climate goals set in Paris. Dates for abandoning all coal-burning power stations and halting the use of combustion engines across the globe – possibly within 15 years – are likely to be set.
Atmospheric heating has been partly triggered by a major El Niño event in the Pacific, with 2016 expected to be the hottest year on record. Temperatures above 50C have afflicted Iraq; India is experiencing one of the most intense monsoons on record; and drought-stricken California has been ravaged by wildfires.
Stanford University's Professor Chris Field, co-chair of the IPCC working group on adaptation to climate change, told the Observer: "From the perspective of my research I would say the 1.5C goal now looks impossible or at the very least, a very, very difficult task. We should be under no illusions about the task we face."
The Paris summit first agreed to limit global warming to 2C above pre-industrial levels and then decided to try to keep it below 1.5C. This latter limit was set because it offered the planet a better chance of staving off catastrophes such as the melting of polar ice, which would no longer be able to deflect solar radiation and allow even greater global warming. Similarly, coral reef destruction and extreme sea level rises might be avoided if the 1.5C limit is achieved.
"If the world puts all its resources into finding ways to generate power without burning fossil fuels, and if there were international agreements that action must happen instantly, and if carbon emissions were brought down to zero before 2050, then a rise of no more than 1.5C might just be achieved," said Dr Ben Sanderson of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. "That is a tall order, however."
The problem was made particularly severe because moving too quickly to cut emissions could be also be harmful, added Field. "If we shut down fossil fuel plants tomorrow – before we have established renewable alternatives – we can limit emissions and global warming, but people would suffer. There would be insufficient power for the planet. There is an upper limit to the rate at which we can move to a carbon-free future."
The Paris agreement is vague about the exact rate at which the world's carbon emissions should be curtailed if we are to achieve its 1.5C target. It merely indicates they should reach zero by the second half of the 21st century, a goal that was accepted as being ambitious but possible – until global temperatures increased dramatically this year.
"It means that by 2025 we will have to have closed down all coal-fired power stations across the planet," said John Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. "And by 2030 you will have to get rid of the combustion engine entirely. That decarbonisation will not guarantee a rise of no more than 1.5C but it will give us a chance. But even that is a tremendous task."
Many scientists now believe the most realistic strategy is to overshoot the 1.5C target by as little as possible and then, once carbon emissions have been brought to zero, carbon dioxide could be extracted from the atmosphere to start to cool the planet back down to the 1.5C target. In other words, humanity will have to move from merely curtailing emissions to actively extracting carbon dioxide from the air, a process known as negative emissions.
"Some negative emission technology will inevitably have to be part of the picture if you are going to keep 1.5C as your limit," said Professor Jim Skea, a member of the UK government's committee on climate change. "There will always be some human activities that put carbon into the atmosphere and they will have to be compensated for by negative emission technology."
But what form that technology takes is unclear. Several techniques have been proposed. One includes spreading crushed silicate rocks, which absorb carbon dioxide, over vast tracts of land. Another involves seeding oceans with iron to increase their uptake of carbon dioxide. Most are considered unworkable at present – with the exception of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage. Under this scheme, vast plantations of trees and bushes would be created, their wood burned for energy while the carbon dioxide emitted was liquefied and stored underground.
"It could do the trick," said Cambridge University climate expert Professor Peter Wadhams. "The trouble is that you would need to cover so much land with plants for combustion you would not have enough space to grow food or provide homes for Earth's wildlife. In the end, I think we just have to hope that some kind of extraction technology, as yet unimagined by scientists, is developed in the next couple of decades. If not, we are in real trouble."

Links

• Environmental records shattered as climate change 'plays out before us'
• Climate models are accurately predicting ocean and global warming
• World set for climate disaster, say activists, as Lima talks falter
• Climate change is not just about science – it's about the future we want to create
• UN's 2C target will fail to avoid a climate disaster, scientists warn
• British plan to avert climate disaster using sun power
• Global warming likely to breach 2C threshold, climate scientists conclude
• Scientists call for overhaul of UN 'blockbuster' climate reports

Rio 2016: Opening Ceremony Features Environmental Rallying Cry

ABC News - AFP

Green was the theme as Brazil sent a message to the world. (AP Photo: Markus Schreiber)

A rallying cry to save the planet from environmental destruction has launched the Olympic Games as Rio de Janeiro put on a glittering opening carnival.

The overwhelming theme of the evening was protection of the environment.
"It is not enough to stop harming the planet, it is time to start healing it," programme notes from the ceremony's organisers read.

"This will be our Olympic message: Earthlings, let's replant, let's save the planet!"

An early opening sequence depicted the birth of life, culminating in the sprouting of a green entanglement of leaves from the stadium floor depicting the Amazon rainforest.
Indigenous Brazilians then performed native dances before creating huge "Ocas" or native huts in the centre of the stage.
Yet the party mood was halted in its tracks by a sombre sequence titled 'After the Party' which used NASA scientific maps to warn of environmental crisis facing the planet, detailing rising sea levels to melting polar ice caps.
It culminated with Oscar-winning British actress Judi Dench and Brazilian thespian Fernanda Montenegro reading Carlos Drummond de Andrade's classic poem A Flor e a Nausea (The Flower and the Nausea).
The gloomy theme was lifted with a hopeful message, showing a boy captivated by the emergence of a seedling in a concrete jungle.
The theme continued as the parade of more than 10,000 athletes from 207 teams across the globe got under way.
Each athlete was presented with a seed and a cartridge of soil to enable them to plant a native tree of Brazil, which will ultimately form an 'Athletes Forest' made up of 207 different species -- one for each delegation.
With the completion of the athletes parade, mirrored towers were cleverly opened to create five green Olympic rings of lush vegetation, symbolising what the forest will one day look like.
The innovative reforestation scheme comes, however, after the failure of one of the most talked about attempts to create an environmental legacy for Rio -- cleaning up the city's polluted Guanabara Bay.
Garbage, dead animals and human effluent continue to pollute the waters of the bay, into which the raw sewage of half the city is pumped daily.

Links

• Artist gives climate science a redesign
• Obama tells federal agencies to get serious about climate change
• From heat domes to rain bombs, climate change is changing how we talk about weather
• 7 charts that make it clear climate change is already here

Climate Victims – Every Second, One Person Is Displaced by Disaster

Inter Press Service - Baher Kamal

Land degradation - Sustainable land management: do nothing and you will be poorer. Credit: UNEP

Climate change and related extreme weather events have devastated the lives and livelihoods of tens of millions of most vulnerable people worldwide– by far exceeding the total of all the unfortunate and unjustifiable victims of all terrorist attacks combined. However, the unstoppable climate crisis receives just a tiny fraction of mainstream media attention. See these dramatic facts.
"Every second, one person is displaced by disaster," the Oslo-based Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) reports. "In 2015 only, more than 19.2 million people fled disasters in 113 countries. "Disasters displace three to ten times more people than conflict and war worldwide."
As climate change continues, it will likely lead to more frequent and severe natural hazards; the impact will be heavy, warns this independent humanitarian organisation providing aid and assistance to people forced to flee.
"On average, 26 million people are displaced by disasters such as floods and storms every year. That's one person forced to flee every second."
"Climate change is our generation's greatest challenge," says Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council, which counts with over 5,000 humanitarian workers across more than 25 countries.
The climate refugees and migrants add to the on-going humanitarian emergency. "Not since World War II have more people needed our help," warned the secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council Jan Egeland, who held the post of UN undersecretary general for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief (2003-2006).
Egeland –who was one of the most active, outspoken participants in the World Humanitarian Summit (Istanbul May 23-24)– also stressed that the humanitarian sector is failing to protect civilians.
"I hope that world leaders can ask themselves if they can at least stop giving arms, giving money to those armed groups that are systematically violating the humanitarian law, and bombing hospitals and schools, abusing women and children," he said to IPS during the World Humanitarian Summit.
For its part, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) forecasts 200 million environmental migrants by 2050, moving either within their countries or across borders, on a permanent or temporary basis. Many of them would be coastal population.
On this, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) warns that coastal populations are at particular risk as a global rise in temperature of between 1.1 and 3.1 degrees C would increase the mean sea level by 0.36 to 0.73 meters by 2100, adversely impacting low-lying areas with submergence, flooding, erosion, and saltwater intrusion.

An estimated 83,100 people remain displaced and in need of humanitarian assistance in Wau, South Sudan. Credit: OIM

In a recent interview with IPS Nairobi correspondent Manipadma Jena, the director general of the International Organisation for Migration, William Lacy Swing, said that coastal migration is starting already but it is very hard to be exact as there is no good data to be able to forecast accurately.
"We do not know. But it is clearly going to figure heavily in the future. And it's going to happen both in the low-lying islands in the Pacific and the Caribbean, and in those countries where people build houses very close to the shore and have floods every year as in Bangladesh."
"It is quite clear that we will have more and more conflicts over shortages of food and water that are going to be exacerbated by climate change," Lacy Swing warned.
Political crises and natural disasters are the other major drivers of migration today, he said to IPS in the interview.
Lacy Swing confirmed the fact that climate victims now add to record 60 million people who are fleeing war and persecution.
"We have never had so many complex and protracted humanitarian emergencies now happening simultaneously from West Africa all the way to Asia, with very few spots in between which do not have some issue. We have today 40 million forcibly displaced people and 20 million refugees, the greatest number of uprooted people since the Second World War."
On 25 July, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution approving an agreement to make the International Organisation for Migration part of the UN system.
Founded in the wake of the World War II to resettle refugees from Europe, OIM celebrates its 65th anniversary in December of this year.

FAO and UNHCR prepared a handbook that will help mitigate the impact of displaced people on forest resources. The handbook aims to help displaced people access fuel for cooking food while reducing environmental damage and conflicts with local communities. Credit: FAO/UNHCR

"Migration is at the heart of the new global political landscape and its social and economic dynamics. At a time of growing levels of migration within and across borders, a closer legal and working relationship between the United Nations and IOM is needed more than ever," said the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in a statement welcoming the Assembly's decision.
IOM, which assisted an estimated 20 million migrants in 2015, is an intergovernmental organisation with more than 9,500 staff and 450 offices worldwide
"We are living in a time of much tragedy and uncertainty. This agreement shows Member States' commitment to more humane and orderly migration that benefits all, where we celebrate the human beings behind the numbers," IOM Director General William Lacy said.
Through the agreement, the UN recognises IOM as an "indispensable actor in the field of human mobility." IOM added that this includes protection of migrants and displaced people in migration-affected communities, as well as in areas of refugee resettlement and voluntary returns, and incorporates migration in country development plans.
The agreement paves the way for the agreement to be signed by Secretary-General Ban-Ki Moon and Swing at the UN Summit for refugees and migrants on 19 September, which will bring together UN member states to address large movements of refugees and migrants for more humane and coordinated approach.

Links

• Rights of Indigenous Peoples 'Critical' to Combat Climate Change
• Asia's Rising Prosperity, Climate Change Taking Toll on Food Security
• Q&A: Crisis and Climate Change Driving Unprecedented Migration
• Climate Change Compounds Humanitarian Crises in Global South

These Hyperrealistic Drawings of Glaciers Will Make You Wake Up and Act to Save the Planet

One Green Planet - Kate Good

Most of us have grown up knowing about climate change. It's a looming topic that has been discussed and debated since it was first brought to the Senate by Scientist Dr. James Hansen in the 1980s, and while some people are content to ignore the reality of this oncoming phenomenon, we are reaching a point where we simply can't anymore.
Between drastic temperature fluxes, extreme drought, water scarcity, storms larger and more destructive than any others witnessed before, and even species extinction, climate change is wreaking havoc on the planet. There is currently more carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere than there has been in the past 800,000 years, and the fact is these greenhouse gas emissions are coming from human industry and actions. While this might be saddening to know, it is also empowering because it means we all have the power to put and end to this. Unfortunately, since most of the population doesn't have to face the reality of climate change on a daily basis, it is easy to block out and ignore. This is a serious problem considering we need global action fast if we hope to save the planet (but really ourselves).
Luckily, there are awesome people like Zaria Forman who have made it their mission to wake people up from this apathy. Forman uses art to inspire people to take interest in the world's disappearing landscapes. Her primary focus is on glaciers.

Using only pastel and her fingers to smudge, Forman creates hyperrealistic glacier drawings.

On her Facebook page, Zaria describes her work as "large scale pastel drawings that document Earth's shifting landscape and the effects of progressive climate change."

Her inspiration to start drawing glaciers came from her childhood experience traveling to the world's most remote landscapes with her family.

We've all heard that the ice caps are melting, but it is a very different experience to see these structures up close.

With every detail, Forman sends the message that this is the beauty we stand to lose if we don't make a change … soon.

It is near impossible to look at these works of art and not be inspired to protect this gorgeous landscape. The good news is you can start taking action today! Cutting your personal carbon footprint is the surest way to minimize the amount of warming greenhouse gas emissions entering the atmosphere. While you can do many little things like shutting off lights when you leave your house, choosing to walk instead of drive, and switching over to energy efficient appliances – there is one simple action that often goes overlooked that has the highest positive impact: eating plant-based.
Animal agriculture is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than the entire transportation sector combined. In addition, this industry occupies 45 percent of arable land, uses 23 percent of global freshwater resources, and is responsible for rampant deforestation, water, and air pollution. By shifting away from meat and dairy products and choosing plant-based alternatives instead, you can help lower this rate of destruction. In just one year of eating plant-based, you can halve your carbon footprint – that's pretty powerful!
We all share this planet and it is up to us to do all we can to protect these gorgeous natural landscapes and ecosystems.

Links

• Climate Change May Create Infertile Hybrid Animals
• 5 Reasons to Combat Climate Change — For the Animals
• Climate Change is Making the World's Animals Really Sad
• How Protecting Sharks Can Help Slow Climate Change