[TheClimate.Vote] April 10, 2021 - Daily Global Warming News Digest..

Mon Apr 12 02:33:07 EDT 2021

/*April 10, 2021*/

[related global problem]
*Greta Thunberg to skip UN climate conference over vaccine inequality*
https://thehill.com/policy/international/un-treaties/547313-greta-thunberg-skipping-un-climate-conference-cites-vaccine

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[Young eco evangelist in BBC showing on Amazon Prime 
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11891770/]
*Greta Thunberg: A Year to Change the World*
First episode, BBC One, 12 April**-**available on Amazon Prime
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Read more: 
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2273634-greta-thunbergs-amazing-year-meeting-the-worlds-climate-scientists/#ixzz6rJYJurjx*
**Greta Thunberg's amazing year meeting the world's climate scientists*
By Karina Shah - 6 April 2021

  “I don’t want you to listen to me, I want you to listen to the 
science,” says Greta Thunberg in the first episode of a new three-part 
documentary series about her life.

It is a message we have heard before from the 18-year-old. But in Greta 
Thunberg: A Year to Change the World, we follow the activist as she 
embarks on a year off school to learn more about herself, get hands-on 
experience of the consequences of climate change and further explore the 
science of global warming with the help of the world’s leading scientists.

Thunberg has been the figurehead for young climate activists 
across the world ever since she protested in front of the Swedish 
parliament building in 2018, aged just 15. Since then, she has inspired 
thousands of  people and challenged policy-makers in her fight against 
climate change – her impact has even been dubbed “the Greta Thunberg 
effect”.

The first episode of the BBC documentary focuses on Thunberg and her 
father, Svante, in late 2019 as they travel through North America on 
their way to the UN COP25 climate conference in Chile. They stop at 
three key locations that reveal how the environment is changing as a 
direct result of warming temperatures.

First, they visit the Canadian Rockies to investigate why the once lush 
pine forests there are dwindling. The trees are dying, biologist Brenda 
Shepherd tells Thunberg, because rising temperatures are increasing the 
number of mountain pine beetles. Canada is the world’s fourth largest 
oil producer, employing over 170,000 people. But as a result, some areas 
of the country are experiencing increases in temperatures twice as fast 
as the rest of the world.

Thunberg emphasises the importance of balancing the trade-off between 
the strength of the global economy and the health of the planet – 
something she has repeatedly explained to politicians and industry 
players alike. To help drive this message home, the series is 
interspersed with impassioned scientists working across the field, as 
well as economists who examine what can be done to avert the worst of 
the climate crisis.

But the first episode suddenly resembles something out of a horror film 
when it introduces real footage of Californian wildfires which were 
among the deadly blazes that ravaged the west coast of the US between 
2018 and 2020. Thunberg meets Julian Martinez, a survivor of the fires 
who emotionally recalls watching his home burn to the ground.

He narrowly escaped with his life, but many others weren’t so fortunate. 
And around the world, wildfires are destroying the lives of thousands of 
people, as seen in last year’s Australian bush fires.

With just over a month until COP25, Thunberg receives news that the 
event is being relocated to Madrid following anti-government riots in 
Chile’s capital, Santiago. “I’ve been going halfway around the world the 
wrong way,” she says.

As Thunberg famously opposes air travel because of its excessive carbon 
emissions, she puts out a public call to help her cross the Atlantic 
Ocean by boat to reach the conference in time. Her call is answered on 
Twitter by a family sailing across the Atlantic in a carbon-neutral 
catamaran boat equipped with solar panels, a wind turbine and 
hydro-generators. We see her brave life-threatening storms on the 36-day 
transatlantic voyage. “It was a constant game of avoiding the next big 
storm,” she says.

These extreme weather events are caused in part by climate change, as 
sea temperatures rise and winds become stronger – something Thunberg 
experiences first-hand. After she safely reaches Madrid, the first 
episode finishes on the hard-hitting speech, fuelled by facts and 
figures, she gives to COP25 delegates in 2019. Thunberg often receives 
media attention for her emotional outbursts calling out politicians, but 
in this speech she focuses on the undeniable science she learnt from the 
scientists who appear in the episode.

The series continues to 2020, and we see how Thunberg is challenged by 
the covid-19 pandemic that has brought the world to a standstill. In a 
time when mass protests are unsafe, Thunberg investigates how we can all 
play a part in the fight against climate change closer to home – from 
rethinking our food choices to the clothes we wear.

She isn’t the only person who sees the pandemic as a crunch point. The 
documentary features Jillian Anable, a professor of transport and energy 
at the University of Leeds, UK, who feels our approach to covid-19 could 
inform future climate action. “We’ve had a global crisis and we’re in a 
situation where policy-makers have had to put the science at the 
forefront,” she told New Scientist. And indeed, the series clearly 
presents the scientific evidence and extremity of climate change, 
without getting caught up in the politics of decision-making.

Thunberg is an undeniable force to be reckoned with, but the documentary 
presents a more delicate side to her, making it clear that she still has 
a lot to learn. It can be difficult to demonstrate the urgency of 
climate change to those who see it as a threat for the distant future. 
But by showcasing Thunberg’s journey in learning about the science 
behind climate change, we see that the evidence presents itself every day.
Read more: 
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2273634-greta-thunbergs-amazing-year-meeting-the-worlds-climate-scientists/#ixzz6rJWnBpvG 

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[short video and transcript]
*George Monbiot: ‘It’s time to bail out the planet’*
Apr 8, 2021
openDemocracy
The COVID-19 pandemic has been a nightmare for all of us. As vaccines 
are deployed across the world, many hope we’ll soon be able to return to 
our previous lives. But before we rush to resume ‘business as usual’, we 
should pause to consider where COVID came from.
Transcript

The Coved 19 Pandemic has been a nightmare for all of us
as vaccines are deployed across the world many hope will soon be
able to
return to our previous lives.
But before we rush to resume business as usual, we should pause
to consider where Covid came from.
Like many infectious diseases Covid19 has its origins in the
encroachment of human activity into the natural world
As countries have sought to grow their economies -- activities
like logging, mining road building, farm expansion and urbanization
cause massive habitat destruction. This in turn has brought
people into ever closer contact with wild animal species
many of which carry dangerous pathogens and diseases.
When humans venture into ecosystems and destroy the habitats of
wild species
these diseases can jump from animals into the human population.
Around three quarters of new diseases and infect humans come
from other animals.
Covid19 was not a random event, it's a symptom of a global economic
system that's destroying the living planet and killing off our
magnificent wildlife.
Covid19 may be the first pandemic many of us have experienced,
But unless we change course it will almost certainly not be the
last.
So before we spend billions of dollars reinstating the status quo,
perhaps it's time for a rethink in order to prevent future
pandemics,
and tackle ecological and climate breakdown, governments must
take a different path.
What would this look like?
It means investing to decarbonize the global economy as fast as
possible
and shrinking our environmental footprint.
It means bringing an end to destructive activities like
deforestation and intensive mining
And it means ending our addiction to economic growth, and
putting the needs of people in the planet first.
After the financial crisis in 2008 we bailed out the banks.
In 2021, we need to bail out the planet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0guuB34MKM

[Down-under, undertows]
*First-Ever Observations From Under Antarctica’s ‘Doomsday Glacier’ Are 
Bad News*
Dharna Noor - April, 9, 2021
Glaciers all over Antarctica are in trouble as ice there rapidly melts. 
There’s no Antarctic glacier whose fate is more consequential for our 
future than the Thwaites Glacier, and new research shows that things 
aren’t looking good for it.

Researchers have known that the Thwaites Glacier is in trouble due to 
encroaching warm waters, but they’d never actually analyzed data from 
beneath the glacier’s float ice shelf—until now. A new study published 
in Science Advances on Friday presents the first-ever direct 
observations of what’s going under the infamous ice shelf, including the 
temperature and salinity of the water that’s flowing under it as well as 
the strength of the current.

What they found is pretty troubling. The authors explain that the supply 
of warm water to the glacier’s base is larger than scientists previously 
believed, which means it’s even more unstable than we thought. Given 
that it’s often called the “doomsday glacier,” that’s particularly ominous.

Thwaites glacier a broad, vast hunk of ice that flows from the West 
Antarctic ice sheet into Pine Island Bay, a part of the Amundsen Sea. 
The 119,300-square-mile (192,000-square-kilometer) ice shelf is 
disappearing faster than any other one in the region in large part 
because of the waters circulating beneath it and wearing away at its 
base. If it collapses completely, it could have a devastating effect on 
global sea level rise.
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The study illustrates the importance of climate adaptation measures, 
including weighing the potential benefits of having communities retreat 
away from coasts. That’s especially true because Graham said that it’s 
not entirely clear whether or not the Thwaites’ demise is preventable.

“We might (and I stress might) have already reached and passed a point 
where there is really no turning back for Thwaites, no matter what we as 
humans do to our climate,” Graham.

Graham knows how scary this is firsthand since he lives on the Florida 
Gulf Coast. But not all is lost.
https://earther.gizmodo.com/first-ever-observations-from-under-antarctica-s-doomsd-1846650385
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[Source material]
*Pathways and modification of warm water flowing beneath Thwaites Ice 
Shelf, West Antarctica*
Science Advances  09 Apr 2021: Vol. 7, no. 15, eabd7254
DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abd7254
*Abstract*

Thwaites Glacier is the most rapidly changing outlet of the West
Antarctic Ice Sheet and adds large uncertainty to 21st century
sea-level rise predictions. Here, we present the first direct
observations of ocean temperature, salinity, and oxygen beneath
Thwaites Ice Shelf front, collected by an autonomous underwater
vehicle. On the basis of these data, pathways and modification of
water flowing into the cavity are identified. Deep water underneath
the central ice shelf derives from a previously underestimated
eastern branch of warm water entering the cavity from Pine Island
Bay. Inflow of warm and outflow of melt-enriched waters are
identified in two seafloor troughs to the north. Spatial property
gradients highlight a previously unknown convergence zone in one
trough, where different water masses meet and mix. Our observations
show warm water impinging from all sides on pinning points critical
to ice-shelf stability, a scenario that may lead to unpinning and
retreat.

https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/7/15/eabd7254/tab-pdf
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/7/15/eabd7254

[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming - April 10, 2007 *

April 10, 2007: In a debate with Senator John Kerry in Washington, DC, 
Newt Gingrich acknowledges that climate change is real and largely 
caused by human activity, though he insists that regulatory solutions 
are not needed to stem emissions. By 2009, Gingrich would once again 
suggest that the basic science of human-caused climate change was in 
dispute.

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/197538-1

https://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/02/19/gingrich-didnt-always-take-issue-with-john-kerr/198125 

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