[TheClimate.Vote] February 11, 2019 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/February 11, 2019/

[Lessons not learned]
*Plummeting insect numbers 'threaten collapse of nature'*
The world’s insects are hurtling down the path to extinction, 
threatening a "catastrophic collapse of nature’s ecosystems", according 
to the first global scientific review.

More than 40% of insect species are declining and a third are 
endangered, the analysis found. The rate of extinction is eight times 
faster than that of mammals, birds and reptiles. The total mass of 
insects is falling by a precipitous 2.5% a year, according to the best 
data available, suggesting they could vanish within a century.
The planet is at the start of a sixth mass extinction in its history, 
with huge losses already reported in larger animals that are easier to 
study. But insects are by far the most varied and abundant animals, 
outweighing humanity by 17 times. They are "essential" for the proper 
functioning of all ecosystems, the researchers say, as food for other 
creatures, pollinators and recyclers of nutrients.

Insect population collapses have recently been reported in Germany and 
Puerto Rico, but the review strongly indicates the crisis is global. The 
researchers set out their conclusions in unusually forceful terms for a 
peer-reviewed scientific paper: "The [insect] trends confirm that the 
sixth major extinction event is profoundly impacting [on] life forms on 
our planet.

"Unless we change our ways of producing food, insects as a whole will go 
down the path of extinction in a few decades," they write. "The 
repercussions this will have for the planet’s ecosystems are 
catastrophic to say the least."...
The analysis, published in the journal Biological Conservation, says 
intensive agriculture is the main driver of the declines, particularly 
the heavy use of pesticides. Urbanisation and climate change are also 
significant factors.

"If insect species losses cannot be halted, this will have catastrophic 
consequences for both the planet’s ecosystems and for the survival of 
mankind," said Francisco Sanchez-Bayo, at the University of Sydney, 
Australia, who wrote the review with Kris Wyckhuys at the China Academy 
of Agricultural Sciences in Beijing...
- -
The world must change the way it produces food, Sanchez-Bayo said, 
noting that organic farms had more insects and that occasional pesticide 
use in the past did not cause the level of decline seen in recent 
decades. "Industrial-scale, intensive agriculture is the one that is 
killing the ecosystems," he said.

In the tropics, where industrial agriculture is often not yet present, 
the rising temperatures due to climate change are thought to be a 
significant factor in the decline. The species there have adapted to 
very stable conditions and have little ability to change, as seen in 
Puerto Rico.

Sanchez-Bayo said the unusually strong language used in the review was 
not alarmist. "We wanted to really wake people up" and the reviewers and 
editor agreed, he said. "When you consider 80% of biomass of insects has 
disappeared in 25-30 years, it is a big concern."

Other scientists agree that it is becoming clear that insect losses are 
now a serious global problem. "The evidence all points in the same 
direction," said Prof Dave Goulson at the University of Sussex in the 
UK. "It should be of huge concern to all of us, for insects are at the 
heart of every food web, they pollinate the large majority of plant 
species, keep the soil healthy, recycle nutrients, control pests, and 
much more. Love them or loathe them, we humans cannot survive without 
insects."

Matt Shardlow, at the conservation charity Buglife, said: "It is gravely 
sobering to see this collation of evidence that demonstrates the pitiful 
state of the world’s insect populations. It is increasingly obvious that 
the planet’s ecology is breaking and there is a need for an intense and 
global effort to halt and reverse these dreadful trends." In his 
opinion, the review slightly overemphasises the role of pesticides and 
underplays global warming, though other unstudied factors such as light 
pollution might prove to be significant.
- -
Prof Paul Ehrlich, at Stanford University in the US, has seen insects 
vanish first-hand, through his work on checkerspot butterflies on 
Stanford’s Jasper Ridge reserve. He first studied them in 1960 but they 
had all gone by 2000, largely due to climate change.

Ehrlich praised the review, saying: "It is extraordinary to have gone 
through all those studies and analysed them as well as they have." He 
said the particularly large declines in aquatic insects were striking. 
"But they don’t mention that it is human overpopulation and 
overconsumption that is driving all the things [eradicating insects], 
including climate change," he said.

Sanchez-Bayo said he had recently witnessed an insect crash himself. A 
recent family holiday involved a 400-mile (700km) drive across rural 
Australia, but he had not once had to clean the windscreen, he said. 
"Years ago you had to do this constantly."
- - -
[research source]
*Worldwide decline of the entomofauna: A review of its drivers*

    Highlights
    -Over 40% of insect species are threatened with extinction.
    -Lepidoptera, Hymenoptera and dung beetles (Coleoptera) are the taxa
    most affected.
    -Four aquatic taxa are imperiled and have already lost a large
    proportion of species.
    -Habitat loss by conversion to intensive agriculture is the main
    driver of the declines.
    -Agro-chemical pollutants, invasive species and climate change are
    additional causes.

*Abstract*
Biodiversity of insects is threatened worldwide. Here, we present a 
comprehensive review of 73 historical reports of insect declines from 
across the globe, and systematically assess the underlying drivers. Our 
work reveals dramatic rates of decline that may lead to the extinction 
of 40% of the world's insect species over the next few decades. In 
terrestrial ecosystems, Lepidoptera, Hymenoptera and dung beetles 
(Coleoptera) appear to be the taxa most affected, whereas four major 
aquatic taxa (Odonata, Plecoptera, Trichoptera and Ephemeroptera) have 
already lost a considerable proportion of species. Affected insect 
groups not only include specialists that occupy particular ecological 
niches, but also many common and generalist species. Concurrently, the 
abundance of a small number of species is increasing; these are all 
adaptable, generalist species that are occupying the vacant niches left 
by the ones declining. Among aquatic insects, habitat and dietary 
generalists, and pollutant-tolerant species are replacing the large 
biodiversity losses experienced in waters within agricultural and urban 
settings. The main drivers of species declines appear to be in order of 
importance: i) habitat loss and conversion to intensive agriculture and 
urbanisation; ii) pollution, mainly that by synthetic pesticides and 
fertilisers; iii) biological factors, including pathogens and introduced 
species; and iv) climate change. The latter factor is particularly 
important in tropical regions, but only affects a minority of species in 
colder climes and mountain settings of temperate zones. A rethinking of 
current agricultural practices, in particular a serious reduction in 
pesticide usage and its substitution with more sustainable, 
ecologically-based practices, is urgently needed to slow or reverse 
current trends, allow the recovery of declining insect populations and 
safeguard the vital ecosystem services they provide. In addition, 
effective remediation technologies should be applied to clean polluted 
waters in both agricultural and urban environments.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0006320718313636#ab0005
- -
[Charity for insects]
*Help Buglife save the planet*
‘If we and the rest of the back-boned animals were to disappear 
overnight, the rest of the world would get on pretty well. But if the 
invertebrates were to disappear, the world's ecosystems would collapse.’ 
Sir David Attenborough
https://www.buglife.org.uk/


[How it's done in the UK]
*UK tells fracking industry it won’t relax rules on earth tremors*
Feb 7, 2019
The Conservative government has long backed shale gas exploration, but 
denied industry calls to loosen ‘unworkable’ limits on seismic activity
https://www.climatechangenews.com/2019/02/07/uk-tells-fracking-industry-wont-relax-rules-earth-tremors
- - -
[US fracking history from 2012]
*Earthquakes lead to calls for US fracking shutdown*
  Five shale gas drill sites have been closed in the US state of Ohio 
after a magnitude 4.0 earthquake struck over New Year, with calls for a 
full ban being raised.
https://www.climatechangenews.com/2012/01/04/fracking-concerns-lead-to-calls-for-shutdown-of-us-shale-gas-drilling/



[Tar sands line 3 - from Enbridge PR]
*Line 3 Replacement Program*
The multibillion-dollar Line 3 Replacement Program is the largest 
project in Enbridge history. The new Line 3 will comprise the newest and 
most advanced pipeline technology--and provide much needed incremental 
capacity to support Canadian crude oil production growth, and U.S. and 
Canadian refinery demand...
- -
The Line 3 Replacement Program, with a C$5.3-billion Canadian component 
and a US$2.9-billion American component, expands on the former Line 3 
Segment Replacement Program, and will include all remaining segments of 
Line 3 between Hardisty, Alberta and Superior, Wisconsin. All told, the 
Line 3 Replacement Program will fully replace 1,031 miles (1,660 
kilometres) of Line 3 with new pipeline and associated facilities on 
either side of the Canada-U.S. international border...
https://www.enbridge.com/Line3ReplacementProgram.aspx
- -
*Line 3 Project Summary* 
https://www.enbridge.com/~/media/Enb/Documents/Projects/Line%203/ProjectHandouts/ENB_Line3_Public_Affairs_ProjectSummary.pdf?la=en
- -
[Wikipedia overview]

*Enbridge Line 3*Line 3 is an oil sands crude oil pipeline that runs 
from Hardisty, Alberta to Superior, Wisconsin. Construction of a new 
route for Line 3 has been proposed by the Canadian oil company, 
Enbridge.[1] While this project was approved in Canada,[2] Wisconsin,[3] 
and North Dakota,[4] the proposed pipeline has received resistance from 
environmental groups and U.S. Native American communities in Minnesota.

*History of Line 3 and the New Proposed Route*
Construction on the original Line 3 pipeline started in 1962.[6] It 
began operating in 1968 to meet growing U.S. demand for oil.[6] Since 
its construction, the pipeline has carried on average between 390,000 
and 760,000 barrels of oil per day.[1] Numerous structural anomalies 
have developed along the pipeline over time.[7] These holes, and 
concerns about the safety of the pipeline, have led Enbridge to reduce 
the amount of oil transported daily.[1] Enbridge announced plans to 
build the new Line 3 in 2014.[6] That multi-billion dollar project would 
allow Enbridge to restore their historic operating capacity and move 
nearly 800,000 barrels per day...
- - -
With environmentalists vowing to fight the pipeline,[5] government 
officials are concerned about what sort of resistance might materialize 
as construction begins.[44] Commentators have compared the potential 
resistance to the front line protests over the Keystone XL and Dakota 
Access Pipelines.[45] Environmentalists have already pursued legal 
intervention,[46] direct action,[47][48] and more creative 
resistance[49] to the pipeline, so officials along the route fear that 
the next phase of resistance to Line 3 could incur high security costs 
and disruption to life along the proposed route...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enbridge_Line_3
- - -
[Line 3 Activism]
*Faith Leaders Gather in St. Paul to Oppose Line 3 Pipline Replacement*
https://www.wdio.com/news/faith-leaders-gather-st-paul-oppose-line-3-pipline-replacement/5239959/
- -
[MinnPost]
*Enbridge Line 3: The threat of spillage is as real as its precedent*
https://www.minnpost.com/community-voices/2019/01/enbridge-line-3-the-threat-of-spillage-is-as-real-as-its-precedent/


[to postpone or not]
*Doomsday postponed? What to take from the big new Antarctica studies*
By Eric Holthaus on Feb 7, 2019
There’s grim, mixed news out about Antarctica.
Two new papers on melting Antarctic ice come just days after NASA 
scientists announced the discovery of a massive subterranean hole in 
West Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier, the Florida-sized hunk of ice which 
alone could unleash more than two feet of sea-level rise should it collapse.

One study found that all this melting could have surprising and profound 
impacts on weather while the other (controversial) study scaled back 
previous Doomsday estimates. Still, the takeaway from both studies is 
clear: If we keep on our current path, things could go downhill for 
humanity very, very quickly.

The worst-case scenario that’s emerging is shockingly bad
In the first paper, an international team of researchers examined the 
impacts of melting ice on global ocean circulation and weather patterns.

As relatively cool, salt-free meltwater spreads from Antarctica and 
Greenland across the world’s oceans, it will have dire impacts: The 
circulation of the Atlantic Ocean will slow, changing how the planet 
distributes heat, and prompting "a complex pattern of atmospheric and 
oceanic changes" worldwide, according to the paper.

Weather would worsen almost everywhere, with year-to-year swings in 
temperature and precipitation increasing in severity by more than 50 
percent, especially in eastern North America.

New Zealand and Iceland may warm at a much slower rate than the rest of 
the world, but ice melt at both poles may actually quicken as heat from 
the rapidly warming tropical oceans is shunted below the surface where 
it can stay for hundreds of years. Sub-surface ocean currents would then 
be able to eat away at the undersides of polar glaciers even more quickly.

In this scenario, sea levels would rise quickly, especially for small 
island states in the Pacific which -- due to a new quirk in Earth’s 
gravity owing to the incredible ice loss at the poles -- would bear the 
brunt of a reshaped ocean-ice system.

"Melt from these ice sheets is going to significantly disrupt the global 
climate, making temperatures in some areas vary much more from one year 
to the next," lead author Nick Golledge said in a press release. "This 
unpredictability is going to prove extremely disruptive for all of us, 
and will make adaptation and planning much more difficult."

The shred of hope in towering ice cliffs
The first paper found that there’s almost no remaining scenario in which 
the Thwaites glacier stops melting anytime soon. Scientists have been 
increasingly worried about the possibility of catastrophic failure of 
the glacier since at least 2016.

Then, a study found that the Thwaites collapse could cause as much as 
eight feet of sea-level rise (nearly triple previous estimates). The 
results were so dire, the study was controversial. That much sea-level 
rise would cause, in the words of climate scientist James Hansen, "the 
loss of all coastal cities … and all their history."

Wednesday’s second paper is one of the first major responses to that 
finding. The new paper finds that while we might avoid what Grist has 
called an "Ice Apocalypse," it’s not necessarily good news: Sea-level 
rise would still exceed that of pre-2016 estimates, though at the lower 
end of the recently released National Climate Assessment, ordered by the 
Trump administration.

Here’s why the scientists revised those estimates: In 2016, researchers 
assumed that glaciers’ tall ice cliffs would be exposed and crash. The 
new study’s team said ice cliff melting "is not necessary to explain the 
past, and therefore it might not be present in the future -- at least, 
we don’t have much evidence to support it yet," according to Tamsin 
Edwards, the paper’s lead author. In other words, the relatively extreme 
collapses weren’t necessary to explain past major episodes of sea-level 
rise, so Edwards and her team made the decision to leave them out of 
their model -- just to see what would happen.

"Leaving it out gives much smaller sea-level contributions," she said, 
about 80 percent less by the end of the century, on average, than if the 
ice cliff collapses are included. Though the discrepancy means this 
debate is far from settled, she said. If anything, according to Edwards, 
her findings point to the need for closer examination of this process 
which could jeopardize hundreds of millions of people.

"We still see a dangerous threat," Rob DeConto, one of the authors of 
the 2016 paper, said in an email to Grist. "I don’t really see ice 
fracture as an optional process that can be excluded from ice sheet models."

"If the pace of calving we observe in Greenland today someday becomes 
widespread around the edges of the vastly bigger Antarctic ice sheet, it 
could cause very fast sea-level rise," DeConto said. "This was the take 
home message from our 2016 paper. Based on all the work that has 
followed, that basic conclusion remains unchanged."

The challenge these findings pose to us
Scientists’ job in Antarctica is incredibly daunting: They must 
understand not only how these massive glaciers are responding to current 
warming; they need to be able to put that response in context with 
evidence from past warm periods over millions of years, and do it all in 
one of the most remote places on the planet -- and they must present 
their findings with the utmost urgency.

For those of us watching intently from the sidelines, it may seem like 
contradicting findings are a sign scientists don’t know what they’re 
talking about -- but in reality, it means that they are unable to rule 
out the very dire possibility that things could get a whole lot worse. 
All the news out of Antarctica is just one big reason for us to act even 
more decisively.
https://grist.org/article/doomsday-postponed-what-to-take-from-the-big-new-antarctica-studies/
- - -
[read source material]
*Global environmental consequences of twenty-first-century ice-sheet melt*
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-0889-9.epdf?author_access_token=08JMwj9D6NjGOfWT5goBkNRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0OjguTgPal_JVR6p1C-luYByeQeYhS4jowq7gtJRXQNnM22yFa3O01lekAkpGqdupUwJzpICyIl18AF41S_JdMLe3G50_cQao2ognyBDr2GWg%3D%3D


[All politics is local]
*Despite fierce weather, Nebraska avoids climate change plan*
LINCOLN, Neb. (WOWT) - Nebraska lawmakers and conservationists who have 
seen a major drought, historic flooding and gigantic wildfires over the 
last decade are pushing to prepare the state for climate change, but 
legislators may not warm to the idea anytime soon.

Nebraska is one of seven Plains states that haven't created a plan to 
deal with the local impact of more extreme weather. Thirty-three others 
and the District of Columbia that have done so since the mid-2000s.

A bill to create a plan died in the Legislature in 2017. State Sen. 
Patty Pansing Brooks, of Lincoln, will present the measure again to a 
legislative committee, but its prospects are unclear.

Pansing Brooks says the study would rely on empirical evidence and 
Nebraska-based data.

Some senators don't like the bill's potential $250,000 cost.
https://www.wowt.com/content/news/Despite-fierce-weather-Nebraska-avoids-climate-change-plan-505637961.html

*This Day in Climate History - February 11, 2013 - from D.R. Tucker*
February 11, 2013: UPI reports on a Harvard University study that 
indicates "extreme weather and climate change present a potential threat 
to U.S. national security for which 'we are not prepared.'"
http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2013/02/11/Climate-change-risks-to-US-security-seen/UPI-54781360632325/#ixzz2m3sx4HrC 


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