[✔️] June 24, 2021 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[👀 Richard Pauli]

/*June 24, 2021*/

[leaks of harsh reality]
*IPCC steps up warning on climate tipping points in leaked draft report*
Scientists increasingly concerned about thresholds beyond which recovery 
may become impossible

Climate scientists are increasingly concerned that global heating will 
trigger tipping points in Earth’s natural systems, which will lead to 
widespread and possibly irrevocable disaster, unless action is taken 
urgently.

The impacts are likely to be much closer than most people realise, a a 
draft report from the world’s leading climate scientists suggests, and 
will fundamentally reshape life in the coming decades even if greenhouse 
gas emissions are brought under some control.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is preparing a landmark 
report to be published in stages this summer and next year. Most of the 
report will not be published in time for consideration by policymakers 
at Cop26, the UN climate talks taking place in November in Glasgow.

A draft of the IPCC report apparently from early this year was leaked to 
Agence France-Presse, which reported on its findings on Thursday. The 
draft warns of a series of thresholds beyond which recovery from climate 
breakdown may become impossible. It warns: “Life on Earth can recover 
from a drastic climate shift by evolving into new species and creating 
new ecosystems … humans cannot.”

Tipping points are triggered when temperatures reach a certain level, 
whereby one impact rapidly leads to a series of cascading events with 
vast repercussions. For instance, as rising temperatures lead to the 
melting of Arctic permafrost, the unfreezing soil releases methane, a 
powerful greenhouse gas that in turn causes more heating...
- -
Other tipping points include the melting of polar ice sheets, which once 
under way may be almost impossible to reverse even if carbon emissions 
are rapidly reduced, and which would raise sea levels catastrophically 
over many decades, and the possibility of the Amazon rainforest 
switching suddenly to savannah, which scientists have said could come 
quickly and with relatively small temperature rises.

Bob Ward, the policy and communications director at the Grantham 
Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London 
School of Economics, said: “Scientists have identified several potential 
regional and global thresholds or tipping points in the climate beyond 
which impacts become unstoppable or irreversible, or accelerate. They 
could create huge social and economic responses, such as population 
displacements and conflict, and so represent the largest potential risks 
of climate change. Tipping points should be the climate change impacts 
about which policymakers worry the most, but they are often left out of 
assessments by scientists and economists because they are difficult to 
quantify.”

Previous work by the IPCC has been criticised for failing to take 
account of tipping points. The new report is set to contain the body’s 
strongest warnings yet on the subject.

Simon Lewis, a professor of global change science at University College 
London, said: “Nothing in the IPCC report should be a surprise, as all 
the information comes from the scientific literature. But put together, 
the stark message from the IPCC is that increasingly severe heatwaves, 
fires, floods and droughts are coming our way with dire impacts for many 
countries. On top of this are some irreversible changes, often called 
tipping points, such as where high temperatures and droughts mean parts 
of the Amazon rainforest can’t persist. These tipping points may then 
link, like toppling dominoes.”...
- -
He added: “The exact timing of tipping points and the links between them 
is not well understood by scientists, so they have been under-reported 
in past IPCC assessments. The blunter language from the IPCC this time 
is welcome, as people need to know what is at stake if society does not 
take action to immediately slash carbon emissions.”...
- -
According to AFP, the IPCC draft details at least 12 potential tipping 
points. “The worst is yet to come, affecting our children’s and 
grandchildren’s lives much more than our own,” the report says.

The reportmay be subject to minor changes in the coming months as the 
IPCC shifts its focus to a key executive summary for policymakers.

It says that with 1.1C of warming above pre-industrial levels clocked so 
far, the climate is already changing. A decade ago, scientists believed 
that limiting global warming to 2C above mid-19th-century levels would 
be enough to safeguard the future.

That goal is enshrined in the 2015 Paris agreement, adopted by nearly 
200 nations who vowed to collectively cap warming at “well below” 2C – 
and 1.5C if possible. On current trends the world is heading for 3C at best.

Earlier models predicted that Earth-altering climate change was not 
likely before 2100. But the UN draft report says prolonged warming even 
beyond 1.5C could produce “progressively serious, centuries-long and, in 
some cases, irreversible consequences.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/23/climate-change-dangerous-thresholds-un-report 




[nice notion]
*Some Republicans Find Failure to Grapple With Climate Change a 
‘Political Liability’*
A small but growing number of Republicans say the G.O.P. needs a 
coherent climate strategy and formed a “Conservative Climate Caucus” on 
Capitol Hill.
By Lisa Friedman - June 23, 2021
WASHINGTON — When Representative John Curtis quietly approached fellow 
Republicans to invite them to discuss climate change at a clandestine 
meeting in his home state of Utah, he hoped a half dozen members might 
attend...
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For four years under President Donald J. Trump, even uttering the phrase 
“climate change” was verboten for many Republicans. His administration 
scrubbed the words from federal websites, tried to censor testimony to 
Congress and mocked the science linking rising fossil fuel emissions to 
a warming planet.
- -
Now, many in the Republican Party are coming to terms with what polls 
have been saying for years: independents, suburban voters and especially 
young Republicans are worried about climate change and want the 
government to take action.

“There is a recognition within the G.O.P. that if the party is going to 
be competitive in national elections, in purple states and purple 
districts, there needs to be some type of credible position on climate 
change,” said George David Banks, a former adviser to President Trump 
and now a senior fellow at the nonprofit Bipartisan Policy Center, a 
centrist Washington think tank. Republicans realize it is now “a 
political liability” to dismiss or even avoid discussing climate change, 
he said.
- -
“It’s my hope that any Republican that belongs to this caucus, if asked 
about climate in a town-hall meeting, will feel very comfortable talking 
about it,” Mr. Curtis said, adding, “I fear that too often Republicans 
have simply said what they don’t like without adding on ‘but here’s our 
ideas.’”...
- -
Meanwhile, Mr. McCarthy and other Republicans remain opposed to 
President Biden’s climate proposals, which include a clean electricity 
standard, which would require utilities to gradually increase the amount 
of electricity they produce from wind, solar and other renewable sources 
until they are no longer burning fossil fuels. And leading Republicans 
continue to spread a lie that Mr. Biden wants to force Americans to stop 
eating hamburgers, because of the environmental harm caused by beef 
production.
- -
Still, the fact that a growing number of Republicans are crafting a 
climate strategy is significant...
- -
The same event drew several young Republican activists from different 
parts of the country who said they were eager to change their party’s 
reputation as climate deniers...
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“For people our age, this is not a partisan issue,” said Maggie Ambrose, 
26, the membership director for a national Republican political action 
committee. “This is the starting point. It’s people saying ‘We’re young, 
this is where we want the party to go.’”
- -
“The conservative movement has to lean into this and it can’t be behind 
closed doors anymore,” he said. He described the Utah meeting as “almost 
like a ‘come to Jesus’ moment, where people started to realize we could 
take the offensive on these issues and become leaders, and we don’t have 
to keep being defensive.”
- -
Myron Ebell, director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Center 
for Energy and Environment who has long attacked the science of climate 
change, called the Republican moves “a way to win some suburban voters. 
I don’t take it very seriously.”

The proof is in behavior, not rhetoric, said Representative Kathy 
Castor, the Democratic chairwoman of the House Select Committee on the 
Climate Crisis.

“All of this is just greenwashing until they start to align their 
votes,” Ms. Castor said. “You can talk until the cows come home but you 
have to follow it up with real action.”
- -
“If we’re not successful working with Democrats then we’ll fail,” Mr. 
Curtis said. “If this is only about getting Republicans talking about 
climate and it just increases the partisan nature of climate, that’s a 
failure for me. We have to learn how to engage our Democratic colleagues 
to move forward legislation.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/23/climate/climate-change-republicans.html



[Everything goes to dust, or to melt water]
*Antarctic nearing climate disaster despite landmark historic treaty*
Burning fossil fuels threatens one of the last areas on Earth left 
unspoiled by extractive human industries.

When the Antarctic Treaty came into effect 60 years ago, its signatories 
had little idea how successful it would be.

World leaders agreed to leave an uninhabited continent twice the size of 
Australia free from war, weapons and nuclear waste. They declared that 
the southern polar region, which is 98% ice and does not have an 
indigenous population, should belong to no country and instead be 
devoted to collaborative science. In the following decades, extra rules 
to stop companies mining minerals and drilling for oil turned Antarctica 
into the biggest nature reserve in the world.

Now climate change is undermining that success story...
- -
A second study, published in June in the journal Science Advances, found 
that an ice shelf that supports the 175,000-square-kilometer 
(68,000-square-mile) Pine Island Glacier is breaking up into the water 
faster and faster. The glacier is responsible for more than a quarter of 
Antarctica's contribution to global sea level rise and will melt faster 
if it collapses into warm waters.

"If the ice shelf's rapid retreat continues, it could further 
destabilize the glacier far sooner than would be expected," the authors 
wrote...
- -
Keeping the peace
The Antarctic Treaty was signed in 1959 by 12 countries whose scientists 
had been active in the region, and entered into force two years later. 
The parties agreed that the region should be "a natural reserve, devoted 
to peace and science."

For superpowers such as the US and the then USSR — who would go on to 
fight proxy wars across Asia, Africa and South America over the next 
three decades — the Antarctic became a place of cooperation that offered 
a rare respite from the nuclear tensions of the Cold War.

In other diplomatic spaces, representatives from these countries "would 
pound their chests and yell," said Sridhar Anandakrishnan, a 
glaciologist at Penn State University in the US. But, in the Antarctic 
Treaty meetings, "they could formally, officially and openly talk."

For scientists, cooperation meant refueling planes at bases of other 
countries — essential in such a hostile landscape — and sharing 
findings. Teams of scientists in the Antarctic have collected climate 
data stretching back hundreds of thousands of years and in 1985 they 
discovered a dangerous hole in the ozone layer above it.

Everybody in Antarctica is there for "altruistic reasons," said 
Anandakrishnan, who has been on 23 scientific expeditions to the region 
since 1985. "We're there for something that we hope is larger than 
ourselves and is in service of society."...
- -
Earth's polar regions are warming faster than the rest of the planet. 
But unlike the North Pole, which has become the focus of geopolitical 
tensions as melting ice reveals rich resources, the South Pole has few 
known minerals or fuels to exploit other than some reserves of coal and 
oil. That has helped shield it from the attention of extractive industries.

Still, the Antarctic is big and similar enough to nearby geological 
areas to likely be home to more resources. Together with the region's 
inhospitable landscape — with thick ice and harsh weather making any 
commercial extraction costly — the Treaty's 1991 ban on mining and 
drilling has kept Antarctica free from anything other than scientific 
exploration. The ban is indefinite and may first be reviewed in 2048.

But the picture is less rosy for the waters around it...
- -
Still, as an example of global cooperation, the Antarctic Treaty has not 
been matched — though some experts are skeptical that it could be 
replicated in today's political climate of rising populism. "It would be 
seen as globalization, which it is," Anandakrishnan said. "It wouldn't 
have a snowball's chance in hell of being passed today."

https://www.dw.com/en/antarctic-treaty-system-climate-change/a-57993681

- -

[Big concerns today]
BY CAROL KONYN - POLAR REGIONS - JUL 20TH 2020
*Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier is Deteriorating at an Alarming Rate- 
What It Means*
Thwaites Glacier is losing ice faster and faster, and the process seems 
to be accelerating; over the past three decades, the amount of ice 
flowing out of Thwaites and its neighbouring glaciers has nearly doubled.

The glacier is more than 191 000 sq km and is particularly susceptible 
to the climate crisis. Rob Larter, marine geophysicist and UK principal 
investigator for the Thwaites Glacier Project at the British Antarctic 
Survey, said “it is the most vulnerable place in Antarctica,” with large 
portions deteriorating and breaking off.

David Vaughan, director of science at the British Antarctic Survey, 
stressed that if the Thwaites glacier continues to deteriorate at its 
current rate, it could collapse and be responsible for tens of 
centimetres of sea level rise by the end of the century. “That doesn’t 
sound like much, but it is,” Vaughan noted, “it is not about the sea 
coming up the beach slowly over 100 years – it is about one morning you 
wake up, and an area that has never been flooded in history is flooded.”

As Thwaites melts, it could propagate a 65 centimetre rise in sea 
levels, however if Thwaites fully deteriorates, the cascading effect 
across the Western half of Antarctica would lead to a 2- to 3-meter rise 
in sea levels, which would be ‘catastrophic’ for most coastal cities.

Paul Cutler, programme director for Antarctic glaciology at the National 
Science Foundation in the US, explains how Thwaites glacier “is a 
keystone for the other glaciers around it in West Antarctica … If you 
remove it, other ice will potentially start draining into the ocean too.”

Current models estimate a 61- to 110-centimetre sea level rise by the 
end of the century, assuming the world continues to emit the same amount 
of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

The Cascading Effects of Melting Ice
Antarctica holds around 90% of the ice on the planet- the ‘equivalent to 
a continent the size of Europe covered in a blanket of ice 2 kilometres 
thick’. As temperatures rise, the Earth does not heat up evenly 
everywhere: the polar regions warm much faster. Antarctica and Greenland 
are at the frontline of receiving much of global warming’s negative 
effects, more so than the rest of the world. Unfortunately, these high 
temperatures are being fuelled not just by a rise in greenhouse gases, 
but also by natural weather shifts in the tropics.

A recent study found that the South Pole, the most remote place on 
Earth, has warmed at three times the global rate since 1989, with 
temperatures rising 0.6 degrees per decade- a worrying figure that 
reveals the stark and rapid progression of global warming.

You might also like: The South Pole is Warming Three Times Faster Than 
the Global Rate

Warming Oceans
Currently, the Antarctic continent contributes about 1 millimetre per 
year to sea level rise, which is a third of the annual global increase.

There is a lot yet to understand about the physical properties of ice 
sheets and how they deteriorate with time- researching the Thwaites 
glacier is therefore pivotal. Anders Levermann, a professor at the 
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact, says, “it is very difficult to say 
how fast sea level is rising, but it is not very difficult to say how 
much ice can survive on a planet that is 1C or 2C or 3C warmer, and how 
much the ocean will expand.”

Despite reports demonstrating a decrease in carbon dioxide emissions 
amidst COVID-19 due to worldwide lockdowns, the long-term projection 
remains unsettling as carbon dioxide can remain in the atmosphere for 
long periods of time, and its levels are still increasing.

Additionally, the Earth’s core temperature is continuing to rise: last 
month was the hottest June on record, and in July a heatwave swept the 
Russian Arctic near Siberia resulting in temperatures of 38 degrees 
Celsius, which triggered the escalation of the Arctic wildfires.

Many of the observable effects of the climate crisis are irreversible, 
and continuous research is needed to understand what the future of 
rising sea levels holds and what it would mean for Earth’s inhabitants. 
Reversing these effects entirely is out of the question, scientists 
protest, but stopping them in their tracks by slowing the rate of global 
warming would help prevent further damage.

Tackling the Problem

The challenge lies in tackling the rapid rate of rising sea levels. If 
infrastructure planners prepare for a 60 or 70 centimeter rise in sea 
level, then an unprecedented rate of, say, twice as much, would diminish 
their efforts- making such plans ineffective in accommodating for a 
potential higher, unpredicted sea level rise. In light of this, research 
that aims to develop a greater understanding of Thwaites will help 
experts better plan and prepare for the future of Earth’s climate.

With higher sea levels comes coastal flooding, damaged infrastructure, 
heightened storms during typhoons, and destruction to agricultural land 
due to salty seawater invasion. Coastal cities have already begun 
preparing for the worst. San Francisco is building defences around its 
airport, which sits three metres above sea level, and London is 
considering increasing the height of the Thames barrier.

According to a study published in the journal Environmental Research 
Communications, the economic cost of such infrastructure aimed at 
accommodating rising seas will be as much as 4% of global GDP by the end 
of the century.

Thomas Schinko, author of a study published in Nature Climate Change and 
a researcher at the International Institute for Applied Systems 
Analysis, says that if we don’t adapt we will experience ‘huge losses’, 
stressing that it would be more cost-effective to prepare for the worst 
than to deal with the aftermath of rising sea levels
https://earth.org/antarcticas-thwaites-glacier-is-deteriorating-at-an-alarming-rate/



[is collapse or extinction possible?  partial transcript of video interview]
*Julia Steinberger: Can we avoid ecological collapse?* 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HwQqUVPo2E

    "I think the notion of one single collapse is --    it's a bit too
    much like the movies.

    So if you think about collapse -- Puerto Rico had a collapse, New
    Orleans had a collapse and I'm just talking about places in America
    -- Paradise, California pretty sure collapsed and places in
    Bangladesh right now, in Mozambique, you know after the hurricanes
    there last summer.  Some parts of Australia have collapsed.


    I would guess I'm just trying to think through the these places
    So we have places that have been hit by mega typhoons in the
    Philippines or probably facing collapse, places that have suffered
    horrific drought in India.

    So I think that collapse is not one thing in some places,  Some
    ecosystems some communities have already collapsed...you think
    partners after the storm,...there was just, it was just nothing.
    There was no help, there was nothing. So also think that we have the
    wrong idea of what it looks like -- collapse.
    Because when it happens at that level we don't hear the voices of
    the people.  You know either the people succeed in leaving and
    rejoining other communities or their conditions become completely
    miserable and you just don't you don't hear from them. And Mary
    Annaïse Heglar - a climate journalist and writer and one of the
    things she says - she's always looking for first person testimony
    from climate events happening around the world and how rare that is
    for journalists to be able to make it there, to be able to talk to
    those people to get first person accounts.
    So in terms of collapse,  collapse is already happening driven by
    environmental degradation.  In terms of mega events.  I think things
    are going to get worse but i think we're also learning to struggle
    against them

    So I'm trying to think about social tipping points. I'm trying to
    think about how we've had this idea that the transition to
    sustainability would be smooth.  This idea of transition is a smooth
    one right where we go smoothly in one direction for the good stuff
    and smoothing in one direction for the bad stuff and I think that
    this will not be a transition, (it) will be a transformation...
    it'll be transformation that happens some places first, other places
    later, and it will be sudden.
    It will be, you know, finally we managed to get to that point where
    this industry does not know. - no longer have traction, no longer
    get subsidies.  We can throw cars out of our cities - you know this
    is going to happen some places first  -- then other places then
    everywhere very fast.

      So the good stuff is going to happen suddenly,  the bad stuff is
    going to happen suddenly, and it's going to happen in different ways
    across across the world.

    I would think the thing that worries me the most in all of this is
    probably the rise of fascism and anti-democracy.
    So for all the people who always say "oh you're Stalinist" - "you're
    anti-democratic" or totalitarian socialist of some
    very specific description. The totalitarian governments are fossil
    fueled.  They are very much tied in with existing
    industrial powerhouses of  fossil fuel industries, automotive
    industries and so on..."

https://youtu.be/9HwQqUVPo2E?t=1322



[in the disinformation battleground - is this revelatory art?, or is 
this weaponry?]
*This Bot Clicking Ads on Climate Articles Shows the News Is Broken*
Synthetic Messenger, a project from artists Tega Brain and Sam Lavigne, 
makes climate news stories more visible with clicks.
Dharna Noor -  June 18, 2021
Watching Synthetic Messenger is a somewhat dissociative experience. It 
operates in a Zoom call with 100 participants, all of whom are bots. 
Observers can watch these bots—which are strangely anthropomorphized 
with images of disembodied hands and voices that say “scroll” and 
“click” repeatedly—methodically scroll through news articles about 
climate change and click every ad on each page.

The project, created by two New York artist-cum-engineers, launched 
earlier this month. In its first week and a half online, its bots 
visited 2 million climate articles—you can see them listed here—and 
clicked on 6 million ads.

If this all seems like a bizarre, trippy art project, it definitely is. 
But it’s also a piece of criticism about how narratives about the 
climate crisis are shaped by the media.

Most online outlets are funded by advertisers. Stories that garner more 
ad clicks can also become more visible in Google’s search algorithms, 
drawing more eyes to the page. When certain stories garner more views 
and engagement, news organizations are more likely to publish similar 
articles. Absurdly, this means advertising mechanisms and algorithms can 
play an outsized role in determining what news people see rather than 
other factors like, um, how important the story is.
“With this project, we wanted to see how that media ecology affects our 
actual ecology, how narrative affects our material realm,” Sam Lavigne, 
an artist and assistant professor in the Department of Design at the 
University of Texas, said.
Of course, conflicting narratives have always played a role in the 
climate crisis, as Lavigne was quick to note. Polluters know that 
controlling how people talk and think about the climate crisis is 
important, so they’ve spent fortunes on all sorts of misinformation 
campaigns, including on shaping narratives in media.
“The narrative around climate change has been so controlled by the 
fossil fuel industry and lobby groups,” Lavigne said.

Algorthims have further distorted how news—or, increasingly, 
misinformation—reaches people. YouTube’s algorithm for recommending 
videos, for instance, has encouraged viewers to watch videos full of 
climate denial. YouTube also sold against those videos, profiting off 
misinformation while incentivizing viewers to consume ever-more of it.

As historically damaging wildfires spread across Australia a 
year-and-a-half ago, a narrative sprung up that they were sparked by 
arsonists, not by the climate crisis. That misinformation, a group of 
researchers found, was spread with the use of online trolling bots. 
Conservative media then turned around and amplified those claims, 
creating a feedback loop where everyone was debunking lies rather than 
talking about how to address the climate crisis. (The same scenario 
played out in the U.S. last year.) Yet as Tega Brain, who co-created the 
project, noted, these aren’t the only ways that algorithms have colored 
the media landscape.

“All news, and therefore all public opinion is being shaped [by] 
algorithms,” Brain, an assistant professor of digital media at New York 
University whose background is in environmental engineering, said. “And 
the algorithmic systems that shape news are these blackbox algorithms,” 
she added, referring to tech companies’ practice of hiding how their 
code and priorities from the public.
Synthetic Messenger, then, looks to game the system by showing bot-fed 
interest in climate stories. While it could play a small role in 
amplifying climate coverage, there are some complications. For one, 
since its algorithm is imprecise and based on climate-related keywords, 
it also clicks ads on climate-denying media. Its creators have tried to 
get around that by blacklisting denialist websites like those owned by 
Rupert Murdoch, but it’s not a perfect system.

If this project were primarily designed as a tool for political 
organizing, those might be big sticking points. But Brain and Lavigne 
are clear that they know their project won’t change the media landscape 
or fight the climate crisis itself.

“We don’t intend for it to be read as like, ‘here is this really 
effective new activist strategy to deal with climate change,’” said 
Brain. “Essentially, with this project we’re doing what’s called ‘click 
fraud,’ and if we did it for a long enough time and at a large enough 
scale, it wouldn’t work, because obviously ad networks are doing 
everything they can to sort of protect against automated behavior. 
They’d stop it.”

Rather, the purpose is to call attention to the screwed-up incentive 
structures that determine what climate stories get told and amplified by 
advertisers and search algorithms.

“It’s not like we are offering this as a solution to this problem that 
we have. The solution is meaningful climate policy, effective policy,” 
said Brain. “But we’re trying to open up a conversation and reveal the 
way that our media landscape is currently operating.”
https://gizmodo.com/this-bot-clicking-ads-on-climate-articles-shows-the-new-1847123170

- -

[video art or information weapon?  -- I wish someone would tell me what 
I was looking at]
Carbon and Medial Cycle Dynamics
*Synthetic Messenger Performance 4*
Streamed live on Jun 5, 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlFW1gL6AGU

- -

[Web site of the artists]
*SYNTHETIC MESSENGER*
A BOTNET SCHEME FOR CLIMATE NEWS
Synthetic Messenger is a botnet that artificially inflates the value of 
climate news. Everyday it searches the internet for news articles 
covering climate change. Then 100 bots visit each article and click on 
every ad they can find.

In an algorithmic media landscape the value of news is determined by 
engagement statistics. Media outlets rely on advertising revenue earned 
through page visits and ad clicks. These engagement signals produce 
patterns of value that influence what stories and topics get future 
coverage. Public narratives around existential issues like climate 
change are shaped by these interwoven algorithmic and economic logics, 
logics that are presently leveraged by the fossil fuel industry.

Synthetic Messenger is a second-order climate engineering scheme to 
manipulate the algorithmic systems that shape these narratives. Climate 
engineering describes deliberate, large-scale interventions in the 
Earth's climate system, typically referring to speculative methods such 
as solar radiation management or carbon dioxide removal (either by 
machine or biophysical processes like tree-planting and soil 
management). At a time when our action or inaction has distinct 
atmospheric effects, the news we see and the narratives that shape our 
beliefs also directly shape the climate. What if media itself were a 
form of climate engineering, a space where narrative becomes ecology?
see the artwork of Carbon and Media Cycle Dynamics 
https://syntheticmessenger.labr.io/assets/cycle-animation.bb9af9fb.gif
https://syntheticmessenger.labr.io/



[great maps and graphics in this video]
*Prof. Paul A. Berkman: Struggles Over The Melting Arctic*
May 1, 2021
GBH Forum Network
Professor Paul Arthur Berkman is a science diplomat, applying, training 
and refining informed decision making.

U.S. President Donald Trump left many scratching their heads when it was 
rumored that he was looking to purchase the large island nation of 
Greenland from Denmark. While any potential deal seems highly unlikely, 
the event shows the changing opinion within the U.S. government toward 
engagement with the Arctic region. Because of climate change, large 
sheets of arctic ice are melting, exposing vast stores of natural gas 
and oil. With Russia and China already miles ahead with their Arctic 
strategies, can the U.S. catch up?

In 2010, Berkman co-directed the first formal dialogue between NATO and 
Russia regarding environmental security in the Arctic Ocean. Most 
recently, he was awarded the Fulbright Arctic Chair 2021-2022 by the US 
Department of State with funding from the US Congress and support from 
the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Professor Berkman built 
international networks at Tufts University from 2015-2020 at the 
Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He founded the first Science 
Diplomacy Center in the world in an academic institution, now directed 
through EvREsearch LTD, where he is the Chief Executive Officer. In 
addition to coordinating the Arctic Options/Pan-Arctic Options projects 
from 2013-2021, Professor Berkman is a Faculty Associate with the 
Program on Negotiation (PON) at the Harvard Law School and an Associate 
Director of Science Diplomacy in the Harvard-MIT Public Disputes 
Program. He also works as an Associated Fellow with the United Nations 
Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), developing global 
initiatives with science diplomacy and its engine of informed decision 
making.

GBH Forum Network ~ Free online lectures: Explore a world of ideas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JM_irWt0K9s



[interviewing Russian scientists]
*Sources of Arctic Methane | Igor Semiletov | Unseen footage of methane 
plumes from 2020 voyage | pt1*
May 12, 2021
Nick Breeze
The whole series and transcript will be available at https://genn.cc

This is part 1 in series of three posts on methane releases from the 
East Siberian Arctic Shelf recorded in 2021.

This is the first in a miniseries discussing the ongoing work in the 
Russian Arctic talking to Dr Igor Semiletov, one of the lead scientists 
who has been studying the region for over twenty years.

Old deep thermogenic pool

In assessing whether the potential for increased climate warming is a 
significant risk, scientists look at the size of the carbon pool and 
also the origin of the methane.

In many cases where methane is produced from biogenic sources, such as 
animals and plants, it is created by microbes and although has the same 
global warming potential, it is created very slowly and is often broken 
down to CO2 before it reaches the atmosphere.

The other source is thermogenic methane that occurs due to the decay of 
organic matter at high pressure and temperature. For these conditions to 
occur, the sediments where they are found are older and deeper.

In terms of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, many scientists have 
believed that the methane emissions are from biogenic sources. This 
means they would be slower to form and overall a lesser risk to the 
global climate.

This article has been created using extracts from recent interviews with 
Dr Semiletov. In part 2 I speak to Professor Orjan Gustafsson from the 
Department of Environmental Science at Stockholm University.

Orjan has been visiting the East Siberian Shelf for many years working 
alongside an international group of scientists including the Russians. 
He discusses how research into the escaping methane  and thawing 
permafrost in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf should be greatly expanded 
considering the magnitude and changing stability of the carbon pool. He 
also suggests that this research could have enormous ramifications for 
how carbon budgets that inform policy, are calculated.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGgcUSJbAqE

- -

[methane scientist]
*Russian Arctic Methane Releases & Subsea Permafrost Degradation | Prof 
Örjan Gustafsson (Pt 2)*
May 26, 2021
Nick Breeze
Support on Patreon: https://patreon.com/genncc

Visit & subscribe to genn.cc: https://genn.cc

This episode has been published and can be heard everywhere your podcast 
is available.
In this second episode of the methane miniseries, I speak to Professor 
Orjan Gustafsson from Stockholm University about his team's ongoing 
collaboration with the Russian research team, led by Professor Igor 
Semiletov, investigating the Siberian Arctic.

Orjan has published over 80 research papers jointly with his Russian 
colleagues on their findings in the Russian Arctic over the course of 
more than a decade. In this episode, he highlights why understanding 
this region is among one of the most important research areas in climate 
change today.

Despite the complexity of geopolitics that often infects peoples 
thinking in dealing with Russia, the opportunities for scientific 
collaboration in pursuit of critical knowledge can, in the long run, 
prove more beneficial than any short term political aims.

Thank you for listening to Shaping The Future. More interviews and 
podcasts can be found on climateseries.com, GENN.CC and on all major 
podcast channels and Youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsplufI48Ik


[deployment to the Arctic ]
*On the Deployment of Ocean Spraying Vessels to Brighten Marine Clouds 
to Cool the Planet: 4 of 4*
Jun 23, 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=c8Ko60kXk6w



[The news archive - looking back]
*On this day in the history of global warming June 24, 2004*

June 24, 2004: NYTimes.com reports:

"The Supreme Court handed a major political victory to the Bush 
administration today, ruling 7 to 2 that Vice President Dick Cheney is 
not obligated, at least for now, to release secret details of his energy 
task force.

"The majority of the justices agreed with the administration's arguments 
that private deliberations among a president, vice president and their 
close advisers are indeed entitled to special treatment — arising from 
the constitutional principle known as executive privilege — although 
they said the administration must still prove the specifics of its case 
in the lower courts.

"'A president's communications and activities encompass a vastly wider 
range of sensitive material than would be true of any ordinary 
individual,' the court said in a summary of the majority opinion written 
by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy.

"By sending the case back to the lower federal courts, the majority 
removed a significant political headache for President Bush and Vice 
President Cheney. As a practical matter, the outcome today means that 
the final resolution will not come until well after the November elections."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/24/politics/24CND-CHEN.html
https://www.fas.org/sgp/jud/cheney062404.pdf



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