(TIME) Don't Look Up Is More Than Your Standard Climate Cautionary Tale

TIME - Justin Worland

Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence in Don't Look Up. NIKO TAVERNISE/NETFLIX—© 2021 Netflix, Inc.

If you follow the public conversation around climate change, you have probably heard about Don’t Look Up. The Netflix disaster movie, which stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence as ignored scientists Randall Mindy and Kate Dibiasky, uses an impending comet strike as a cautionary tale for climate change. When the scientists deliver news of the potentially civilization-ending comet, leaders in government, media and business fail to meet the moment.

For anyone who follows the push to act on climate change, it all sounds very familiar. But what I found interesting about Don’t Look Up was less the big picture allegory—using a comet as a metaphor for climate isn’t exactly subtle—but the myriad ways the film highlighted the frustrations, debates and controversies that have defined very real discussions around climate change in recent years. It leaves the reader with a looming sense of dread and offers some pointed takes along the way. (Beware: there are spoilers ahead).

One of dynamics the movie hits hardest is in its absolute skewering of the mainstream media’s approach to covering climate change, which for years has been a frustration of climate activists and scientists. In the movie, the New York Herald—a stand-in for the New York Times down to the font in its logo—is well intentioned and set on breaking the news of the impending disaster. But, when the story turns out to be a web traffic snooze and the White House denies some of the story’s particulars, the Herald abandons it.

Worse still is the portrayal of The Daily Rip, a morning show that appears to channel Morning Joe, again relying on a similar logo. The hosts, played by Cate Blanchett and Tyler Perry, are vapid and uninterested. After the scientists are advised to keep it light during their appearance on the show, Lawrence declares on camera that “no one said the end of the world is supposed to be fun.” It’s a frustration shared by climate scientists—and journalists—who have been told at various points to make the grim facts of climate change light and accessible.

Don’t Look Up offers an equally harsh portrayal of private sector initiatives targeting climate change. As leaders in the federal government in the U.S. have struggled to implement big climate change programs, these same officials have turned to the private sector and touted climate-programs pushed by companies as a sign of success. This was the case in the Obama Administration and is once again the case as the Biden White House struggles to pass ambitious climate legislation.

In the film, President Janie Orlean, played by Meryl Streep, abandons plans for the government to address the fast-approaching comet to instead work in partnership with a political donor’s company. The goal is to both avert catastrophe while making money, an approach to tackling climate change that has become standard on Wall Street and in Washington.

I could go on and on with these examples—the portrayal of space travel as a potential savior for humanity and the depiction of science deniers, to name a few—but I want to end with the scene that I kept thinking about for days after seeing the movie. At a quiet dinner with the scientists’ family and friends, moments before the planet faces certain destruction, DiCaprio’s character offers a simple yet cutting statement: “We really did have everything didn’t we, when you think about it.”

The truth is that climate change is unlikely to totally end human civilization like the comet does, but the line—and the movie more broadly—nonetheless offers a critical reminder that our civilization cannot be taken for granted. Right now, we may “have everything” but there are no guarantees about the future, and we may look back one day and say the same.

Scientists, academics and journalists make this point over and over: to inspire action on climate change people need to understand that a different world—for better or worse—is both possible and possibly imminent. It’s an idea that has until recently been largely absent from popular culture. In that sense, Don’t Look Up is a valuable corrective: proof that climate change can be woven into the cultural narrative in an entertaining way while also saying something smart.

Links

• Don't Look Up (2021 film) - Wikipedia
• Greta Thunberg: ‘Only People Like Me Dare Ask Tough Questions On Climate’
• 8 Documentaries On Climate Change You Need To Watch Now
• Silicon Valley Won’t Save Us - Don’t Look Up is about much more than climate change
• 'Don't Look Up' is a star-studded scream against the climate apocalypse
• (Washington Post) Climate Change Is The Greatest Threat To Humanity. Here’s How Filmmakers Have Tried To Make Sense Of It All.

(ABC America) Melting Arctic Ice Will Have Catastrophic Effects On The World, Experts Say. Here's How.

ABC America - Julia Jacobo

The Arctic is the "frontline" for climate change, scientists said.

ABC News Chief Meteorologist Ginger Zee discusses the global impact of climate change. Sergio Pitamitz/VWPics via AP Images, FILE. 1min 39sec

If there is any doubt about climate change, look no further than the coldest regions of the planet for proof that the planet is warming at unprecedented rates, experts say.

The Arctic, is heating up twice as fast as the rest of the world, according to this year's Arctic Report Card, released last week by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The phenomenon, known as Arctic amplification, occurs when the sea ice, which is white, thins or disappears, allowing dark ocean or land surfaces to absorb more heat from the sun and release that energy back into the atmosphere.

Widely considered by polar scientists as Earth's refrigerator due to its role in regulating global temperatures, the mass melting of sea ice, permafrost and ice caps in the Arctic is hard evidence of global warming, according to experts.

"The Arctic is the frontline for climate change," climate scientist Jessica Moerman, vice president of science and policy at the Evangelical Environmental Network, a faith-based environmental group, told ABC News. "We should be paying careful attention to what is happening in the Arctic. It may seem like it's far away, but the impacts come knocking on our front door."

Here is how melting in the Arctic could have detrimental effects around the globe, according to experts:

Coastal communities will eventually need to move inland

The biggest long-term effect of warming in the Arctic will be sea level rise, Oscar Schofield, a professor of biological oceanography at Rutgers University, told ABC News.

Melting from he Arctic -- and the Greenland ice sheet in particular -- is the largest contributor to sea level rise in the world. Although the contribution from the Greenland ice sheet is less than a millimeter per year of rising sea level, those small increments add up to between 6 inches to a foot since the Industrial Revolution -- sea levels that infrastructure near oceans was not built to withstand, Schofield said.

A bit "counterintuitively," the loss from the Greenland ice sheet will have its greatest impact on places far away from the Arctic, in low latitudes such as South America due to changes in the global ocean currents, Twila Moon, an Arctic scientist with the National Snow and Ice Data Center and one of the authors of the Arctic Report Card, told ABC News.

A drop of water falls off an iceberg melting in the Nuup Kangerlua Fjord near Nuuk in southwestern Greenland, Aug. 1, 2017. David Goldman/AP, FILE

Sea level rise from melting and continued climate change will exacerbate coastal erosion, flood areas that had previously never seen flooding and even increase inland flooding as the salty ocean waters change groundwater tables and inundate freshwater resources, Moon said.

"If you look at where humanity lives, a great proportion of humanity lives right at the coastlines around the world," he said. "And if you look at where most of the big, mega cities are, they're right along coastlines: New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco."

Global weather systems will shift drastically

The environmental conditions in the Arctic affect weather systems across the world. The North and South poles act as the "freezers of the global system," helping to circulate ocean waters around the planet in a way that helps to maintain the climates felt on land, Moon said.

"What happens in the Arctic doesn't stay in the Arctic," Moerman said.

The jet stream, a band of strong winds moving west to east created by cold air meeting warmer air, helps to regulate weather around the globe. In the continental U.S., the jet stream forms where generally colder and drier Arctic air meets warmer and more humid air from the Gulf.

But as temperatures in the Arctic warm, the jet stream, which is fueled by the temperature differences, weakens, Moerman said. Rather than a steady stream of winds, the jet stream has become more "wavy," allowing very warm temperatures to extend usually far into the Arctic and very cold temperatures further south than usual, Moon said.

"These cold air outbreaks are really severe," Moerman said.

The variability in the climate in the Arctic, specifically the weakening of the polar vortex, which keeps cold air closer to the poles, likely led to the Texas freeze in February that led to millions without power and hundreds of deaths, a study published in Science in September found.

The study cited an "increasingly frequent number of episodes of extremely cold winter weather over the past four decades" in the U.S., despite temperatures rising overall.

Icebergs and the edge of the ice sheet are seen at the west coast close to Tasiilaq, Greenland, Sept. 17, 2021. Hannibal Hanschke/Reuters, FILE

Scientists are also looking into whether the phenomenon of atmospheric blocking, is potentially linked with extreme summer or winter weather that occurs when the jet stream ebbs and causes weather patterns to stagnate over a period of time, Moon said.

That stagnation was likely the cause of the extreme flooding that occurred in 2017 in Houston, when the system from Hurricane Harvey remained over the region for days, dumping more than 50 inches of rain, and the multiple heatwaves that blanketed much of the Pacific Northwest this past summer, Moerman added.

"These have real-world impacts, whenever extreme cold air leaks out of the Arctic, because of that weakening polar vortex," Moerman said. "And it goes into areas that are not prepared for that extreme weather."

However, despite the existing evidence, more research needs to be done to further establish the link between the weakening polar vortex and extreme weather, Moerman said.

Shipping lanes will open

Melting sea ice in the Arctic is opening up lanes in the ocean for the global trade route -- lanes that were previously blocked.

In the near future, the melting will have a big impacts on major shipping laws, Schofield said.

"They're no longer going to be sending ships all the way down to the Panama Canal," he said. "They're going to go directly through the Arctic. And so it's going to change commerce, and have very large economic impacts."

The Russian "50 Years of Victory" nuclear-powered icebreaker is seen at the North Pole on Aug. 18, 2021. Ekaterina Anisimova/AFP via Getty Images, FILE

But access has the potential to become a "hotbed for new conflict" as nations fight for control over the newly emerged routes, Moerman said.

"There's a lot of effort by countries to really try to claim as much territory as they can right now, because there's likely going to be a huge host of economic incentives to go to this new area and harvest what you can," Schofield said.

Some national security implications could occur as a result of the warming as well, as ice melts and opens up previously blocked landmasses, Moerman added. The U.S. Department of Defense will likely need to restructure its defense profile in the Arctic when there is no longer an ice cap for much of the year, Schofield said.

The pristine ecosystem will likely be ruined

As the woes from a stalled supply chain continue, the ability for shipping containers to utilize more routes in the absence of ice could appear to be beneficial for the world economy.

But it would spell disaster for the regional environment.

Right now, the ecosystem in the Arctic is pristine and untouched, and there are several unique species and ecosystems that have acclimated to the presence of ice, Schofield said.

But as more ships come in and out of the region, the chances that large-scale environmental degradation will occur is high, Moerman said.

"We're definitely seeing changes in animal populations," Moon said. "Certainly animals that depend on sea ice as a primary habitat, as we've lost the vast majority of our thicker sea ice."

A view of icebergs and melting pack ice in Ilulissat icefjord, an UNESCO World Heritage Site, in Ilulissat, Greenland. Sergio Pitamitz/VWPics via AP Images, FILE

The "poster child" for the effects of the loss of sea ice on species is the polar bear, Schofield said. Polar bear populations have dwindled so low, and the habitats have become so fragmented, that the animals are inbreeding, which could have disastrous effects on the survival of the species within generations.

In Alaska, the number of beaver ponds has doubled since 2000, likely due to the warming trend that has resulted in widespread greening in what was previously tundra, the Arctic Report Card found. The rapid acidification of the warming ocean waters is likely affecting the marine food chain, Moon said. And the increased marine traffic for both fishing and shipping is also likely affecting stress levels and behavior of species, including how they communicate, Moon added.

In addition to an increased chance of oil spills from increased commercial activity is the possibility of new oil and gas fields opening up in Russian territory could further amplify global warming as those natural gases are extracted, Moerman said.

"The question is, is can we get those policies and strategies set up now before there's this massive sort of gold rush on the Arctic Ocean?" Schofield said.

Melting permafrost in the Arctic also poses natural environmental risks, Moon said. The majority of the ground in the Arctic is frozen, and as it thaws, microbes and other living organisms within the organic carbon in the permafrost begin to wake up, releasing carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere.

Temperatures need to be below 0 degrees Celsius to grow and maintain ice, Schofield said. But we will likely never regain that ice, as it took thousands of years of snow layers accumulating on top of each other to create the massive ice sheet, which is several miles thick.

"At some point, we're likely to cross the line where, you know, there'll be almost no winter to speak up," Schofield said. "And we see these kinds of effects in these polar regions, like the Arctic and the Antarctic."

Links

• The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world, according to NOAA report
• What to know about the rapid melting of the Greenland ice sheet, a significant contributor to rising sea levels
• Polar bears are inbreeding due to melting sea ice, posing risk to survival of the species, scientists say
• (Washington Post) Climate Change Has Destabilized The Earth’s Poles, Putting The Rest Of The Planet In Peril 
• The Arctic could get more rain and less snow sooner than projected. Here’s why that matters.
• Adrift in the Arctic: The biggest North Pole expedition in history aims to understand climate change
• A critical ocean system may be heading for collapse due to Arctic warming
• Radical warming in Siberia leaves millions on unstable ground

(UK The Conversation) Antarctica’s ‘Doomsday’ Glacier: How Its Collapse Could Trigger Global Floods And Swallow Islands

The Conversation - Ella Gilbert

Glaciers like Antarctica’s Byrd Glacier are showing cracks and movement. United States Geological Survey , CC BY-SA

Author Ella Gilbert is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Climate Science, University of Reading

The massive Thwaites glacier in West Antarctica contains enough ice to raise global sea levels by 65cm if it were to completely collapse. And, worryingly, recent research suggests that its long-term stability is doubtful as the glacier haemorrhages more and more ice.

Adding 65cm to global sea levels would be coastline-changing amounts. For context, there’s been around 20cm of sea-level rise since 1900, an amount that is already forcing coastal communities out of their homes and exacerbating environmental problems such as flooding, saltwater contamination and habitat loss.

But the worry is that Thwaites, sometimes called the “doomsday glacier” because of its keystone role in the region, might not be the only glacier to go. Were it to empty into the ocean, it could trigger a regional chain reaction and drag other nearby glaciers in with it, which would mean several metres of sea-level rise. That’s because the glaciers in West Antarctica are thought to be vulnerable to a mechanism called Marine Ice Cliff Instability or MICI, where retreating ice exposes increasingly tall, unstable ice cliffs that collapse into the ocean.

A sea level rise of several metres would inundate many of the world’s major cities – including Shanghai, New York, Miami, Tokyo and Mumbai. It would also cover huge swathes of land in coastal regions and largely swallow up low-lying island nations like Kiribati, Tuvalu and the Maldives.

As big as Britain

Thwaites is a frozen river of ice approximately the size of Great Britain. It already contributes around 4% of the global sea-level rise. Since 2000, the glacier has had a net loss of more than 1000 billion tons of ice and this has increased steadily over the last three decades. The speed of its flow has doubled in 30 years, meaning twice as much ice is being spewed into the ocean as in the 1990s.

Map of the Amundsen Sea Basin including the Thwaites glacier. European Geosciences Union, CC BY

Thwaites glacier, the widest in the world at 80 miles wide, is held back by a floating platform of ice called an ice shelf, which restrains the glacier and makes it flow less quickly. But scientists have just confirmed that this ice shelf is becoming rapidly destabilised. The eastern ice shelf now has cracks criss-crossing its surface, and could collapse within ten years, according to Erin Pettit, a glaciologist at Oregon State University.

This work supports research published in 2020 which also noted the development of cracks and crevasses on the Thwaites ice shelf. These indicate that it is being structurally weakened. This damage can have a reinforcing feedback effect because cracking and fracturing can promote further weakening, priming the ice shelf for disintegration.

If Thwaites’ ice shelf did collapse, it would spell the beginning of the end for the glacier. Without its ice shelf, Thwaites glacier would discharge all its ice into the ocean over the following decades to centuries.

New research on Thwaites glacier and its future.

Other unstable glaciers

The ice shelf – which can be thought of as the floating extension of Thwaites glacier – is one of several that scientists are watching closely in the Amundsen Sea Basin, West Antarctica. Several ice shelves that hold back glaciers there, including Thwaites and its next-door neighbour, the Pine Island glacier, are being eroded by rising ocean temperatures.

Warmer ocean water is able to undercut these floating ice shelves, driving melting from below that can thin the ice and weaken it, allowing the cracks and fractures that have been observed at the surface to develop. This ocean-driven melting at the bottom of the ice shelf also pushes the anchoring point where the ice meets the seabed backwards. Because the seabed slopes downwards in the Amundsen Sea, that could eventually trigger a shift as the glaciers lose their footing and retreat rapidly.

Ultimately, if the ice shelves retreat, it means there is less holding the West Antarctic glaciers back – allowing them to accelerate and add more to global sea levels.

However, scientists are still getting to grips with MICI and questions remain about the future of West Antarctic glaciers. While the collapse of Thwaites certainly could trigger a wholesale collapse event, not everyone believes this will happen.

Other work suggests that the destabilisation of the Thwaites ice shelf and glacier may not lead to the kind of catastrophic outcomes that some fear. Sea ice and chunks of ice that break away from the collapsing ice shelf and glacier might have a similar restraining effect to the intact ice shelf, nipping the chain-reaction in the bud and preventing the sustained collapse of the entire West Antarctic ice sheet.

But while uncertainty remains about exactly what will happen in West Antarctica, one thing is for sure – the retreating Thwaites glacier will continue to add to global sea levels for many years to come.

Links

• (ScienceAlert) Warming Events Could Destabilize The Antarctic Ice Sheet Soon. Very Soon
• (The Conversation) Scientists Still Don’t Know How Far Melting In Antarctica Will Go – Or The Sea Level Rise It Will Unleash
• (Washington Post) Climate Change Has Destabilized The Earth’s Poles, Putting The Rest Of The Planet In Peril
• Shrinking glaciers have created a new normal for Greenland’s ice sheet – consistent ice loss for the foreseeable future
• Two-thirds of glacier ice in the Himalayas will be lost by 2100 if climate targets aren’t met
• 2021 was a bad year for glaciers in western North America — and it’s about to get much worse
• A bird’s eye view of New Zealand’s changing glaciers

(US MIT) The Rare Spots Of Good News On Climate Change

MIT Technology Review - James Temple (Review Senior Editor)

It looks increasingly clear that we'll at least sidestep the worst-case scenarios.

Getty

The deadly consequences of climate change only grew clearer this year, as record-shattering heat waves, floods, and wildfires killed thousands and strained the limits of our disaster responders.

In the closing days of 2021, scientists warned that the eastern ledge of a Florida-size glacier is about to snap off of Antarctica and US legislators found they may have flubbed their best chance in a decade to enact sweeping climate policies.

But amid these stark signs, there were also indications that momentum is beginning to build behind climate action. Indeed, there’s good reason now to believe that the world could at least sidestep the worst dangers of global warming.

Princeton energy researcher Jesse Jenkins accurately, and colorfully, pinpointed the weird moment we’ve arrived at in a recent tweet: “We’re no longer totally f$%@ed. But we’re also far from totally unf$@%*ed!”

To be sure, the limited progress isn’t nearly enough. We’ve taken far too long to begin making real changes. World events and politics could still slow or reverse the trends. And we can’t allow a tiny bit of progress in the face of a generational challenge to ease the pressures for greater action.

But it’s worth highlighting and reflecting on the advances the world has made, because it demonstrates that it can be done—and could provide a template for achieving more.

Momentum

So what are the signs of progress amid the climate gloom?

The grimmest scenarios that many fretted about just a few years ago look increasingly unlikely. That includes the 4 or 5 °C of warming this century that I and others previously highlighted as a possibility.

The UN climate panel’s earlier high-end emissions scenario, known as RCP 8.5, had found that global temperatures could rise more than 5 °C by 2100. Those assumptions have been frequently included in studies assessing the risks of climate change, delivering the eye-catching top-end results often cited in the press. (Guilty.)

Some argue that it wasn’t all that plausible in the first place. And the scenario seems increasingly far-fetched given the rapid shift away from coal-fired power plants, initially to lower-emitting natural gas but increasingly toward carbon-free wind and solar.

Global emissions may have already flattened when taking into account recent revisions to land-use changes, meaning updated tallies of the forests, farmlands, and grasslands the world is gaining and losing.

Today, if you layer in all the climate policies already in place around the world, we’re now on track for 2.7 °C of warming this century as a middle estimate, according to Climate Action Tracker. (Similarly, the UN’s latest report found that the planet is likely to warm between 2.1 and 3.5 °C under its “intermediate” emissions scenario.)

If you assume that nations will meet their emissions pledges under the Paris agreement, including the new commitments timed around the recent UN summit in Glasgow, the figure goes down to 2.4 °C. And if every country pulls off its net-zero emissions targets by around the middle of the century, it drops to 1.8 °C.

Given the increasingly strict climate policies and the plummeting costs of solar and wind, we’re about to witness an absolute boom in renewables development. The International Energy Agency, well known for underestimating the growth of renewables in the past, now says that global capacity will rise more than 60% by 2026. At that point, solar, wind, hydroelectric dams, and other renewables facilities will rival the worldwide capacity of fossil-fuel and nuclear plants.

Sales of new electric vehicles, bumping along in the low single digits for years, are also taking off. They’ll reach around 5.6 million this year, leaping more than 80% over 2020 figures, as automakers release more models and governments enact increasingly aggressive policies, according to BloombergNEF.

Electric vehicles climbed from 2.8% of new sales in the first half of 2019 to 7% during the first half of 2021, with particularly large gains in China and Europe. Zero-emissions vehicles will make up nearly 30% of all new purchases by 2030, the research firm projects.

Progress

Meanwhile, there are plenty of signs of technological progress. Researchers and companies are figuring out ways to produce carbon-free steel and cement. Plant-based meat alternatives are getting tastier and more popular faster than anyone expected. Businesses are building increasingly large plants to suck carbon dioxide out of the air. Venture capital investments into climate and clean-tech startups have risen to levels never before seen, totaling more than $30 billion through the third quarter, according to PitchBook.

And here’s an important and counterintuitive finding: While dangerous, extreme weather events are becoming increasingly common or severe, the world seems to be getting a lot better at keeping people safer from them. The average number of deaths from natural disasters has generally dropped sharply in recent decades.

“We have better technologies to predict storms, wildfires, and floods; infrastructure to protect ourselves; and networks to cooperate and recover when a disaster does strike,” noted Hannah Ritchie, head of research at Our World of Data, in an recent Wired UK essay, citing her own research.

This provides additional hope that with the right investments into climate adaption measures like seawalls and community cooling centers, we’ll be able to manage some of the increased risks we’ll face. Rich nations that have emitted the most greenhouse gases, however, must provide financial assistance to help poor countries bolster their defenses.

A realistic baseline

Some folks have seized on these improving signs to argue that climate change isn’t going to be all that bad. That’s nonsense. The world is, by any measure, still dramatically underreacting to the rising risks.

A planet that’s nearly 3 °C hotter would be a far more dangerous and unpredictable place. Those temperatures threaten to wipe out coral reefs, sink major parts of our coastal cities and low-lying islands, and subject millions of people to far greater risks of extreme heat waves, droughts, famines, and floods.

In addition, we could still be underestimating how sensitive the atmosphere is to greenhouse gases, as well as the spiraling impacts of climate tipping points and the dangers that these higher temperatures bring. And there’s no guarantee that nations won’t backtrack on their policies and commitments amid economic shocks, conflicts, and other unpredictable events.

But to be sure, a 3 °C warmer world is a much more livable place than a 5 °C warmer one, and a far more promising starting line for getting to 2 °C.

“The point isn’t to say that that’s a good outcome,” says Zeke Hausfather, director of climate and energy at the Breakthrough Institute. “The point is, that’s the baseline we’re working with now. And it’s easier to imagine much more rapid declines from there.”

In some ways, it’s especially notable that the world has made this much progress without sweeping climate policies in many nations, and despite all the poisoned, partisan politics surrounding climate change.

The shifts to natural gas, then solar and wind, and increasingly EVs were all aided by government support, including loans, subsidies, and other policies that pushed the underlying technologies into the marketplace. And the business-driven scale-up process rapidly cut the costs of those technologies, helping them become ever more attractive.

Increasingly competitive and business-friendly clean alternatives promise to simplify the politics of further climate action. If more and more nations enact increasingly aggressive policies—carbon taxes, clean-energy standards, or far more funding for research and demonstration projects—we’ll drive down emissions ever faster.

The world isn’t ending

There are other reasons to take note of the modest progress we are making.

Progressive US politicians now casually repeat the claim that climate change is an “existential threat,” suggesting it will wipe out all of humanity. After a 2018 UN report noted that global warming could reach 1.5 °C between 2030 and 2052, climate activists and media outlets contorted that finding into versions of “We have 12 years to save the planet!”

If so, it would now be down to nine. But 1.5 °C isn’t some scientifically determined threshold of societal collapse. Though the world will miss that goal, it remains crucial to fight for every additional half-degree of warming beyond it, each of which brings steadily higher risks.

Meanwhile, climate research does not suggest that the 3 °C of warming we’re now roughly on target for would transform the entire planet into some uninhabitable hellscape.

So no, climate change is not an existential threat.

But that sentiment has certainly taken hold. Earlier this year, researchers at the University of Bath surveyed 10,000 young people, aged 16 to 25, in 10 countries to assess the levels of “climate anxiety.” More than half, 56%, agreed with the statement “Humanity is doomed.”

It’s standard stuff for politicians and activists to overstate dangers and demands, in the hopes of pushing toward some compromise solution. And the growing climate fears and the increasingly influential climate activist movement have undoubtedly put greater pressures on politicians and business to take these issues more seriously, helping to drive some the policy changes we’ve seen. They deserve real credit for that.

But insisting that the world is at the edge of collapse, when it’s not, is a terrible message for young people and carries some real risks as well. It clearly undermines credibility. It could lead some people to simply lose hope. And it could compel others to demand extreme and often counterproductive responses.

“It’s time to stop telling our children that they’re going to die from climate change,” Ritchie wrote. “It’s not only cruel, it might actually make it more likely to come true.”

When people don’t see a “reasonable path forward,” they begin to rationalize unreasonable ones.

Among those I hear with surprising frequency: We must shut down all fossil-fuel infrastructure, and end oil and gas extraction now. We must fix everything with today’s technologies and reject the “predatory delay” tactic of continued investment in clean-energy innovation. We have to halt consumption, construction, and economic development. Or even: We must smash the global capitalist system that caused all the problems!

Balancing the trade-offs

None of that strikes me as somehow more politically feasible than fixing our energy systems.

We do have to shut down fossil-fuel plants, replace vehicles, and switch to new methods of producing food, cement, steel, and other goods—and relatively quickly. But we have to do it by developing alternatives that don’t pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

If we adjust the goalpost back to 2 °C, which is regrettable but only realistic at this point, we have several decades yet to carry out the transformation required. Under a modest emissions scenario, the world won’t exceed that threshold until around 2052 as a middle estimate, Hausfather’s analysis of latest UN climate report suggests.

What we can’t do is just shut down the infrastructure that drives the global economy—not without massive damage to jobs, food, health care, and safety. We’d sacrifice the economic resources we need to develop a more sustainable economy, as well as to make our communities more resilient to the coming climate dangers.

Those in rich countries, especially, have no business telling poor countries that they must halt development, perpetually locking billions of people in economic and energy poverty.

If we’re worried about climate change because of the suffering it will impose on people, then we have to care about the human trade-offs entailed in how we address it as well. Weighting those properly requires dealing honestly what with the science does and doesn’t say, recognizing the limited progress we are making, and not resorting to hyperbole simply because we think it will spur the actions we hope to see.

It’s a cruel and dangerous fantasy that we’ll ever halt climate change by counting on or forcing people to live impoverished lives, forgoing food, medicine, heating, or air conditioning in an increasingly erratic and menacing world.

We need more activist pressure and more aggressive climate policies to confront the threats of climate change. But ultimately, we must invent and build our way out of the problem. And the rare bright spot of good news is that we’re beginning to see evidence that we can.

Links - Recent articles by James Temple

• The Atlantic’s vital currents could collapse. Scientists are racing to understand the dangers.
• Renewables are set to soar
• How a new global carbon market could exaggerate climate progress
• The Glasgow climate talks will fall short. Here are other ways to accelerate progress.
• Video: How cheap renewables and rising activism are shifting climate politics
• Companies hoping to grow carbon-sucking kelp may be rushing ahead of the science
• Lithium-ion batteries just made a big leap in a tiny product

(AU ABC) Beetaloo Basin Fracking Grants Ruled Invalid, 'Legally Unreasonable' In Court Challenge Brought By Environment Groups

ABC News - Kate Ashton | Jacqueline Breen

Gas company Empire Energy won the funding to fast-track exploration in the Beetaloo Basin. (Supplied: Empire Energy)

Key Points The court found the government's move deprived the Environment Centre NT of its legal rights in the court challenge  The grants were awarded to help fast track exploration activity in the gas-rich Beetaloo Basin Both sides of the court challenge claimed the decision as a win

A judge has ruled a $21 million grant to speed up fracking in the Beetaloo Basin invalid because of the federal government's "unreasonable" move to quietly award the money while a court challenge was underway.

Gas company Empire Energy entered a trading halt just before Thursday morning's decision about the grant, awarded as part of the Coalition's $50 million subsidy program to fast-track development of the basin.

Lawyers for the Environment Centre NT (ECNT) had argued Resources Minister Keith Pitt failed to consider the climate risks associated with his decision to award Imperial Oil and Gas, which is fully owned by Empire Energy, three grants totalling $21 million in July this year. 

Justice John Griffiths declared the contracts invalid and void because of the minister's decision to suddenly execute the grant agreement in September while the court challenge was underway and without notifying the ECNT.

He said the environment group had made repeated requests for an undertaking from the minister that no agreement would be signed until the case was finalised and that it was "reasonable" for them to expect a response. 

Justice Griffiths said the minister's decision deprived the ECNT of the "opportunity and right" to seek an injunction.

He said the Commonwealth "apparently … took a considered forensic decision" not to give evidence about the reasons for the move and he was not prepared to infer that it had tried to "stymie" the court challenge.

Resources Minister Keith Pitt signed the grant agreements now ruled invalid. (ABC News: Matt Roberts)

"No evident and intelligible justification is evident for the Commonwealth's decision to enter into the Imperial Contracts on 9 September, 2021," Justice Griffith's wrote in his judgement.

"I find that, having regard to the circumstances and context in which it occurred, the Commonwealth's decision to enter into the [contracts] was unreasonable in the legal sense."

But Justice Griffiths rejected the ECNT's challenge to the validity of the grants program as a whole, which means the grants can be remade and further funding awarded.

He also found there was no requirement for the minister to consider the potential climate impacts of exploration of the basin in this case.

He said this was because there was no evidence the exploration and appraisal activities related to the grants would "contribute to climate change risks, of the kind identified by the applicant".

Both sides claim victory in court decision

ECNT co-director Kirsty Howey said even though the climate change grounds were refused, the decision left the door open for future legal challenges on fossil fuel grants.

"It's really a win for the rule of law," she said.

"The court was frankly scathing, that the conduct of the minister in these proceedings was unacceptable.

"Fossil fuel subsidies are not a reasonable use of public money. Under Australia's commitment to the global Glasgow climate pact, we need to phase out funding of new oil, gas and coal projects."

In a statement issued after the decision was handed down, Mr Pitt's office said the ruling gave a "green light to Beetaloo Basin gas development."

The statement did not acknowledge the findings relating to the government's conduct or the contracts signed with Empire Energy.

"The instrument under which the grant program was written and the approval decision to award grants to Imperial Oil and Gas were both valid and we welcome that decision so that we can move forward with the program," Mr Pitt said.

"The Beetaloo Basin has enormous potential to deliver the gas Australia needs for the future. Our resources and energy sector are vitally important to the Australian economy and are forecast to generate a record $379 billion this financial year."

Empire Energy to negotiate 'replacement' grants

A spokesperson for Empire Energy said the decision would not impact its work program, which has already paused for the Top End wet season.

Empire says it had already paused drilling work for the wet season. (Supplied: Empire Energy)

The spokesperson said the company would work with the Commonwealth to negotiate "replacement agreements".

Imperial had joined the legal proceedings as a party to argue it should be granted financial assistance if the contracts were found to be invalid, given that it was not responsible for the way the Commonwealth conducted itself during the lawsuit.

Under the now invalid contracts, the first government payment was scheduled for December 31.

Justice Griffiths said he had some sympathy for Imperial's position but said the company was aware of the lawsuit and had entered into the contracts while being aware of the commercial risk.

He found "the public interest in ensuring that the Commonwealth is properly accountable for its executive conduct and actions," was most important in this case.

"I consider that compelling private interests would be necessary to outweigh that central public interest … I am not persuaded that Imperial's private interests reach that level," he said.

The parties have been ordered to negotiate about costs.

Links

• Court rules Morrison government grant to develop gas field in Beetaloo Basin invalid
• Resources Minister not required to consider climate change when awarding gas grant, lawyers argue
• Unexplained gas funding timeline a 'very dark day for the Commonwealth', Federal Court judge says
• Environmental groups take federal minister to court over multi-million dollar fracking grant
• Beetaloo - Wikipedia
• Subsidising fracking in the Beetaloo Basin
  
• Lethal Heating: Doctrine of Public Trust

(UK The Guardian) At Last I Have Good News On The Climate Crisis: All Of Us Really Can Do Something About It

The Guardian - Zoe Williams (Guardian Columnist)

Like most people, I was daunted by the scale of the emergency, but I now think the lifestyle changes needed to make progress are not that difficult

‘Conservatives committed to arresting the climate crisis wouldn’t have talked about ‘green crap’, or wasted five years on Brexit.’ Photograph: Dylan Martinez/Reuters

A change is desperately needed. I know it and you know it, but someone in this citizenry – most likely you – isn’t ready to make a vast adjustment to their lifestyle.

This is a common fallback position among progressives. I’ve always felt comfortable in this territory and simultaneously aggravated by it. Nowhere is this position more routinely applied than in relation to the climate crisis.

The argument goes like this: people across the political spectrum broadly agree on the fundamentals and the urgency of the climate crisis, and yet we probably won’t do what we need to do because we’re just too useless.

Society is too fractured for people to make altruistic choices; poverty is too endemic for many to be in a position to make changes; financialisation has subverted democracy, so even if the demos was able to make a good, collective decision, it would be thwarted.

Even if, by some miracle, the UK managed to overcome these obstacles to make good on its net-zero pledges, the same problems would play out on a global scale to prevent other nations from doing the same.

But this year I changed my mind about this position. It wasn’t because of Cop26, which left most campaigners disappointed. It was because of what Cop26 couldn’t undo.

The first two components of reaching net zero are basically in the hands of the government: cleaning up the energy supply, and becoming more efficient in the energy we use. Throughout the 2010s, we assumed that both the major parties were equally committed to tackling the climate emergency and merely differed on whether the state or the market should pay for it.

This seemed like a reasonable assumption – the Conservatives in opposition, after all, were behind the Climate Change Act, an inspiringly strong piece of legislation – except for the fact that it was plainly not true. Conservatives committed to arresting the climate crisis wouldn’t have talked about “green crap”. Nor would they have wasted five years on Brexit, or wanted to leave the EU in the first place.

The price of entry to the grownups’ conversation was to pretend that all politicians wanted broadly the same thing, by a different route. This was a peculiarly low point for common sense, and it squandered time, fostering a sense that even when those in power wanted to tackle the climate crisis, still nothing constructive could be achieved.

Even as recently as September, when Rachel Reeves described at her party’s conference the state spending a Labour government’s green new deal would entail, it was still normal in climate policy circles for people to describe the parties as equally committed to constructive, large-scale change.

But it is no longer necessary to pretend that the Conservative government means well, keeps promises or has any long-term plan for tackling the climate crisis. Removing it from power has become more urgent than ever. Accepting these facts is now, paradoxically, less daunting than the effort of papering over reality.

The third plank towards net zero has always been behavioural – are people prepared to stop flying and eating meat, and change to bikes and electric cars? And even if you are personally committed to these things, what about those who don’t care, or can’t afford to make adjustments, and what about young people and their fast fashion, and didn’t Greta Thunberg once buy a salad wrapped in plastic?

There is a tendency to respond to every climate aspiration with a darting list of the insufficiencies of humankind.

Yet the granular work done by the Climate Change Committee shows the lifestyle changes this crisis will ask of us are in fact pretty manageable. The most demanding will probably be the switch to battery-powered cars (60% of vehicles by 2035). Otherwise, the number of miles per driver will need to reduce by 4%; plane kilometres per person by 6%; meat and dairy consumption by 20%.

Arguably, this is the time to start new conversations – is net zero, in this time frame, ambitious enough?

Can the disproportionate carbon usage of the affluent somehow be reflected in redistributive policy, so everyone has an allocation of plane miles and those who can’t afford to use theirs can sell them instead?

Would it make sense to subsidise meat and dairy alternatives in the same way renewables were initially supported?

Is it feasible to make a carbon budget, as a nation, that doesn’t take into account the footprint of your imports? (Not really.)

What is now unarguable is that all this is within our grasp.

Radicals and progressives may maintain the longterm goal of bringing down capitalism and re-evaluating what life is for, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing constructive that we can do in the short term.

I’m not sure that I would make a different or more certain prediction of what life will look like in 30 years’ time.

But the idea that the changes required are too radical or the people who need to make them too timid, I’ve completely put aside.

Links

• What can you do to fight the climate crisis?
• Planes, Homes and Automobiles: The Role of Behaviour Change in Delivering Net Zero
• (UNEP) 10 Ways You Can Help Fight The Climate Crisis
• (AU The Conversation) Liquid Marbles: How This Tiny, Emerging Technology Could Solve Carbon Capture And Storage Problems
• (CNBC) Yale Psychologist: How To Cope In A World Of Climate Disasters, Trauma And Anxiety
• (The Conversation) The Average Person’s Daily Choices Can Still Make A Big Difference In Fighting Climate Change – And Getting Governments And Utilities To Tackle It, Too
• How border walls are triggering ecological disaster

(CNN) From Floods And Wildfires To Inaction And Urgency: These Are The Top Climate And Weather Stories Of 2021

CNN - Rachel Ramirez | Brandon Miller | Bill Weir

The view from the theater of an American Legion building on December 11 after tornadoes ripped through Mayfield, Kentucky.

The climate crisis took a catastrophic toll across the globe in 2021. From the Arctic to Louisiana and to China's Henan province, signs that climate change is already altering our weather were everywhere.

In the United States, historic flooding trapped and killed residents in submerged basements. In Canada, an entire town was erased by a wildfire fueled by extreme heat. Rain fell at the summit of Greenland for the first time.

As climate disasters mounted, the world aligned around combating the crisis: Scientists published a landmark report that concluded humans are unequivocally to blame; US President Joe Biden reentered the Paris Agreement in the early days of his administration; world leaders met at the UN climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, to negotiate solutions.

But promises were not met with action in 2021, and humans are pumping more planet-warming emissions into the atmosphere than ever. Experts now warn that the Earth is currently on track for 2.4 degrees Celsius of warming above pre-industrial levels -- far beyond the critical 1.5-degree threshold that scientists say we should stay under.

This year's disasters are proof the climate crisis is intensifying and that the window is rapidly closing to slash our reliance on fossil fuels and to prevent changes that would transform life as we know it.

"What we think of as climate change is now becoming very personal," Jennifer Marlon, a climate scientist at the Yale School of the Environment, previously told CNN. "It's not far away anymore. It's now in our front yard, it's in our backyards, it's in our basements, it's even in our lungs as (we are) breathing smoke from these wildfires."

These are the top 10 climate crisis stories of 2021.

10. Historic rain at Greenland's summit

Rain droplets can be seen on a window looking out from a scientific post at the summit of Greenland in August.

In August, precipitation at the typically snowy summit of Greenland fell as rain for the first time.

Temperatures at the Greenland summit -- roughly two miles above sea level -- rose above freezing for the third time in less than a decade around August 15. Precipitation fell as rain and dumped 7 billion tons of water on the ice sheet, enough to fill the Reflecting Pool at the National Mall in Washington, DC, nearly 250,000 times.

It was the heaviest rainfall on the ice sheet since record keeping began in 1950, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. And scientists say it will occur more often: A recent study found the Arctic region is expected to experience more rain than snow sometime between 2060 and 2070, marking a major transition in its precipitation patterns as the planet warms.

"Things that happen in the Arctic don't specifically stay in the Arctic," Michelle McCrystall, climate researcher at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, previously told CNN. "The fact that there could be an increase in emissions from permafrost thaw or an increase in global sea level rise, it is a global problem, and it needs a global answer."

9. Texas deep freeze

Camilla Swindle, 19, sits in a shopping cart as she and her boyfriend wait in a long line to stock up at a grocery store in Austin, Texas, on February 16, 2021.

February brought a historic deep freeze to Texas, which was also felt across much of the Central Plains and into the Southeast, and showed how the climate crisis can produce both hot and cold extremes.

A crippling winter storm swept across the Central United States the week of February 15, and plunged deep into Texas -- a state ill-equipped to handle a multi-day freeze. Electricity generation ground to a halt, and around 4 million people lost power.

Why snow and blackouts in Texas are a preview for all of us 1min 54sec

At the time, Gov. Greg Abbott blamed the power outages on frozen wind turbines and solar panels, though the state's fossil fuel energy sector was ultimately to blame for the energy crisis.

The Texas Department of State Health Services reported the extreme winter weather killed more than 200 people. However, an independent analysis by Buzzfeed put the number of deaths between 500 and 1,000.

The economic toll also proved catastrophic. The Texas comptroller's office reported the storm may have cost the state as much as $130 billion, and urged the weatherization of its power infrastructure.

8. Fatal floods across three continents

Cars sit in floodwaters following heavy rain in Zhengzhou in China's central Henan province on July 22, 2021.

In the span of a few weeks, destructive and fatal flash flooding ravaged parts of Western Europe, China's Henan province and the state of Tennessee.

In mid-July, severe flooding killed more than 200 people in Germany and Belgium. Vast swaths of the region saw 24-hour rainfall totals of roughly between 4 to 6 inches, which is more than an average month's worth of rainfall in the area.

World Weather Attribution, a group of scientists that establishes the link between climate change and weather, found the record rainfall was up to nine times more likely due to human-caused climate change.

In China, the floods that struck Henan province killed more than 300 people. Zhengzhou, the provincial capital of 12 million people, was one of the hardest-hit areas. Entire neighborhoods were submerged, while passengers were trapped in inundated subway cars, clinging to ceiling handles to stay above water.

Back in the United States, a staggering amount of rain led to flash flooding in Tennessee that destroyed more than 270 homes and killed more than two dozen people, including 7-month-old twins. State emergency management officials were not prepared for the magnitude of the event. The fallen phone lines, coupled with washed out roads, made it harder for them to get into the flood zone.

7. US rejoins the Paris Agreement

President Joe Biden signs his first executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House on January 20, 2021, in Washington.

Within hours of being sworn in, Biden signed an executive order in January to rejoin the global climate pact known as the Paris Agreement, which former President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of while in office.

In April, Biden pledged to cut US greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030, in part to make good on the country's renewed membership in the agreement.

Under the Paris Agreement, countries are expected to track and enhance their commitments to drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions every five years. The primary goal of the climate accords is to put a lid on global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, with a preferred 1.5-degree limit.

However, the United Nations says there is still a huge gap between what's been promised and what scientists say is needed to curb emissions.

6. UN report: A 'code red'

Steam rises from the Miller coal Power Plant in Adamsville, Alabama.

Every six to seven years, the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change publishes a report that summarizes the state of climate research. The panel's latest report came in August, and its authors concluded it is "unequivocal" that humans have caused the climate crisis and that "widespread and rapid changes" have already occurred, some of them irreversibly.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres called the report "a code red for humanity."

Scientists said the planet has rapidly warmed by more than 1 degree Celsius higher than pre-industrial levels, and is now barrelling toward 1.5 degrees -- a critical threshold that world leaders agreed warming should remain below to avoid worsening impacts.

To halt the precipitous trend, scientists say countries must make deep cuts to greenhouse gas emissions while simultaneously removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

5. A critical summit in Glasgow

'No more blah, blah, blah!' Thunberg joins protesters outside climate summit 57sec

World leaders gathered in Glasgow in November for the UN-brokered climate change summit known as COP26.

And after nearly two weeks of negotiations on how to limit global warming, nearly 200 countries signed the Glasgow Climate Pact, which included the first-ever acknowledgment of the role burning fossil fuels have played in perpetuating the climate crisis.

While the final pact showed some progress, the text didn't reflect the urgency scientists have called for. Countries agreed to "phase down" the use of unabated coal for power generation, instead of completely phasing it out. Developing nations also left disappointed after negotiations around climate financing -- funding from wealthy nations to help low-income countries deal with the crisis -- broke down.

4. Hurricane Ida

Video shows power of Ida when it made landfall 1min 7sec

In late August, Category 4 Hurricane Ida destroyed homes, uprooted trees and cut off power to more than 1 million customers in Mississippi and the already storm-ravaged state of Louisiana.

Ida checked all the boxes of how climate change is making hurricanes more dangerous, according to scientists: They are producing more rainfall, moving more slowly once they make landfall and generating larger storm surges.

Michael Wilson stands in the doorway to his flood-damaged home after Hurricane Ida made landfall as a Category 4.

But the impact didn't end on the Gulf Coast. As the storm made its way inland, Ida's remnants triggered flash flood emergencies in the Northeast. The storm broke the single-hour rainfall record in Central Park and gave Newark, New Jersey, its wettest day ever.

The flooding killed dozens of people in the Northeast, and many of them drowned in basement apartments in New York City. Some Ida survivors in the city are still displaced, and the storm exposed the dire need to strengthen the city's infrastructure against the worsening climate crisis.

Hurricane Ida's damage cost at least $60 billion, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimated, and exceeded the combined cost of the seven most damaging tropical cyclones of 2020.

3. December tornado outbreak

Tornado devastation captured by incredible drone video 1min 39sec

At the tail end of a year already packed with extreme weather, a series of tornadoes tore through the Midwestern and Southeastern United States on December 12 and 13. The last month of the year is typically the quietest for tornadoes, but warm temperatures brought a historic twist.

In Kentucky, tornadoes uprooted trees, leveled homes and killed dozens of people. Gov. Andy Beshear said at a news conference that the tornado event reached a "level of devastation unlike anything I have ever seen."

Though it's not completely clear what role climate change played in December's outbreak, scientists say the fingerprints of global warming can be found on every extreme weather event. Victor Gensini, a professor at Northern Illinois University and a top tornado expert, said the outbreak is one of the most remarkable tornado events in US history.

"When you start putting a lot of these events together, and you start looking at them in the aggregate sense, the statistics are pretty clear that not only has there sort of been a change -- a shift, if you will -- of where the greatest tornado frequency is happening," Gensini told CNN, "but these events are becoming perhaps stronger, more frequent and also more variable."

2. Pacific Northwest heat wave

Canada wildfire: Village devastated after heat wave 1min 7sec

An unprecedented heat wave in late June killed hundreds of people in the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia. All-time record temperatures were set across the region, and scientists say the heat wave would have been "virtually impossible" without human-caused climate change.

Experts told CNN the normally temperate region is unprepared for extreme heat events, with many residents not owning air conditioning units. As a result, hundreds of people died from heat-related illness. Officials later called the heat wave a mass casualty event.

In British Columbia, the same heat wave fueled a fast-moving wildfire that obliterated the town of Lytton just one day after the temperature soared to 121 degrees and broke Canada's all-time temperature record.

1. Drought, wildfires and water shortages

A home is engulfed in flames as the Beckwourth Complex Fire tears through Doyle, California, on July 10, 2021.

Amid the acute disasters, the Western United States has been in the grips of a historic, multi-year drought, which scientists say is a clear sign of how the climate crisis is affecting not only the weather but water supply, food production and electricity generation.

In California, this summer's drought was the most extreme in the state's 126-year record, with July 2021 as the driest month since data gathering began in 1895. By August, more than 95% of the West was in drought conditions.

Lake Mead and Lake Powell -- two of the country's largest reservoirs -- drained at alarming rates after a dry winter and extreme drought this summer. The federal government in August declared a water shortage on the Colorado River for the first time, triggering mandatory water consumption cuts for states in the Southwest beginning in 2022.

These Americans are fleeing the West because of extreme heat 3min 20sec

The megadrought also primed the landscape for perilous wildfires. The three largest fires of 2021 -- the Bootleg, Dixie and Caldor Fires -- have burned roughly 1.6 million acres, an area half the size of Connecticut. High-level winds wafted smoke from some of these fires across the country, stretching from the West Coast to New York City.

Scientists say this summer is only a preview of what's to come: The United Nations' August report concluded droughts that may have occurred only once every decade or so now happen 70% more frequently.

Links

• (VICE) 15 Bleak Photos From 2021 That Sum Up The World’s Climate Crisis
• (New Yorker) 2021 In Review: The Year In Climate 
• (USA National Geographic) Year In Review: 2021's Weather Disasters Brought Home The Reality Of Climate Change
• Climate change in review: 2021 - YouTube
• 2021 was a remarkable year for Earth's climate
• 2021 in Review: Our Reports on Climate Change
• Articles in 2021 | Nature Climate Change