Ten countries set or matched national monthly high temperature marks last
year.
A thermometer shows a temperature of 130° Fahrenheit (54° Celsius)
at the Furnace Creek Visitor's Center at Death Valley National Park
in California on June 17, 2021.
(Photo: Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)
Last year saw record-breaking high temperatures recorded
at more than 400 weather stations around the world, with meteorologists voicing
alarm over what climate scientists say is the shape of things to come, according
to a report published Friday.
The Guardianreports
that 10 countries—Canada, Dominica, Italy, Morocco, Oman, Taiwan, Tunisia,
Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States—set or matched their
national monthly high temperature records last year.
"Climate change
is real and it's now,"
tweeted
Catherine McKenna, founder of Climate and Nature Solutions and a former Canadian
environment and climate change minister.
McKenna noted the numerous
Canadian temperature records that were shattered last year, including in Lytton,
British Columbia, where the mercury soared to 49.6°C, or 121.3°F, in late
June.
Ten national temperature records were broken or equalled in 2021, including
Lytton, BC where the temperature reached 49.6 degrees.
A few continental and planetary records fell too: Africa had its warmest
June and September ever. August brought 48.8°C (119.8°F) in Syracuse,
Italy, the highest temperature ever recorded in Europe. July had already
brought 54.4°C (130°F) in Furnace Creek in the U.S. Death Valley—the
highest reliably recorded temperature on Earth.
"You can certainly see the effect of climate change in our weather in Kenya, and
globally," Patricia Nying'uro of the Kenyan Meteorological Department and
co-founder of Climate Without Borders—an international group of broadcast
meteorologists and weather presenters—told
the paper.
"We're just putting together the data for 2021, but we
think we will have seen an annual temperature which is 2.1°C higher than normal
for some parts of the country," she added. "The shifts are very noticeable, from
one extreme to another in a very short space of time."
Ten national temperature records were broken or equalled in 2021, including
the highest ever reliably measured on Earth
Guardian graphic. Source: Maximiliano Herrero
Meteorologists around the world said the event that made the biggest
impression on them last year was the heatwave that hit western North America
in June and July,
killing
hundreds of people in Canada and the United States and setting records from
Alaska and the Yukon Territory to California.
"Of course 2021 was full of extreme events," Maximiliano Herrera, who
tracks extreme weather around the world, told The Guardian. "But if
I have to name one, I'll name what struck every single climatologist and
meteorologist in the world... the mother of all heatwaves."
"The magnitude of this event surpassed anything I have seen after a
life of researching extreme events in all modern world climatic history in
the past couple of centuries," he said.
Climate scientists say
such record-breaking heatwaves are likely to become increasingly frequent in
the coming decades.
"We must expect extreme event records to be broken - not just by small
margins, but quite often by very large ones" says climate scientist
Professor Rowan Sutton.
We face a huge challenge to improve
preparedness, build resilience and adapt society.https://t.co/hJCcqmSaVb
— National Centre for Atmospheric Science (@AtmosScience)
July 27, 2021
"We must expect extreme event records to be broken," Rowan Sutton of the
National Center for Atmospheric Science at the University of Reading in
England
warned
last July, "not just by small margins but quite often by very large
ones."
Northern beaches residents have been worried about how their beloved beach
would fare when large swells and high tides hit the controversial Collaroy
seawall. They were concerned the sand directly in front of the seawall would
be washed away, eroding their beach, and, on Tuesday, that’s exactly what
happened.
The erosion event at Collaroy Beach is far from an isolated occurrence.
Other beaches along the eastern coastline have also experienced heavy
erosion and scientists fear climate change will only make these events
more frequent and more intense.
King tides and the after-effects of ex-tropical cyclone
Seth have caused erosion at Collaroy Beach. Credit: Brook
Mitchell
Patrick Allan has continued an almost 100-year-old family tradition of
living in Collaroy, spending years surfing the waves, but he’s planning
on leaving the small seaside suburb. The building of the seawall was the
final nail in the coffin.
“I’ve watched council do everything, dump truck loads of asbestos and
everything here over the years, but now they’ve let this private
development application come through which is going to kill this beach,”
he said. “The full effects of the seawall won’t be known until they
finish.”
“This is my home, but the beach and the whole area have changed.”
The coastal strip was pummelled
during a massive storm in 2016. Homes were damaged and a swimming pool was pulled into the ocean,
costing homeowners and local government almost $25 million to fix.
Another two big storms further eroded the sand dune in July 2020.
Collaroy resident Patrick Allan has lived in the suburb
his whole life but is moving away with the seawall the
final nail in the coffin. Credit: Brook
Mitchell
Since then, residents, council and the state government have been
working to protect the properties and beach from storm surges, with
current work including building a seven-metre-tall concrete wall.
Once completed, at least three-quarters of the wall will be covered by
sand. The project stretches 1.3 kilometres from Collaroy to South
Narrabeen, encompassing 49 private properties dotted with 11 public land
areas, which include a car park and a surf club.
But not everyone is happy with the project. Earlier this year, residents
lined the beach in a bid to encourage the council
to invest in alternative measures to protect the beach, including a
nourishment plan that would artificially replace the sand. The local
community group has been protesting against a seawall for almost 30
years.
Senior lecturer at the University of NSW Water Research Laboratory
Mitchell Harley said annual king tides had combined with ex-tropical
cyclone Seth to create north-easterly waves that had resulted in coastal
erosion along Collaroy and other beaches along the east coast.
The sand in front of the controversial Collaroy sea wall has washed
away. Vision: Brook Mitchell
“Collaroy normally gets waves from the south and has a big headland that
protects the beach from waves, but the combination of large tides and
unusually north-east waves make beaches that would normally be protected,
exposed,” he said.
He said more research would be needed to determine the extent the seawall
played in Tuesday’s erosion event, but that north-easterly waves were
certainly a key driver in drawing sand off the beach.
University of Sydney coastal geomorphologist Professor Andrew Short said
coastal erosion events were likely to become more frequent as climate change
increased the likelihood of tropical cyclones and east coast lows.
“They are predicted to be more likely and more intense. It’s a double
whammy,” he said.
“Most communities are built on the southern end of beaches but they will be
more exposed to the impacts of erosion because of easterly storms.
Governments and coastal managers need to be aware and plan for those coming
changes.”
President of the northern beaches branch of the Surfrider
Foundation, Brendan Donohue, surveys the damage on
Tuesday. Credit: Brook Mitchell
President of the northern beaches branch of the Surfrider Foundation,
Brendan Donohoe, said Tuesday’s conditions had been treacherous to
beachgoers, leaving Collaroy Beach a “hellscape”.
“It was a public beach, now it’s a public hazard,” he said.
“If we get
another big swell over the next few weeks, unless the council
mechanically moves sand in, this beach will be impassable.”
He added that, while Tuesday’s conditions had been moderate, there were real
concerns about how the coastline would fare during larger erosion events.
Mr Donohoe and other concerned residents will attend a council development
application meeting opposing plans to build the next section of the seawall
in the coming months.
A Northern Beaches Council spokesperson said the recent weather had caused
minor erosion at Collaroy and Narrabeen, along with other locations in the
area.
“This level of erosion is not uncommon during large swell and tide events of
this nature and is not a direct result of the seawall under construction.
The beach will recover once conditions ease,” the spokesperson said.
“The rocks exposed from the recent high tides and large swell are part of
the temporary rock bund that is protecting the seawall being built during
construction which will ultimately be removed once construction is complete.
The scene after the storm damaged properties at Collaroy in
2016. Credit: Peter Rae
“The bund extends approximately 10 metres seaward and has been inspected
and is intact. No other construction material has been observed washing
into the sea. The area will continue to be monitored for safety and
access.”
The beach was closed on Wednesday due to powerful surf conditions.
The response to climate change is increasingly gendered, with inaction tied
to a phenomenon called ‘petro-masculinity’.
Participants in a global day of action on climate change in
Melbourne last year. Credit: William West / AFP
Growing up in the central Queensland coalmining town of Clermont, Daniel
Bleakley never imagined he’d end up gluing himself to buildings and going on
hunger strikes to protest about climate change.
“It was a rugby league town with a hypermasculine culture,” he tells
The Saturday Paper. “A lot of my friends used to ride bulls in rodeos,
get into fights at the pub. It was a tough cowboy culture out there, which
impacts anyone who lives in those communities.”
Electric vehicles were not macho enough. Salad was dismissed as rabbit food –
real men ate meat. Environmentalists were tree huggers and hippies.
“I wonder now if that culture happened organically, or if it had been seeded,”
Bleakley reflects. “A lot of vested interests benefit from it.”
It was only when he got the chance to study in Germany at the age of 18 that
Bleakley got to view the culture in which he grew up from the outside. “I made
new friends in Germany who were talking a lot about climate change,” he says.
“Living in Queensland I was not exposed to those same conversations.”
That experience set Bleakley on a path that would see him move to Melbourne and
join Extinction Rebellion protests. In Clermont, though, his new life was not
well received. Bleakley lost a lot of his old hometown friends because of his
views.
Research shows that men on average buy more high-emissions products, eat more
emissions-intensive food such as meat, vote for parties with weaker climate
policies, and actively avoid green life choices, which they dismiss as
effeminate.
American academic Dr Cara Daggett coined the term “petro-masculinity” to
describe the confluence of climate denial and misogyny, in which fossil fuels
become an expression of identity. In a 2018 study, she wrote: “It is no
coincidence that white, conservative American men … appear to be among the most
vociferous climate deniers.”
This plays out in politics, too, from Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro boasting of the
destruction of the Amazon, to Vladimir Putin declaring activist Greta Thunberg
fails to understand the “modern world is complicated and complex” as he
accelerates Russian gas exports, to Scott Morrison holding up coal in
parliament.
“Political leaders who espouse hyper forms of masculinity fail to recognise our
human vulnerability to global warming,” Deakin University masculinity expert
Professor Bob Pease tells
The Saturday Paper.
Even when espousing solutions, male leaders are more likely to promote a
technological fix rather than fundamental reforms to reduce humanity’s impact,
he says.
“Masculinity is about a sense of invulnerability and a
capacity to control – until we recognise our embeddedness in nature and our
human vulnerability we will not act to address the climate crisis.”
One possible fix is simply to elect more women. In Australia, female independent
candidates are challenging Coalition seats with calls for climate action.
Climate 200 has raised millions to help support independents at the coming
election. Of the 16 campaigns the organisation is “talking to or watching
closely”, 14 are for female candidates.
Convener Simon Holmes à Court attributes this to a groundswell of discontent
from women about not only climate change but the handling of sexual assault
allegations and corruption. “They’re all passionate about climate, one of the
number one or two issues on their platform,” he says, “but it goes deeper than
just that, to a general frustration with the state of politics.”
Holmes à Court recalls that in seminars for independents run by former MP Cathy
McGowan, roughly four out of five people in attendance were women. “It’s in line
really with any community organising – go to any school fundraiser, sports club,
the real work is 80 per cent done by women.”
Zara Bending, an associate at Macquarie University’s Centre for Environmental
Law and a director of the Jane Goodall Institute Australia, sees a lot more
women involved in environmental action groups, particularly at the volunteer
level. In her experience men with political power dismiss women raising the
alarm about climate change as “hysterical”.
Bending believes more women in power will help, but that men still need to
contribute more on green issues to counter the development of another gendered
workload left principally to women to address.
She attributes the gender gap to sustainability generally being marketed to
women, as well as ingrained cultural perceptions. “It’s this idea of women as
mothers and caregivers in the home, and the parallels of this environmental
image of Gaia the earth goddess – the notion of caring for the planet is an
extended metaphor for our home.”
To encourage more male engagement with green issues, Bending backs the elevation
of positive male role models, such as the “infectious enthusiasm” of
Gardening Australia host Costa Georgiadis, and to influencing children
at a younger age in initiatives such as the Jane Goodall Institute’s rewilding
school workshops and the Youth Climate Council.
A 2016 University of Notre Dame study found that people generally view green
products as feminine but that men can have their minds changed by branding that
appeals to traditional masculine traits such as power and strength.
It won’t be a simple task to shift attitudes, however. A survey by non-profit No
Meat May indicated 73 per cent of Australian men would rather die a decade
younger than stop eating meat.
Co-founder Ryan Alexander launched a campaign to dispel masculine
stereotypes about diet after noticing that at least 80 per cent of people who
signed up to his program to abstain from meat for a month were female. In
contrast, the people who heckled his organisation online were almost all men.
“We’re highlighting vegan and vegetarian men who are quite masculine, like this
guy Forest Nash who has never eaten meat in his life, is built like a shithouse,
goes to the gym, all that,” he says. “The climate crisis is the biggest issue of
our time – if men are going to step up to the plate and do their bit, then we
just have to engage with this stuff.”
Not everyone is convinced. Bob Pease believes that efforts to appeal to
masculinity are ultimately counterproductive. “In response to the notion that
‘real men eat meat’, some vegans argue that ‘real men are vegans’,” he says.
“But in my view, this is a dead end. If traditional masculinity is
fuelling men’s environmental destructiveness … we have to encourage men to
loosen their connection to that form of masculinity and embrace empathy, caring,
compassion and concern for nature as part of what it means to be an ethical
human being.”
Alexander agrees that a more profound interrogation of masculinity is important
but feels environmental movements have to take both approaches at once given the
urgent time frame.
“I’m a big fan of digging to the roots of
the problem – rebuilding masculinity into something not fragile but based on
taking care of the planet and others around you,” he says. “But we have time
challenges with climate change. Sometimes, we just have to meet people where
they’re at, and talk to them in their language.”
It is an approach tried by Bleakley, now an electric vehicle researcher with The
Australia Institute in Canberra. In 2021, for the first time in years, he
returned to Clermont to catch up with his family – including his brother Tim, a
haul truck driver at a nearby coalmine.
Tim asked if he could drive his brother’s Tesla to work and show it off to the
guys at the mine. Bleakley agreed but decided he wouldn’t go along as he felt
that the other miners would be uncomfortable with his presence, so he asked Tim
to film the drive.
The resulting video of a bearded coalminer delightedly slung back by the
vehicle’s intense acceleration went viral online, prompting the brothers to
produce a series on coalminers trying out Teslas.
Bleakley suggests the drives resonated with his home town in a way his other
climate activism didn’t, as it was less about telling people what to do and more
about sharing an experience with them. It also served as a way to engage with
men who bond over car culture, and to dispel myths that electric vehicles lack
power.
“A few guys who’ve been in the series are real car nuts,” he says. “There’s a
guy called Gougie. In Claremont he always had the fastest car in town and was
always working on his big V8 … so to see him enjoy that Tesla, well – that was
really special.”
The Herbert River ringtail possum is being driven from parts of its
mountain home. (ABC Far North: Mark Rigby)
Key Points
Global warming is driving
high-altitude possums from the lower parts of their range in
the Wet Tropics
Researchers and rangers are
teaming up to document the effects of climate change on
species
Scientists fear longer, hotter
summers could see some disappear completely from the
mountains
In the dead of night on the dark and often misty mountain peaks of far-north
Queensland, researchers and rangers search for possum species that are
disappearing from their natural habitat.
Climate change is driving them from parts of their mountain homes.
Among them is one of Queensland's most recognisable animals — the Herbert River
ringtail possum, the logo of the state's Parks and Wildlife Service worn on the
uniforms of its rangers.
At 600 metres above sea level, the edge of the possums' natural range,
researchers are making stark discoveries.
"Right now, we just don't see any; in certain locations we haven't seen a single
individual for a decade," said James Cook University (JCU) PhD student Alejandro
de la Fuente.
"The possums that are dying are not being replaced by newborns, and that
basically leads to a long-term decline in the net number of ringtail possums in
that location."
"Herbie" was adopted as the QPWS logo in 1976. (ABC Far North: Mark Rigby)
'Islands in the landscape'
JCU professor Stephen Williams has been researching and monitoring the effects
of climate change on mountain ecosystems for more than 20 years.
"As the summers get hotter and hotter, it's essentially pushing [the possums] up
the mountain, and at the lower elevations the heat's getting too much for them
and they've disappeared," he said.
"Unfortunately, the predictions we made about climate change almost 20
years ago are now coming true."
Researchers have joined forces with Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service (QPWS)
rangers and the Wet Tropics Management Authority (WTMA) to monitor populations
of the Herbert River ringtail and other high-altitude species suffering the
impact of a warming climate.
Roger James, ranger in charge of the QPWS Tinaroo base, said lemuroid and green
ringtail possums faced the same dire situation as their not-so-distant cousin.
Global warming has hit the lemuroid ringtail possum population
particularly hard. (ABC Far North: Mark Rigby)
"The problem is these mountain peaks are like islands in the landscape," he
said. "When you're at the top of the mountain there are no other mountain tops
around, so if you want to go to another mountain peak you have to go down and
across the farmlands and the possums just don't do that.
"They're stuck on these islands on these mountain tops, and that's the critical
thing."
'Nowhere else to go'
QPWS natural resource
management ranger Ben Solowiej said rangers' presence in Queensland's national
parks put them in a valuable position to contribute to monitoring the state's
endemic species.
"We have the ability to provide staff to undertake the surveys and provide the
logistical support," he said.
"In the past 18 months, taking out the wet season which would be about six
months of that, we've managed to contribute over 110 survey nights, whereas in
the past that might have taken years to achieve."
The location, time and weather at each possum sighting is
recorded. (ABC Far North: Mark Rigby)
While the concentration of possums at elevations higher than 1,000 metres above
sea level is increasing, there is no cause for celebration.
As the climate warms, researchers fear the possums will continue to disappear.
"After the mountain tops, they have literally nowhere else to go up in
elevation, and it's really difficult to do conservation in an area that's
already protected," Mr de la Fuente said.
What can be done to stop the decline of our birds?
Scientists are calling on governments Worldwide to do more to
protect the habitats and food sources of birds, as new research
shows a third of Australia's most threatened birds have become
more endangered.Read more
Well-protected animals disappearing
The teams monitoring the possums are finding no shortage of other Wet Tropics
species suffering a similar fate.
Mr James and his fellow rangers at Tinaroo are witnessing the disappearance of
mammals, birds, reptiles and invertebrates that usually inhabit the mountain
peaks.
"The golden bowerbird, an iconic bird species for the Wet Tropics, is being
monitored because, if the effects of climate change are going to pan out as
predicted, it's likely to be one of the first endemic species to disappear off
the top of the mountain," Mr James said.
"The spotted-tail quoll population on the Lamb Range is down to just a
handful of individuals."
Ben Solowiej, Alejandro de la Fuente and Roger James discuss their
plans for the night's monitoring trip. (ABC Far North: Mark Rigby)
Professor Williams said the disappearance of endemic species from World
Heritage-protected areas was testament to the impact of climate change.
"It's really critical right now as we've already seen a 50-per-cent decline in
the total population of some species," he said.
"All of these species that we would have considered to be completely safe
because they're in a well-protected, well-managed World Heritage area are
disappearing in front of our eyes."
An aerial view of Funafuti, Tuvalu, on Nov. 27, 2019. Tuvalu, a
low-lying South Pacific island nation of about 11,000 people, has
been classified as "extremely vulnerable" to climate change by the
United Nations Development Programme.
Mario Tama—Getty Images—2019 Getty Images
My country, Palau, has been
ravaged by the climate crisis, suffering two major typhoons that resulted in a
loss of more than half of our national GDP.
Our lives have been engulfed by sea-level rise for two decades. King tides
habitually flow into our homes. Mudslides are common along the only road to our
hospital and main business center during increasingly frequent and intense
storms.
It is only a matter of time before a typhoon floods the
corridors of our only hospital, wreaking havoc on our already strained
public-health system. These once seasonal occurrences now exacerbate our
existing health, environment and economic crises.
On the world’s stage, we and those suffering similar realities have demanded
bold action and robust delivery of community-centric adaptation and mitigation.
Yet the voices of these Indigenous people are drowned out as though by the winds
and rain that pummel their shores. That’s despite the fact that Pacific
small-island nation-states combined
are responsible
for a mere 0.03% of global emissions.
Meanwhile, powerful economies continue to discharge poisonous emissions along
with
unfulfilled pledges to fund losses and damages. Sadly,
international platforms like COP26
have been feeble sounding boards resulting in promises leading to disappointment
and false solutions that dilute the problems. The injustice is that the largest
emitters are not held accountable for our plight.
Given this dilemma, Palau has joined the Commission of Small Island States
(COSIS) on Climate Change and International Law to seek justice that advances
the basic principle that the polluter must pay. COSIS aims to be the first to
bring a case of this kind to the
U.N. International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.
We hope that our case will help determine the obligations of
countries under international law and hold polluters accountable.
Palau was the first member of COSIS from the
Alliance of Small Island States. Following our work at the U.N. General Assembly and COP26, in 2022 we hope to
bring in all small-island countries in pursuing judicial action through
international courts.
This will be a priority at the
Our Ocean Conference,
which Palau will host in April.
Like schools of surgeonfish that unite in the face of an imminent threat, the
global community must come together in vision, voice and action to combat the
alarming realities of the climate crisis.
Allies must hasten their
stride into a persuasive march toward real progress on the reduction of
emissions and prompt delivery of climate financing.
Palau’s people are resilient. Until the world corrects its course, we will
continue to adapt one day at a time.
We will mobilize our scarce
resources to move our hospital to higher ground; clear the debris and repair our
homes and businesses after each coming storm; and continue to collaborate with
partners and allies to collectively address future adversities.
I and other Pacific leaders look to our culture and environment for wisdom to
withstand these uncertain times. Yet we know wisdom without capacity cannot save
us.
Palau joins other small-island states and Indigenous peoples
across the globe in calling on the international community to make 2022 a year
of accountability, reciprocity and significant investments in adequate
safeguards that ensure basic human rights for the world, enabling us to fulfill
our responsibility as custodians of the earth to transfer our lands, our ocean
and our cultures to future generations.
Note: This essay is part of a series on concrete goals the world should aim for
in 2022 in order to put us on track to avert climate change-related
disaster.
Read the rest here.
A year ago, Mitch McConnell and Kevin
McCarthy were fleeing for their lives as a violent mob swarmed the halls of the
US Capitol. With their personal safety at risk, the two most powerful
Republicans on Capitol Hill at last stood up to Donald Trump.
In a
heated phone call, McCarthy, the House minority leader, fruitlessly implored the
president to
call off the mob. Senate majority leader McConnell later called the rioters “terrorists” and said Trump was “morally responsible” for the violence.
But McConnell and McCarthy soon slunk back to enabling Trump’s assaults on
democracy. They were quiet while Trump insisted that the 2020 election was
stolen and that anyone who disagreed must be purged from public office. They
stayed mute as Trump supporters threatened violence against election officials
and Republican-dominated state legislatures rewrote laws and procedures to
prevent fair voting.
McConnell and McCarthy have shamelessly put party ahead of country and ambition
ahead of duty, setting up alarming ramifications for the future. Scientists have
said for years
that humanity faces a climate emergency and that only rapid, far-reaching action
can preserve a livable planet.
On the first anniversary of the
January 6 attack, it’s clear that the United States also faces a democracy
emergency. Only rapid, far-reaching action can preserve a government that is of,
by, and for the people.
The democracy emergency is closely linked to the climate crisis. Each is
grounded in a big lie—that climate science is a hoax, that Trump won in
2020—pushed by the same right-wing politicians and propaganda “news” outlets and
embraced with cult-like devotion by Trump’s followers. Left untreated, each
threatens disaster.
If Trump’s forces do change enough electoral
rules and personnel to guarantee victory in 2022 and beyond, there is zero
chance the US government will take the strong climate action needed to avert
global catastrophe.
Defusing the global climate emergency therefore depends on protecting democracy.
To be sure, the United States is not the only country where anti-democratic
trends hamper climate progress. Most of the worst laggards at November’s Cop26
climate summit were countries where authoritarianism is either entrenched or on
the rise: China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, India, the US.
But
the collapse of US democracy would carry especially damaging climate
consequences. Slashing global emissions in half by 2030, as science says is
imperative, would be impossible if the world’s biggest economy and leading
historical carbon emitter refuses to help.
How to defuse the democracy emergency is too big a question to answer briefly.
President Biden and the Democrats surely must do more; Senate majority leader
Chuck Schumer has
promised a vote
by January 17 on reforming the filibuster to pass fair voting laws.
A mobilized civil society is also vital. With Trump’s followers
trying to install partisans on voting boards across the land,
The Atlantic’s
Barton Gellman notes
that democracy activists can likewise work at the local and state levels to
block such skulduggery and ensure fair elections..
A free press is foundational to democracy, and journalism must also rise to the
occasion with outspoken coverage. Monika Bauerlein, chief executive of
Mother Jones,
urges the media
to treat “the war on democracy” as the “big story” of 2022.
Washington Post columnist
Jennifer Rubin says
political reporters should “stop…concealing that only one party is launching a
campaign to suppress votes” and “demand that Republican [officials] defend their
participation in the big lie of a stolen election”—and if Republicans try to
dodge, keep asking the question.
Aside from Trump himself, no one deserves such journalistic grilling more than
McConnell and McCarthy. As the senior Republicans in Congress, they have the
stature to oppose Trump’s campaign for one-party rule. Twin profiles in
cowardice, they have instead betrayed their oath to defend the Constitution
against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
McConnell and McCarthy want the world to forget that a year ago today Trump’s
mob was hunting them down, leading each man to stand up, briefly, for democracy.
But the world must not forget. The press in particular must not allow McConnell,
McCarthy, and most other Republicans to obscure that they are enabling the
gravest threat to American democracy since the Civil War—and, by so doing,
encouraging a hellish climate future.
Covering Climate Now (CCN)
CCN is a global journalism
initiative committed to bringing more and better coverage to the defining story
of our time. Cofounded by
The Nation
and
Columbia Journalism Review, our initiative includes more than 300 outlets worldwide, and dozens of
institutional and independent partners, with a combined audience of more than 1
billion people.
Chile has lots of lithium, which is essential to the world’s transition to
green energy. But anger over powerful mining interests, a water crisis and
inequality has driven Chile to rethink how it defines itself.
Evaporation ponds at a lithium plant in Chile’s Atacama Desert.
Questions of mineral wealth, global warming and water are at the
heart of a rewrite of the nation’s defining document.
SALAR DE ATACAMA, Chile — Rarely does a country get a chance to
lay out its ideals as a nation and write a new constitution for itself. Almost
never does the climate and ecological crisis play a central role.
That is, until now, in Chile, where a national reinvention is underway. After
months of protests over social and environmental grievances, 155 Chileans have
been elected to write a new constitution amid what they have declared a “climate
and ecological emergency.”
Their work will not only shape how this country of 19 million is governed. It
will also determine the future of a soft, lustrous metal, lithium, lurking in
the salt waters beneath this vast ethereal desert beside the Andes Mountains.
Lithium is an essential component of batteries. And as the global economy seeks
alternatives to fossil fuels to slow down climate change, lithium demand — and
prices — are soaring.
Mining companies in Chile, the world’s second-largest lithium producer after
Australia, are keen to increase production, as are politicians who see mining as
crucial to national prosperity. They face mounting opposition, though, from
Chileans who argue that the country’s very economic model, based on extraction
of natural resources, has exacted too high an environmental cost and failed to
spread the benefits to all citizens, including its Indigenous people.
And so, it falls to the Constitutional Convention to decide what kind of country
Chile wants to be. Convention members will decide many things, including: How
should mining be regulated, and what voice should local communities have over
mining? Should Chile retain a presidential system? Should nature have rights?
How about future generations?
Around the world, nations face similar dilemmas — in the forests of central
Africa, in Native American territories in the United States — as they try to
tackle the climate crisis without repeating past mistakes. For Chile, the issue
now stands to shape the national charter. “We have to assume that human activity
causes damage, so how much damage do we want to cause?” said Cristina Dorador
Ortiz, a microbiologist who studies the salt flats and is in the Constitutional
Convention. “What is enough damage to live well?”
Then there’s water. Amid a crippling drought supercharged by climate change, the
Convention will decide who owns Chile’s water. It will also weigh something more
basic: What exactly is water?
‘Sacrifice Zones’
President-elect Gabriel Boric, center left, met with members
of Chile’s Constitutional Convention this month.
Chile’s current constitution was written in 1980, by people handpicked by its
then military ruler, Augusto Pinochet. It opened the country to mining
investments and allowed water rights to be bought and sold.
Chile
prospered by exploiting its natural riches: copper and coal, salmon and
avocados. But even as it became one of Latin America’s richest nations,
frustrations mounted over inequality. Mineral-rich areas became known as
“sacrifice zones” of environmental degradation. Rivers began drying up.
Anger boiled over into huge protests starting in 2019. A national referendum
followed, electing a diverse panel to rewrite the constitution.
On Dec. 19 came another turning point. Voters elected Gabriel Boric, a
35-year-old former student activist, as president. He had campaigned to expand
the social safety net, increase mining royalties and taxes, and create a
national lithium company.
The morning after his victory, the stock price of the country’s biggest lithium
producer, Sociedad QuÃmica y Minera de Chile, or SQM, fell 15 percent.
The Father of Volcanoes
An SQM lithium processing plant.
One fifth of the world’s lithium is produced by SQM, most of it in the Atacama
Desert in northern Chile in the shadow of ancient volcanoes, including the
oldest and still-active one, Lascar. The Lickanantay, the area’s Indigenous
people, call Lascar the father of all volcanoes.
From above, the mine looks as though someone has spread a glistening blue and
green quilt in the middle of this pale desert.
The riches lie in the brine underground. Day and night, SQM pumps out the brine,
along with freshwater from five wells. Pipes carry brine to a series of
ponds.
Then, the sun goes to work.
The Atacama has the
highest solar radiation
levels on Earth. Water evaporates astonishingly fast, leaving mineral deposits
behind. Magnesium comes out of the ponds. Also potassium. Lithium remains in a
viscous yellow green pool, which SQM converts into powdery white lithium
carbonate for battery makers abroad.
SQM was a state-owned maker of fertilizer chemicals until Mr. Pinochet turned it
over to his then son-in-law,
Julio Ponce Lerou, in 1983. More recently, it has been fined by Chile’s stock market regulator
and by the
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
over violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Mr. Ponce, no longer
chairman, retains 30 percent ownership.
Today, SQM is riding a lithium bull market. Carlos DÃaz, its vice president
for lithium, said the company is seeking to increase capacity from 140,000
tons of lithium carbonate to 180,000 tons by 2022. Mr. DÃaz said the firm
wants to “produce lithium as green as possible,” including by reducing
saltwater extraction by half by 2030 and by becoming “carbon neutral” by
2040. There is good reason. Nearby, a copper mine, called Escondida, was
fined $93 million
for extracting water and causing what a Chilean court called “irreparable
damage.”
The mining industry is bracing for change. A law to increase royalties is
working through the legislature. And the Constitutional Convention is weighing
provisions that could require more local decision-making.
Joaquin Villarino, president of the Mining Council, the industry lobby, said
both could diminish Chile’s appeal to investors. He voiced particular worry
that some of the Convention members appeared to be against mining altogether,
though he didn’t name any. “I hope this is not what we will have in our
Constitution,” he said, “because Chile is a mining country.”
The Convention is also likely to make water a public good. But another
question will bear on the industry even more: Is brine — the saltwater beneath
the desert — technically water? Mining companies assert it is not, because it
is fit for neither human nor animal consumption.
“There is a clear separation between what is coming from the mountain, that is
the continental water, and what you have in the brine in the Salar de
Atacama,” Mr. DÃaz said.
Brine extraction is currently governed by the mining code. The new
constitution could change that. It could call brine water.
Crisis in a Bright Lagoon
Paula EspÃndola, a member of the Lickanantay community, who
lives in an oasis in Soncor, near the Atacama salt flats.
The bird is looking for food, mainly brine shrimp, and this afternoon the
lake is unusually dry. Mr. Lique, 28, isn’t sure why. But it worries him.
The health of the salar (salt flat in
Spanish) constantly worries him, considering two major forces beyond his
control: the warming of the planet and the mining industry’s extraction of
water here in one of the world’s driest regions. The flamingo gives up its
search, unfurls its pale pink wings and flies.
Mr. Lique, a Lickanantay man, knows the tracks of the salt flat. His
grandfather herded sheep and goats here.
He was once set to go work for a mining company. It was a path to a good
salary. Instead, he found himself studying the effects of mining on his
people’s land. “Maybe it was an act of God or life’s circumstances,” he
said.
Some Indigenous people say mining companies have divided their communities
with offers of money and jobs. Mr. Lique’s organization is shunned by some
people because it accepts research funds from Albemarle, an American company
that also mines lithium locally.
His group has installed more than a dozen sensors to measure water levels,
salinity and temperature. He is particularly worried about “the mixing
zone,” a sensitive ecosystem, where freshwater coexists with saltwater
underground. The bright evaporation ponds act like mirrors, which Mr. Lique
suspects heats the air.
Independent research has found
declining soil moisture and ground cover in the salt flat, along with rising daytime
temperatures, evidence of a strong correlation between the expansion of
lithium mining and the drying of the area.
A government census has recorded a slight decline in the Andean flamingo
population in the Atacama since 1997, whereas their numbers remain
unchanged elsewhere in Chile. Alejandra Castro, a park ranger in charge of
flamingo reserves, suspects climate change.
SQM says its monitors show brine levels decreasing marginally in the
mixing zone, and that the flora and fauna remain healthy.
The Atacama is full of surprises. Parts of it are so dry the ground is
sharp and craggy, with no vegetation. Then the landscape changes suddenly,
giving way to ankle-high shrubs, or a forest of towering tamarugo trees. A
dirt road twists through the bare ocher hills, depositing you abruptly in
a ravine carrying mountain spring water.
Mr. Lique sees the compounding effects of climate change. Water on his
family’s farm, near the mine, evaporates more quickly. Rains are more
extreme.One alfalfa patch didn’t grow this year. The corn is short.
But Mr. Lique is most worried about how the extraction of so much brine
could change the delicate equilibrium of sun, earth and water, especially
amid climate change. “The best scenario is that it doesn’t get worse than
this,” he said. “The worst scenario is that everything dries up.”
Clues to the Future
Dr. Dorador, a microbiologist and member of the
Constitutional Convention, at the Antofagasta market.
Dr. Dorador, the Constitutional Convention member, walks through a busy
market in her hometown, Antofagasta. “The Constitution is the most
important law in the country,” she tells a man selling mangoes.
He listens politely.
Dr. Dorador, 41, describes what the assembly is discussing — water,
housing, health care. She explains the timeline: a draft constitution by
July, followed by a national vote.
Behind her, a man yells out the price of corn. Another is selling rabbits.
One woman vents about shoulder pain. A few tell her they have no time.
Dr. Dorador became drawn to the microorganisms that have survived for
millions of years in the salt flats. “We can learn a lot of things about
climate change studying the salares,
because they are already extreme,” she said. “You can find clues of the
past and also clues of the future.”
Dr. Dorador is vying to be the convention’s president. She wants the
constitution to recognize that “humans are part of nature.” She bristles
when asked if lithium extraction is necessary to pivot away from fossil
fuel extraction. Of course the world should stop burning oil and gas, she
says, but not by ignoring yet unknown ecological costs. “Someone buys an
electric car and feels very good because they’re saving the planet,” she
says. “At the same time an entire ecosystem is damaged. It’s a big
paradox.”
Indeed the questions facing this Convention aren’t Chile’s alone. The
world faces the same reckoning as it confronts climate change and
biodiversity loss, amid widening social inequities: Does the search for
climate fixes require re-examining humanity’s relationship to nature
itself?
“We have to face some very complex 21st century problems,” said Maisa
Rojas, a climate scientist at the University of Chile. “Our institutions
are, in many respects, not ready.”
A natural freshwater pond in the Salar de Atacama.
