[✔️] February 28, 2022 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[👀 Richard Pauli]

/*February 28, 2022*/

/[ IPCC is the top-most science source   ] /
*Time is running out to adapt to climate change, new IPCC report says*
Region by region, the analysis describes “widespread, pervasive impacts” 
to ecosystems, people, settlements, and infrastructure.
Joseph Winters & Lina Tran -  Feb 28, 2022
Scientists have long warned that time is of the essence to stop emitting 
greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Now, in a new international report 
released on Monday, they argue the clock is also ticking on efforts to 
adapt to the devastating consequences of climate change. Rising seas, 
scorching wildfires, and devastating droughts already jeopardize 
billions of people worldwide — these, and other climate impacts, are 
expected to get much worse over the coming decades.

“Any further delay” in global action, the report says, “will miss a 
brief and rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and 
sustainable future for all.”...
- -
In many areas rising temperatures have already caused greater and more 
extensive damage to the natural world than suggested by previous 
assessments. Half of the species assessed by the IPCC have been forced 
to migrate toward the poles or to higher elevations, the report says, 
while melting glaciers and thawing permafrost are likely causing 
“irreversible” changes to the land and seas...
- -
There is still time to protect people and ecosystems from some of the 
worst impacts of climate change, the report says, but time is slipping 
away. The authors urge world leaders to prepare for worsening conditions 
by, among other things, conserving at least one-third of the world’s 
natural habitats. Forest conservation and management, for instance, can 
limit climbing risks from disease and wildfires, while restoring 
sponge-like wetlands and rivers can keep flooding in check. Preserving 
biodiverse forests and soggy peatlands has the added benefit of keeping 
some of the world’s biggest carbon sinks intact.

Changes to physical infrastructure, like building levees to safeguard 
against rising sea levels, can also help protect the up to 3.6 billion 
people who live in areas highly vulnerable to climate change, the report 
says. Other options include planned relocation — ”aligned with 
sociocultural values and development priorities, and underpinned by 
inclusive community engagement processes.”..
- -
Although adaptation efforts like these have become more commonplace 
since the IPCC’s last assessment report, released in 2014, the authors 
observe that most countries’ efforts are still small in scale and 
focused on the near term. Countries need to up the ambition of their 
plans, and fast: With every fraction of a degree the planet warms, it 
becomes more difficult to implement new adaptation strategies. At 1.5 
degrees Celsius, up to 14 percent of species on land face likely 
extinction. At 2 degrees C, snowmelt availability for irrigation and 
drinking water will decline by 20 percent, and flood damages could 
double — threatening the 1 billion people in low-lying cities and 
settlements. The authors recognize even the most ambitious adaptations 
won’t prevent all impacts; at this point, adaptation is simply about 
reducing as much damage as possible...
https://grist.org/science/time-is-running-out-to-adapt-to-climate-change-new-ipcc-report-says/



/[  Holthaus and Dr Britt Wray   ]/
*Chatting about climate anxiety with Dr. Britt Wray (@brittwray)*
FEB 27, 2022
Outline of the chat (about 30min total):

*What is climate anxiety?*

*Can you give us a preview of your new book?*

*What’s one unexpected thing you learned since starting this work?*

(All discussion paraphrased unless it's in direct quotes)

*Eric Holthaus:* I'm so excited to speak with you. Your work has been a 
source of strength for me, and your person-first writing on climate has 
really helped shape my own approach. Your TED Talk on climate change and 
mental health has almost 2.5 million views. For many people, you're 
probably the first voice that people find when they get up the courage 
to engage with their climate anxiety. Can you define what climate 
anxiety is in your own words?

*Dr. Britt Wray:* What we call "climate anxiety" is a bunch of 
co-occuring feelings that you can experience when confronting the 
climate crisis. There’s more than just anxiety: Helplessness, grief, 
fear, sadness, guilt, shame.

Basically, the definition about what it means to be human has changed. 
What we're seeing is people responding to that fact. We are facing 
synchronous crisis in nearly all parts of our world. People are 
experiencing extreme forms of discomfort at just being alive. It's 
normal to feel weird about all of it.

These feelings tend to affect younger people, but many older people feel 
this distress too.

*EH: *What suggestions do you have for folks who come to you and are in 
distress?

*BW: *I certainly didn’t intend to be one of the first people that 
people find in these situations.

When people approach me in crisis, I try to be very clear with them: I’m 
not a clinician, I’m not a therapist. When people come to me who are 
feeling suicidal, I try to show them they are not alone. They are 
reasonable for feeling this way. These feelings are a symptom of a very 
sick society that’s not built on care and partnership.

I tell them they should talk to a climate aware therapist, because 
that's a real thing now and it's a wonderful resource.

Also, I can't say enough about building community with other people who 
get it.

*EH: *How did you decide to turn what you've learned having these 
conversations into a book?

*BW: *All this began for me when my partner and I were contemplating 
having a kid. And then as I started to learn more and more, it felt like 
my entire world was crashing down. I was that friend at the party who 
brought up climate change in every conversation. But basically, my 
climate awareness terrified me on an existential level, and I had to 
figure out: How alone am I? How many others like me are out there? What 
can I do with this rage?

Writing the book helped me.

My partner and I ended up having a child recently after a four-year 
internal struggle. He’s doing well. His birth reminded me of the 
preciousness of life. It also reminded me that all activism is not just 
external. I had a lot of work to do on myself, and since then I've 
challenged myself to have less black and white thinking and cultivate 
joy along the way.

*EH:* What advice would you have for yourself, five years ago, when you 
were just starting your journey with climate anxiety?

*BW: *I'd tell myself it's going to be worth doing the research, it's 
going to be worth changing your career, it's going to be worth finding a 
way of being true to this distress. It's worth finding deep wells of 
purpose.

Basically, it feels really good to pay attention to this stuff and brush 
the bullshit aside. Stick with it.
https://thephoenix.earth/chatting-about-climate-anxiety-with-dr-britt-wray-brittwray/



/[  What are laws for?  ] /
*Panama Enacts a Rights of Nature Law, Guaranteeing the Natural World’s 
‘Right to Exist, Persist and Regenerate’*
The nation joins a host of other countries in embracing a legal movement 
that gives land, trees, rivers, coral reefs and mountains unique legal 
rights, similar to humans, corporations and governments.
By Katie Surma
February 25, 2022
- -
The legislation includes six paragraphs of rights extended to nature, 
including the “right to exist, persist and regenerate its life cycles,” 
the “right to conserve its biodiversity,” and the “right to be restored 
after being affected directly or indirectly by any human activity.”

Panama now joins Bolivia, New Zealand, Bangladesh, Ecuador, Brazil, 
Colombia and Mexico, among other countries, which have either issued 
court decisions, enacted laws or amended constitutions recognizing the 
legal rights of nature. Panama’s law will go into effect one year after 
it is published in the country’s Official Gazette...
- -
Panama, famous for its canal separating Central and South America, is 
rich in biodiversity, with vast swaths of tropical rainforests and 
mangroves that are home to over ten thousand species of plants and 
animals like jaguars and the spectacled bear. Areas like the Darién and 
Veraguas regions are also home to Indigenous peoples. But those areas 
have been under threat from development and extractive activity.

 From 2002 to 2020, the country, about half the size of Pennsylvania, 
lost about 194,000 acres of humid tropical forest, one of the most 
biologically diverse types of forest, according to Global Forest Watch. 
That is an area about four and a half times as large as Washington, D.C.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/25022022/panama-rights-of-nature/



/[  Australia is in trouble - sarcastic video ]/
//*Honest Government Ad | United Australia Party*
Feb 27, 2022
thejuicemedia
The United Australia Party has made an election ad, and it’s 
surprisingly honest and informative.

👉 Ways you can support us to keep making videos:
🔹 Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/TheJuiceMedia
🔹 Tip us on PayPal: https://www.paypal.me/thejuicemedia

👉 PODCAST: https://www.thejuicemedia.com/podcast
👉 PG VERSIONS: https://www.thejuicemedia.com/teachers
👉 STORE: https://shop.thejuicemedia.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8ovERhq6uw


[ Two classic videos about our current condition YouTube 1 & 2 ]
*Collapse in a Nutshell: Understanding Our Predicament (33 min)*
Nov 15, 2021
thegreatstory
This is part one of a two-part primer on the nature, inevitability, and 
speed of biospheric and civilizational collapse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6FcNgOHYoo

- -

*Overshoot in a Nutshell: Understanding Our Predicament (31 min)*
Nov 15, 2021
thegreatstory
This is part two of a two-part primer on the nature, inevitability, and 
speed of biospheric and civilizational collapse.... To join with others 
(in the "post-doom, no gloom" community) to share best practices and 
strategies for how to cope and adapt to this knowledge, see here: 
https://postdoom.com/discussions/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPMPINPcrdk

- -

[ One response is the open Zoom meeting - recorded ]

*Regenerative conversations exploring overshoot grief, grounding, and 
gratitude.*

https://postdoom.com
https://postdoom.com/discussions/

*Post-Doom-No-Gloom-Zoom-Calls*
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/qso1o9oaikh10os/AAArBcKv4rKJSAaTR4ZRRrhDa?dl=0



/[  This classic video is still important  ]/
*How not to go extinct - Sailesh Rao [IARC 2019]*
Sep 9, 2019
VeganKanal
This talk examines the top causes of premature extinction on Earth – 
climate change, biodiversity loss, ecosystems collapse, chemical 
pollution and more, and explains how a vegan lifestyle in conjunction 
with ecosystems restoration mitigates all of these causes. It advances 
the hypothesis that an ecosystems role for human beings as compassionate 
"Climate Healers" or as the "Thermostat Species" is in harmony with 
scientific facts as well as with the foundational myths of major 
religions. With strong scientific evidence, it shows why we need to 
transition to a largely Vegan World
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MFoTFtyA3A



/[ Some important ways to organize understanding ]/
*Climbing The Ladder of Awareness*
Bodhi Paul Chefurka
October 19, 2012
When it comes to our understanding of the unfolding global crisis, each 
of us seems to fit somewhere along a continuum of awareness that can be 
roughly divided into five stages:

    *1. Dead asleep.* At this stage there seem to be no fundamental
    problems, just some shortcomings in human organization, behaviour
    and morality that can be fixed with the proper attention to
    rule-making. People at this stage tend to live their lives happily,
    with occasional outbursts of annoyance around election times or the
    quarterly corporate earnings seasons.

    *2.  Awareness of one fundamental problem.* Whether it's Climate
    Change, overpopulation, Peak Oil, chemical pollution, oceanic
    over-fishing, biodiversity loss, corporatism, economic instability
    or sociopolitical injustice, one problem seems to engage the
    attention completely. People at this stage tend to become ardent
    activists for their chosen cause. They tend to be very vocal about
    their personal issue, and blind to any others.

    *3. Awareness of many problems.* As people let in more evidence from
    different domains, the awareness of complexity begins to grow.  At
    this point a person worries about the prioritization of problems in
    terms of their immediacy and degree of impact. People at this stage
    may become reluctant to acknowledge new problems - for example,
    someone who is committed to fighting for social justice and against
    climate change may not recognize the problem of resource depletion. 
    They may feel that the problem space is already complex enough, and
    the addition of any new concerns will only dilute the effort that
    needs to be focused on solving the "highest priority" problem.

    *4.  Awareness of the interconnections between the many problems.
    *The realization that a solution in one domain may worsen a problem
    in another marks the beginning of large-scale system-level thinking.
    It also marks the transition from thinking of the situation in terms
    of a set of problems to thinking of it in terms of a predicament. At
    this point the possibility that there may not be a solution begins
    to raise its head.

    People who arrive at this stage tend to withdraw into tight circles
    of like-minded individuals in order to trade insights and deepen
    their understanding of what's going on. These circles are
    necessarily small, both because personal dialogue is essential for
    this depth of exploration, and because there just aren't very many
    people who have arrived at this level of understanding.

    *5.  Awareness that the predicament encompasses all aspects of
    life.*  This includes everything we do, how we do it, our
    relationships with each other, as well as our treatment of the rest
    of the biosphere and the physical planet. With this realization, the
    floodgates open, and no problem is exempt from consideration or
    acceptance. The very concept of a "Solution" is seen through, and
    cast aside as a waste of effort.

For those who arrive at Stage 5 there is a real risk that depression 
will set in. After all, we've learned throughout our lives that our hope 
for tomorrow lies in  our ability to solve problems today.  When no 
amount of human cleverness appears able to solve our predicament the 
possibility of hope can vanish like a the light of a candle flame, to be 
replaced by the suffocating darkness of despair.

How people cope with despair is of course deeply personal, but it seems 
to me there are two general routes people take to reconcile themselves 
with the situation.  These are not mutually exclusive, and most of us 
will operate out of some mix of the two.  I identify them here as 
general tendencies, because people seem to be drawn more to one or the 
other.  I call them the outer path and the inner path.

If one is inclined to choose the outer path, concerns about adaptation 
and local resilience move into the foreground, as exemplified by the 
Transition Network and Permaculture Movement. To those on the outer 
path, community-building and local sustainability initiatives will have 
great appeal.  Organized party politics seems to be less attractive to 
people at this stage, however.  Perhaps politics is seen as part of the 
problem, or perhaps it's just seen as a waste of effort when the real 
action will take place at the local level.

If one is disinclined to choose the outer path either because of 
temperament or circumstance, the inner path offers its own set of 
attractions.

Choosing the inner path involves re-framing the whole thing in terms of 
consciousness, self-awareness and/or some form of transcendent 
perception.  For someone on this path it is seen as an attempt to 
manifest Gandhi's message, "Become the change you wish to see in the 
world," on the most profoundly personal level.  This message is 
similarly expressed in the ancient Hermetic saying, "As above, so 
below." Or in plain language,  "In order to heal the world, first begin 
by healing yourself."

However, the inner path does not imply a "retreat into religion". Most 
of the people I've met who have chosen an inner path have as little use 
for traditional religion as their counterparts on the outer path have 
for traditional politics.  Organized religion is usually seen as part of 
the predicament rather than a valid response to it. Those who have 
arrived at this point have no interest in hiding from or easing the 
painful truth, rather they wish to create a coherent personal context 
for it. Personal spirituality of one sort or another often works for 
this, but organized religion rarely does.

    /It's worth mentioning that there is also the possibility of a
    serious personal difficulty at this point.  If someone cannot choose
    an outer path for whatever reasons, and is also resistant to the
    idea of inner growth or spirituality as a response the the crisis of
    an entire planet, then they are truly in a bind. There are few other
    doorways out of this depth of despair.  If one remains stuck here
    for an extended period of time, life can begin to seem awfully
    bleak, and violence against either the world or oneself may begin
    begin to seem like a reasonable option.  Please keep a watchful eye
    on your own progress, and if you encounter someone else who may be
    in this state, please offer them a supportive ear./

 From my observations, each successive stage contains roughly a tenth of 
the number people as the one before it. So while perhaps 90% of humanity 
is in Stage 1, less than one person in ten thousand will be at Stage 5 
(and none of them are likely to be politicians).  The number of those 
who have chosen the inner path in Stage 5 also seems to be an order of 
magnitude smaller than the number who are on the outer path.

I happen to have chosen an inner path as my response to a Stage 5 
awareness. It works well for me, but navigating this imminent 
(transition, shift, metamorphosis - call it what you will), will require 
all of us - no matter what our chosen paths - to cooperate on making 
wise decisions in difficult times.

Best wishes for a long, exciting and fulfilling  journey.

Bodhi Paul Chefurka
http://www.paulchefurka.ca/LadderOfAwareness.html



/[The news archive - looking back]/
*February 28, 2014*
The New York Times reports:

    "The Interior Department opened the door on Thursday to the first
    searches in decades for oil and gas off the Atlantic coast,
    recommending that undersea seismic surveys proceed, though with a
    host of safeguards to shield marine life from much of their impact.

    "The recommendation is likely to be adopted after a period of public
    comment and over objections by environmental activists who say it
    will be ruinous for the climate and sea life alike.

    "The American Petroleum Institute called the recommendation a
    critical step toward bolstering the nation’s energy security,
    predicting that oil and gas production in the region could create
    280,000 new jobs and generate $195 billion in private investment.

    "Activists were livid. Allowing exploration 'could be a death
    sentence for many marine mammals, and is needlessly turning the
    Atlantic Ocean into a blast zone,' Jacqueline Savitz, a vice
    president at the conservation group Oceana, said in a statement on
    Thursday."

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/28/us/us-moves-toward-atlantic-oil-exploration-stirring-debate-over-sea-life.html?hp&_r=0

/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------/


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