[✔️] September 14, 2023- Global Warming News Digest | Apple learns climate, NPR floods worldwide, Beyond safe, Forever has ended, Britt Wray cool, 2004 was the time to act

[Richard Pauli]

/*September *//*14, 2023*/

/[  Apple's Tim Cook tries to surf PR with a slick video -- 
https://x.com/tim_cook/status/1701732427897491578  but some comments in X ]/
Tim Cook
@tim_cook
*At Apple, we believe that climate change is one of the world’s most 
urgent priorities and we are deeply committed to doing our part. Today 
we had a special guest—a real force of nature—stop by to check on our 
progress.*
- -
Maggie Melo🇨🇦🇺🇸🇵🇹
@MaggieMelo93292
·5h
*You know, Tim, if I can call you Tim, before you start worrying about 
the weather in 200 years, why don't you stop using slave labor to build 
your products.  I imagine that little change will do more to improve the 
planet in the immediate future.*
*- -*
Furkan
@frknforreal
· -
*Shut up and make some real “innovation” next time.*
https://twitter.com/tim_cook/status/1701732427897491578



/[  NPR probably know the cause  ]/
*Climate change exacerbates deadly floods worldwide*
September 13, 2023
Rebecca Hersher at NPR headquarters in Washington, D.C., July 25, 2018.

Catastrophic floods in eastern Libya killed at least 5,100 people, 
according to local authorities. The disaster comes after a string of 
deadly floods around the world this month, from China to Brazil to 
Greece. In every case, extremely heavy rain was to blame.

The enormous loss of life on multiple continents reinforces the profound 
danger posed by climate-driven rain storms, and the need for better 
warning systems and infrastructure to protect the most vulnerable 
populations.

Climate change makes heavy rain more common, even in arid places where 
the total amount of precipitation is small. That's because a hotter 
atmosphere can hold more moisture. Everyday rainstorms, as well as 
bigger storms such as hurricanes, are increasingly dangerous as a result.

In Libya, a storm called Daniel swept in from the Mediterranean over the 
weekend and resulted in a jaw-dropping 16 inches of rain in just 24 
hours, according to the World Meteorological Organization. That is far 
too much water for the ground to absorb, especially in an arid climate 
where the soil is dry and is less able to suck up water quickly.

The massive amount of rain caused widespread flash flooding, and 
overwhelmed at least one dam near the coastal city of Derna. That 
unleashed torrents of water powerful enough to sweep away entire 
neighborhoods.

While it was clear to global meteorologists that the storm was powerful 
and was headed for the Libyan coast, it's not clear that residents of 
Derna were warned about the severity of the potential flooding. Libya is 
governed by two rival governments, and years of war means dams and other 
infrastructure haven't been well-maintained.

Before it got to Libya, the storm called Daniel also devastated Greece 
and Turkey with enormous amounts of rain. Some parts of Greece received 
more than two feet of rain in a three hour period last week, according 
to local authorities. And in Hong Kong last week, a record-breaking 6 
inches of rain fell in one day. That caused flash flooding in the dense, 
hilly city, carrying away cars and flooding underground rail stations.

In Brazil, flooding from a cyclone last week killed more than 20 people 
and left a swath of southern Brazil underwater.

Cities around the world are scrambling to upgrade their infrastructure 
to handle increasingly common deluges.

The disasters in the last two weeks also underscore the vulnerability to 
climate change of people who are not wealthy or who live in places that 
are at war. While extreme rain has caused floods around the world 
recently, the death toll is significantly higher in places where there 
isn't money or political will to maintain infrastructure and adequate 
weather warning systems.
https://www.npr.org/2023/09/13/1199273629/climate-change-exacerbates-deadly-floods-worldwide



/[ .. well known 4 decades ago - to scientists that is.]/
*Earth ‘well outside safe operating space for humanity’, scientists find*
First complete ‘scientific health check’ shows most global systems 
beyond stable range in which modern civilisation emerged
Damian Carrington Environment editor
@dpcarrington
Wed 13 Sep 2023

Earth’s life support systems have been so damaged that the planet is 
“well outside the safe operating space for humanity”, scientists have 
warned.

Their assessment found that six out of nine “planetary boundaries” had 
been broken because of human-caused pollution and destruction of the 
natural world. The planetary boundaries are the limits of key global 
systems – such as climate, water and wildlife diversity – beyond which 
their ability to maintain a healthy planet is in danger of failing.

The broken boundaries mean the systems have been driven far from the 
safe and stable state that existed from the end of the last ice age, 
10,000 years ago, to the start of the industrial revolution. The whole 
of modern civilisation arose in this time period, called the Holocene.

The assessment was the first of all nine planetary boundaries and 
represented the “first scientific health check for the entire planet”, 
the researchers said. Six boundaries have been passed and two are judged 
to be close to being broken: air pollution and ocean acidification. The 
one boundary that is not threatened is atmospheric ozone, after action 
to phase out destructive chemicals in recent decades led to the ozone 
hole shrinking.

The scientists said the “most worrying” finding was that all four of the 
biological boundaries, which cover the living world, were at, or close 
to, the highest risk level. The living world is particularly vital to 
the Earth as it provides resilience by compensating for some physical 
changes, for example, trees absorbing carbon dioxide pollution.

The planetary boundaries are not irreversible tipping points beyond 
which sudden and serious deterioration occurs, the scientists said. 
Instead, they are points after which the risks of fundamental changes in 
the Earth’s physical, biological and chemical life support systems rise 
significantly. The planetary boundaries were first devised in 2009 and 
updated in 2015, when only seven could be assessed.

Prof Johan Rockström, the then director of the Stockholm Resilience 
Centre who led the team that developed the boundaries framework, said: 
“Science and the world at large are really concerned over all the 
extreme climate events hitting societies across the planet. But what 
worries us, even more, is the rising signs of dwindling planetary 
resilience.”

Rockström, who is now joint director of Potsdam Institute for Climate 
Impact Research in Germany, said this failing resilience could make 
restricting global heating to the 1.5C climate goal impossible and could 
bring the world closer to real tipping points. Scientists said in 
September that the world was on the brink of multiple disastrous tipping 
points.

Prof Katherine Richardson, from the University of Copenhagen who led the 
analysis, said: “We know for certain that humanity can thrive under the 
conditions that have been here for 10,000 years – we don’t know that we 
can thrive under major, dramatic alterations [and] humans impacts on the 
Earth system as a whole are increasing as we speak.”

She said the Earth could be thought of as a patient with very high blood 
pressure: “That does not indicate a certain heart attack, but it does 
greatly raise the risk.”

The assessment, which was published in the journal Science Advances and 
was based on 2,000 studies, indicated that several planetary boundaries 
were passed long ago. The boundary for biosphere integrity, which 
includes the healthy functioning of ecosystems, was broken in the late 
19th century, the researchers said, as destruction of the natural world 
decimated wildlife. The same destruction, particularly the razing of 
forests, means the boundary for land use was broken last century.

Climate models have suggest the safe boundary for climate change was 
surpassed in the late 1980s. For freshwater, a new metric involving both 
water in lakes and rivers and in soil, showed this boundary was crossed 
in the early 20th century.

Another boundary is the flow of nitrogen and phosphorus in the 
environment. These are vital for life but excessive use of fertilisers 
mean many waters are heavily polluted by these nutrients, which can lead 
to algal blooms and ocean dead zones. According to the UN Food and 
Agriculture Organization data, three times the safe level of nitrogen is 
added to fields every year.

The boundary for synthetic pollution, such as pesticides, plastics and 
nuclear waste, was shown to have been passed by a 2022 study. The 
Richardson-led analysis assessed air pollution for the first time, which 
affects plant growth and monsoon rains. It found air pollution has 
passed the planetary boundary in some regions such as south Asia and 
China, but not yet globally. Ocean acidification is also assessed as 
getting worse and being close to exceeding the safe boundary.

The scientists said: “This update finds that six of the nine boundaries 
are transgressed, suggesting that Earth is now well outside of the safe 
operating space for humanity.”

Rockstrom said: “If you want to have security, prosperity and equity for 
humanity on Earth, you have to come back into the safe space and we’re 
not seeing that progress currently in the world.”

Phasing out fossil fuel burning and ending destructive farming are the 
key actions required.

The planetary boundaries are set using specific metrics, such as the 
level of CO2 in the atmosphere for climate change. The Earth’s systems 
are resilient to some level of change, so most of the boundaries have 
been set at a level higher than that which persisted over the last 
10,000 years. For example, CO2 was at 280 parts per million until the 
industrial revolution but the planetary boundary is set at 350ppm.

Prof Simon Lewis, at University College London and not part of the study 
team, said: “This is a strikingly gloomy update on an already alarming 
picture. The planet is entering a new and much less stable state – it 
couldn’t be a more stark warning of the need for deep structural changes 
to how we treat the environment.”

“The planetary boundaries concept is a heroic attempt to simplify the 
world, but it is probably too simplified to be of use in practically 
managing Earth,” he continued. “For example, the damage and suffering 
from limiting global heating to 1.6C using pro-development policies and 
major investments in adapting to climate change would be vastly less 
than the damage and suffering from limiting warming to 1.5C but doing 
this using policies that help the wealthy and disregard the poor. But 
the concept does work as a science-led parable of our times.”

A related assessment published in May examined planetary boundaries 
combined with social justice issues and found that six of these eight 
“Earth system boundaries” had been passed.

The researchers said more data was needed to deepen the understanding of 
the current situation, as well as more research on how the passing of 
planetary boundaries interact with each other. They said the Earth’s 
systems had been pushed into disequilibrium and, as a result, “ultimate 
global environmental conditions” remained uncertain.

A separate initiative to define the end of the Holocene and the start of 
a new age dominated by human activities moved forward in July, when 
scientists chose a Canadian lake as the site to represent the beginning 
of the Anthropocene. This group settled on a date of 1950, significantly 
later than the dates indicated by most of the planetary boundaries.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/13/earth-well-outside-safe-operating-space-for-humanity-scientists-find




/[ Hey, that's my territory, and this is not a sur/prise ]
*The ‘Forever’ Glaciers of America’s West Aren’t Forever Anymore*
Climate change is melting the ice on Mount Rainier. The environmental 
effects will be widespread, a Park Service study warned.

Once, there were 29. Now at least one is gone, maybe three. Those that 
remain are almost half the size they used to be.

Mount Rainier is losing its glaciers. That is all the more striking as 
it is the most glacier-covered mountain in the contiguous United States.

The changes reflect a stark global reality: Mountain glaciers are 
vanishing as the burning of fossil fuels heats up Earth’s atmosphere. 
According to the World Glacier Monitoring Service, total glacier area 
has shrunk steadily in the last half-century; some of the steepest 
declines have been in the Western United States and Canada...
- -
One small south-facing glacier, the Stevens, no longer exists and has 
been removed from the park’s inventory of glaciers. Two others, known as 
Pyramid and Van Trump, “are in serious peril,” according to an 
exhaustive survey published this summer by the Park Service, and may 
well be gone by the time the agency carries out the next survey in the 
coming year or two, said Scott R. Beason, the park geologist who led the 
study.

“Killing off a glacier is not something I take lightly,” he said. 
“Losing them is big.”...
- -
It is among the glaciers in greatest trouble. Much of it is below 10,000 
feet, and it’s on the mountain’s south-facing side, where the heat hits 
hardest. The very top of the mountain is unlikely to lose its snow and 
ice. If it did, Mount Rainier, an active volcano, would look very 
different. “Like Darth Vader’s head,” Mr. Kennard said...
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/12/climate/mount-rainier-glaciers-climate-change.html 




/[ Britt Wray - psychologist start 9:45  -- diatribe rant ]/
*Britt Wray | Keeping cool amid the climate crisis | Frontiers Forum 
Live 2023*
Frontiers
May 30, 2023
Eco-anxiety is on the rise, but Dr Britt Wray's revolutionary research 
on the psychological toll of climate change reveals a surprising truth; 
that embracing climate anxiety can help solve both mental health and 
ecological problems. In her talk at Frontiers Forum Live 2023, Britt 
explored how today's ecological crises can push us into a state of 
grief, numbness, or fatalism, causing burn out and making us question 
big life decisions such as whether to have children. She also revealed 
how this grief can mobilize and transform us, emphasizing what we can do 
to control it and its power to spark transformational change.

Dr Britt Wray is an eco-anxiety expert from Stanford University, USA. 
She is the Lead of the Special Initiative of the Chair on Climate Change 
and Mental Health at Stanford University, and also a writer and broadcaster.

Frontiers Forum Live showcases science-led solutions for healthy lives 
on a healthy planet. The event is held annually in Montreux, Switzerland 
and there are virtual sessions throughout the year. Find out more and 
watch previous sessions at https://forum.frontiersin.org/.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j__PEkaL3ik



/[The news archive - looking back at the time to act ]/
/*September 14, 2004*/
September 14, 2004: British Prime Minister Tony Blair declares that 
climate change is "...a challenge so far-reaching in its impact and 
irreversible in its destructive power, that it alters radically human 
existence." He further notes:

"The problem...is that the challenge is complicated politically by two 
factors. First, its likely effect will not be felt to its full extent 
until after the time for the political decisions that need to be taken, 
has passed. In other words, there is a mismatch in timing between the 
environmental and electoral impact. Secondly, no one nation alone can 
resolve it. It has no definable boundaries. Short of international 
action commonly agreed and commonly followed through, it is hard even 
for a large country to make a difference on its own.

"But there is no doubt that the time to act is now. It is now that 
timely action can avert disaster. It is now that with foresight and will 
such action can be taken without disturbing the essence of our way of 
life, by adjusting behaviour not altering it entirely."

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2004/sep/15/greenpolitics.uk


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