[✔️] June 23, 2021 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[👀 Richard Pauli]

/*June 23, 2021*/

[tipping points]
*Climate tipping points could topple like dominoes, warn scientists*
Analysis shows significant risk of cascading events even at 2C of 
heating, with severe long-term effects
Ice sheets and ocean currents at risk of climate tipping points can 
destabilise each other as the world heats up, leading to a domino effect 
with severe consequences for humanity, according to a risk analysis.

Tipping points occur when global heating pushes temperatures beyond a 
critical threshold, leading to accelerated and irreversible impacts. 
Some large ice sheets in Antarctica are thought to already have passed 
their tipping points, meaning large sea-level rises in coming centuries...
- -
The level of CO2 in the atmosphere required to push temperatures beyond 
the thresholds could be reached in the very near future, she said. “In 
the next years or decades, we might be committing future generations to 
really severe consequences.” These could include many metres of 
sea-level rise from ice melting, affecting scores of coastal cities.

“We’re shifting the odds, and not in our favour – the risk clearly is 
increasing the more we heat our planet,” said Jonathan Donges, also at 
PIK and part of the research team...
- -
“The study suggests that below 2C of global warming – ie in the Paris 
agreement target range – there could still be a significant risk of 
triggering cascading climate tipping points,” said Lenton. “What the new 
study doesn’t do is unpack the timescale over which tipping points 
changes and cascades could unfold – instead it focuses on the eventual 
consequences. The results should be viewed as ‘commitments’ that we may 
be making soon to potentially irreversible changes and cascades, leaving 
as a grim legacy to future generations.”

However, the chance of a cascade of tipping points leading to a runaway 
greenhouse effect, where the planet gets ever hotter even if humanity 
stops carbon emissions, is extremely unlikely, according to Prof Anders 
Levermann, also at PIK but not involved in the new work. “The Earth will 
get as warm as we make it, which means we’re the ones [that must] stop 
it,” he said.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/03/climate-tipping-points-could-topple-like-dominoes-warn-scientists 




[Carbon fascism]
*The Climate Coup | Mark Alizart*
Nick Breeze
View more at https://genn.cc
Back this channel at https://patreon.com/genncc

In this episode of Shaping The Future, I am speaking with French 
philosopher Mark Alizart about his new book The Climate Coup.

The Climate Coup makes for fascinating reading as Mark identifies the 
forces of financial and self-interest who are either actively profiting 
or seeking to gain power from the misery and suffering that is a result 
of regional and global ecological and climate disasters.

In identifying these Carbofascists, Mark suggests there are parallels 
between events such as the Nazi burning of the Reichstag in 1933 and 
President Bolsonaro’s more recent wilful burning of the Amazon 
rainforest that has shocked the world.

Linking this seeming madness to the rise of populism, Mark suggests key 
responses that those of us interested in saving the global commons must 
consider if we are to win the struggle for a stable future.

The book is only 60 pages and available to buy online at the usual 
places. I would welcome any thoughts or feedback about The Climate Coup, 
so please do comment or get in touch with your thoughts.

Following this episode, I am going to post an interview I recorded at 
COP25 in Madrid with retired General Ghazi from Pakistan. General Ghazi 
was also formerly the Pakistani Defence Minister and explains how 
current trends of climate disruption increasing pressures on water 
supply, are a key indicator of future conflict in the region.

Conflict risk and human suffering are only going to increase as the 
world becomes hotter and resources more restricted. How we behave in the 
face of such pressures will be the true test of our humanity.
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tX4cZMiXUgY*
"Civil governments have always supported commerce and conquest within 
stable environments. It may be that in a rapidly destabilizing world, 
these forms of government are a worthless waste of time." -  R P



[murder by proxy]
*Legal experts worldwide draw up ‘historic’ definition of ecocide*
Draft law is intended to prosecute offences against the environment
Haroon Siddique -  Legal affairs correspondent -  22 Jun 2021
Legal experts from across the globe have drawn up a “historic” 
definition of ecocide, intended to be adopted by the international 
criminal court to prosecute the most egregious offences against the 
environment.

The draft law, unveiled on Tuesday, defines ecocide as “unlawful or 
wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial 
likelihood of severe and widespread or long-term damage to the 
environment being caused by those acts”.

The Stop Ecocide Foundation initiative comes amid concerns that not 
enough is being done to tackle the climate and ecological crisis.

If adopted by the ICC’s members, it would become just the fifth offence 
the court prosecutes – alongside war crimes, crimes against humanity, 
genocide and the crime of aggression – and the first new international 
crime since the 1940s when Nazi leaders were prosecuted at the Nuremberg 
trials...
- -
The ICC has been criticised for not investigating major environmental 
crimes. In 2016, it said it would assess existing offences, such as 
crimes against humanity, in a broader context to include environmental 
destruction and landgrabs.

Sands said some panel members had pushed for the definition to 
explicitly mention climate change but that was rejected because of a 
desire to make it more difficult for countries – and corporations – to 
oppose the proposed new law. Instead, it created “a definition that 
catches the most egregious acts but doesn’t catch the kinds of daily 
activity that so many of us, myself included, and regions and peoples 
and countries are involved in which cause significant harm to the 
environment over the long term”.

He cited transboundary nuclear accidents, major oil spills and Amazon 
deforestation as potential examples of ecocide but, on a smaller 
geographical scale, also the unlawful killing of a significant protected 
species such as the two remaining northern white rhinos.

Jojo Mehta, from Stop Ecocide Foundation, said it was a “historic 
moment”, adding: “The resulting definition is well pitched between what 
needs to be done concretely to protect ecosystems and what will be 
acceptable to states. It’s concise, it’s based on strong legal 
precedents and it will mesh well with existing laws. Governments will 
take it seriously, and it offers a workable legal tool corresponding to 
a real and pressing need in the world.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/22/legal-experts-worldwide-draw-up-historic-definition-of-ecocide



["We have met the enemy, and he is us!"]
*Prayer for a Just War*
Don’t keep calm and carry on: a new way of thinking about action on 
climate change
Greg Jackson -- June 10, 2021
What if we conceived of the fight against climate change as a “just 
war”—as both the biggest fight in human history and a global search for 
meaning? As fires rage, oceans rise, and pandemics ravage, the demands 
for international solidarity and world-scale deployments of resources 
are readily apparent. But in the face of ideological divisions wrought 
by centuries of capitalist and colonial destruction, it’s not always 
easy to envision what solidarity really is, or what it needs to be.

In “Prayer for a Just War,” published in the June issue of Harper’s 
Magazine, Greg Jackson urges us to see the “first comprehensive global 
challenge” as an opportunity to define our global character by our 
collective grit, humility, and trust. In addition to outlining the many 
counterattacks we must mount on political and technological fronts, 
Jackson imbues the mythic concept of the “existential threat” with 
historical and spiritual meaning. In this episode, Jackson delves into 
those ideas with web editor Violet Lucca, then gestures toward ways we 
might help each other step out of the deadly (and dull) alienation we 
all seem to share.
https://harpers.org/2021/06/prayer-for-a-just-war-climate-change/
Essay - 
https://harpers.org/archive/2021/06/prayer-for-a-just-war-finding-meaning-in-the-climate-fight/
podcast - https://soundcloud.com/harpersmagazine



[NYTimes toys with the subject]
*What if American Democracy Fails the Climate Crisis?*
Ezra Klein and four environmental thinkers discuss the limits of 
politics in facing down the threat to the planet.
By Ezra Klein --June 22, 2021
Of late, I’ve been obsessing over a single question: What if political 
systems, in the United States and internationally, fail to curb climate 
change?

It can seem an impolite question, even as it’s the path we’re on. 
President Biden’s climate agenda is both ambitious and, on its own, 
insufficient. Its political prospects are mixed at best...
- -
Jasanoff: I wanted to raise the question of responsibility, which hasn’t 
come up. I think people around the world see very clearly that we are 
not equally responsible for emissions. The word “Anthropocene” imagines 
that there’s a single anthropos and that the ages of humanity are 
measured according to its collective actions. And I think people’s lived 
experience is not of a singular humanity but of one that’s very much 
stratified and unequal. So, will people mobilize on a sufficient scale 
to make the hard choices? For some people, it’s not a hard choice. 
They’re already living at a subsistence level. So what are you going to 
tell them to do?

In a way, these geoengineering ideas are the solutions of the 
supersaturated mind. Having conceptualized the planet as one, having 
conceptualized humanity as a unitary anthropos, having conceptualized 
climate change as a global phenomenon, now all it can think of is a 
global technological solution.
Klein: But for a lot of people, it is a hard choice, including people 
who were looking forward to choices that they may now not have. And so 
let me end on this question: Does the future really have to be one of 
less? Or can climate change be solved within a context of abundance?

Griffith: I am optimistic that materially all of our lives can improve. 
It doesn’t mean we have a higher volume of things in our life. We will 
have more things that last longer and far, far fewer disposable things. 
But that doesn’t mean you have an empty house and a boring life. It 
probably means you have beautiful objects that you have a lot better 
relationship with. We have concepts like the Polynesian mana, in which 
the value of the object comes from its age and its history, not because 
of its shininess and newness. I am optimistic that we can bring billions 
of people up the quality-of-life ladder, but we don’t get there with our 
existing notions of property, ownership, debt and land use.

Gunn-Wright: I have never figured out a way, particularly as a Black 
woman, to tell people who have been oppressed and who have seen, you 
know, different things held up as luxuries or standards that will come 
to them eventually, that that is not the version of life that they 
should or can seek. That they have borne all sorts of ills to not get 
the thing that they thought might be their reward. I think that is 
incredibly difficult. And I don’t know how one delivers that message or 
even, as a person, takes that in.

Jasanoff: And no matter what happens, there will be a class of people, 
all over the planet, who will have the money, the political connections, 
the insurance to move their houses inland or up the hill or whatever. 
And who knows, maybe the kind of thinking that we had in the United 
States back in the 1970s, about the population explosion and the need to 
control the global population, could make a return. You know, who cares 
if there is a winnowing out of global humanity if Noah’s ark can be made 
available for the rich?
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/22/magazine/ezra-klein-climate-crisis.html



[Warning -- aspirational conjectures are most dangerous]
*Using Sunlight to Alleviate Global Warming: Breakthrough in Decomposing 
CO2 With High Efficiency*
https://scitechdaily.com/images/Synthesis-Method-Novel-Three-Component-Photocatalyst-777x332.jpg
Scientists find a way to efficiently use visible light from the sun to 
break down CO2, open doors to novel means of alleviating global warming.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from human activities have risen 
drastically over the last century and a half and are seen as the primary 
cause of global warming and abnormal weather patterns. So, there has 
been considerable research focus, in a number of fields, on lowering our 
CO2 emissions and its atmospheric levels. One promising strategy is to 
chemically break down, or ‘reduce,’ CO2 using photocatalysts — compounds 
that absorb light energy and provide it to reactions, speeding them up. 
With this strategy, the solar powered reduction of CO2, where no other 
artificial source of energy is used, becomes possible, opening doors to 
a sustainable path to a sustainable future...
- -
Dr. Ishii is hopeful about their photocatalyst’s potential. “It can make 
the solar reduction of industrial CO2 emissions and atmospheric CO2 an 
easy-to-scale and sustainable renewable energy-based solution tackling 
global warming and climate change, making people’s lives safer and 
healthier,” he says.
The next step, the team says, is to explore the possibility of using 
their photocatalyst for solar hydrogen generation. Perhaps, humanity’s 
future is bright after all!

Reference: “One-step synthesis of visible light CO2 reduction 
photocatalyst from carbon nanotubes encapsulating iodine molecules” by 
Ayar Al-zubaidi, Kenta Kobayashi, Yosuke Ishii and Shinji Kawasaki, 12 
May 2021, Scientific Reports.
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-89706-2
https://scitechdaily.com/using-sunlight-to-alleviate-global-warming-breakthrough-in-decomposing-co2-with-high-efficiency/


[video explanation]
*Sea Water Spraying Produces Tiny Airborne Salt Particles making Clouds 
Whiter to Cool Planet: 3 of 4*
Jun 21, 2021
Paul Beckwith
I was recently in a great video discussion with Peter Wadhams and 
Stephen Salter, hosted by Metta Spencer, to hash out the cloud 
brightening technique as conceptualized by Emeritus Professor Stephen 
Salter in the Engineering and Design Department at the University of 
Edinburgh over the last couple of decades.

Marine Cloud Brightening (MCB) has the potential to cool the planet in a 
highly controllable fashion. Essentially, sea water is pumped to high 
pressure through nozzles where it generates water jets that then break 
apart (via Rayleigh instability) to form tiny water droplets. The nozzle 
size, number of nozzles, water pressure, etc… are engineered to produce 
water droplets of 800 nm size (0.8 micron) so that when the water 
evaporates we are left with 200 nm salt crystals. These salt crystals 
are then transported within the turbulent boundary layer above the 
surface of the ocean up to heights about 1 km to 1.5 km where they act 
as cloud condensation nuclei, ensuring that the clouds that do form are 
of extremely high albedo (reflectivity) and thus can reflect enough 
incoming sunlight to cool the surface of the Earth.

The spray nozzles are transported around the oceans of the planet by 
hydrofoil ships powered by the wind using so-called Flettner Rotors. The 
ships are sailed to specific areas of the ocean at specific times of the 
year to brighten the clouds in specific regions to get the desired 
regional cooling, for example to reduce Atlantic Basin hurricane 
strength, protect coral reefs, cool the Arctic enough to restore Arctic 
Sea Ice, and!or modify monsoons or redistribute rainfall to reduce 
droughts or torrential rainfalls.

This technology has enormous potential to cool the planet enough to buy 
us time to slash fossil fuel emissions and deploy carbon removal 
technologies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TA79vWAM2Tc


[The news archive - looking back]
*On this day in the history of global warming June 23, 1988*

NASA scientist James Hansen warns the US Senate about the risks of 
human-caused climate change.

    *Global Warming Has Begun, Expert Tells Senate*
    By Philip Shabecoff, Special To the New York Times
    June 24, 1988

    The earth has been warmer in the first five months of this year than
    in any comparable period since measurements began 130 years ago, and
    the higher temperatures can now be attributed to a long-expected
    global warming trend linked to pollution, a space agency scientist
    reported today.

    Until now, scientists have been cautious about attributing rising
    global temperatures of recent years to the predicted global warming
    caused by pollutants in the atmosphere, known as the ''greenhouse
    effect.'' But today Dr. James E. Hansen of the National Aeronautics
    and Space Administration told a Congressional committee that it was
    99 percent certain that the warming trend was not a natural
    variation but was caused by a buildup of carbon dioxide and other
    artificial gases in the atmosphere.

    Dr. Hansen, a leading expert on climate change, said in an interview
    that there was no ''magic number'' that showed when the greenhouse
    effect was actually starting to cause changes in climate and
    weather. But he added, ''It is time to stop waffling so much and say
    that the evidence is pretty strong that the greenhouse effect is
    here.'' An Impact Lasting Centuries

    If Dr. Hansen and other scientists are correct, then humans, by
    burning of fossil fuels and other activities, have altered the
    global climate in a manner that will affect life on earth for
    centuries to come.

    Dr. Hansen, director of NASA's Institute for Space Studies in
    Manhattan, testifed before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources
    Committee.

    He and other scientists testifying before the Senate panel today
    said that projections of the climate change that is now apparently
    occurring mean that the Southeastern and Midwestern sections of the
    United States will be subject to frequent episodes of very high
    temperatures and drought in the next decade and beyond. But they
    cautioned that it was not possible to attribute a specific heat wave
    to the greenhouse effect, given the still limited state of knowledge
    on the subject. Some Dispute Link

    Some scientists still argue that warmer temperatures in recent years
    may be a result of natural fluctuations rather than human-induced
    changes.

    Several Senators on the Committee joined witnesses in calling for
    action now on a broad national and international program to slow the
    pace of global warming.

    Senator Timothy E. Wirth, the Colorado Democrat who presided at
    hearing today, said: ''As I read it, the scientific evidence is
    compelling: the global climate is changing as the earth's atmosphere
    gets warmer. Now, the Congress must begin to consider how we are
    going to slow or halt that warming trend and how we are going to
    cope with the changes that may already be inevitable.'' Trapping of
    Solar Radiation

    Mathematical models have predicted for some years now that a buildup
    of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and
    oil and other gases emitted by human activities into the atmosphere
    would cause the earth's surface to warm by trapping infrared
    radiation from the sun, turning the entire earth into a kind of
    greenhouse.

    If the current pace of the buildup of these gases continues, the
    effect is likely to be a warming of 3 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit from
    the year 2025 to 2050, according to these projections. This rise in
    temperature is not expected to be uniform around the globe but to be
    greater in the higher latitudes, reaching as much as 20 degrees, and
    lower at the Equator.

    The rise in global temperature is predicted to cause a thermal
    expansion of the oceans and to melt glaciers and polar ice, thus
    causing sea levels to rise by one to four feet by the middle of the
    next century. Scientists have already detected a slight rise in sea
    levels. At the same time, heat would cause inland waters to
    evaporate more rapidly, thus lowering the level of bodies of water
    such as the Great Lakes.

    Dr. Hansen, who records temperatures from readings at monitoring
    stations around the world, had previously reported that four of the
    hottest years on record occurred in the 1980's. Compared with a
    30-year base period from 1950 to 1980, when the global temperature
    averaged 59 degrees Fahrenheit, the temperature was one-third of a
    degree higher last year. In the entire century before 1880, global
    temperature had risen by half a degree, rising in the late 1800's
    and early 20th century, then roughly stabilizing for unknown reasons
    for several decades in the middle of the century. Warmest Year Expected

    In the first five months of this year, the temperature averaged
    about four-tenths of a degree above the base period, Dr. Hansen
    reported today. ''The first five months of 1988 are so warm globally
    that we conclude that 1988 will be the warmest year on record unless
    there is a remarkable, improbable cooling in the remainder of the
    year,'' he told the Senate committee.

    He also said that current climate patterns were consistent with the
    projections of the greenhouse effect in several respects in addition
    to the rise in temperature. For example, he said, the rise in
    temperature is greater in high latitudes than in low, is greater
    over continents than oceans, and there is cooling in the upper
    atmosphere as the lower atmosphere warms up.

    ''Global warming has reached a level such that we can ascribe with a
    high degree of confidence a cause and effect relationship between
    the greenhouse effect and observed warming,'' Dr. Hansen said at the
    hearing today, adding, ''It is already happening now.''

    Dr. Syukuro Manabe of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory of
    the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration testified today
    that a number of factors, including an earlier snowmelt each year
    because of higher temperatures and a rain belt that moves farther
    north in the summer means that ''it is likely that severe
    mid-continental summer dryness will occur more frequently with
    increasing atmsopheric temperature.'' A Taste of the Future

    While natural climate variability is the most likely chief cause of
    the current drought, Dr. Manabe said, the global warming trend is
    probably ''aggravating the current dry condition.'' He added that
    the current drought was a foretaste of what the country would be
    facing in the years ahead.

    Dr. George Woodwell, director of the Woods Hole Research Center in
    Woods Hole, Mass., said that while a slow warming trend would give
    human society time to respond, the rate of warming is uncertain. One
    factor that could speed up global warming is the widescale
    destruction of forests that are unable to adjust rapidly enough to
    rising temperatures. The dying forests would release the carbon
    dioxide they store in their organic matter, and thus greatly speed
    up the greenhouse effect. Sharp Cut in Fuel Use Urged

    Dr. Woodwell, and other members of the panel, said that planning
    must begin now for a sharp reduction in the burning of coal, oil and
    other fossil fuels that release carbon dioxide. Because trees absorb
    and store carbon dioxide, he also proposed an end to the current
    rapid clearing of forests in many parts of the world and ''a
    vigorous program of reforestation.''

    Some experts also believe that concern over global warming caused by
    the burning of fossil fuels warrants a renewed effort to develop
    safe nuclear power. Others stress the need for more efficient use of
    energy through conservation and other measures to curb fuel-burning.

    Dr. Michael Oppenheimer, an atmospheric physicist with the
    Environmental Defense Fund, a national environmental group, said a
    number of steps can be taken immediately around the world, including
    the ratification and then strengthening of the treaty to reduce use
    of chlorofluorocarbons, which are widely used industrial chemicals
    that are said to contribute to the greenhouse effect. These
    chemicals have also been found to destroy ozone in the upper
    atmosphere that protects the earth's surface from harmful
    ultraviolet radiation from the sun.

    https://www.nytimes.com/1988/06/24/us/global-warming-has-begun-expert-tells-senate.html


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