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<p><i><font size="+1"><b>March 12, 2021</b></font></i></p>
[predicted in theory - now measured]<br>
<b>First-ever study of all Amazon greenhouse gases suggest the
forest is worsening climate change</b><br>
The first broad look at all of the gases that affect how the Amazon
works—not just CO2—reveals a system on the brink...<br>
- -<br>
The same richness that makes the Amazon so wonderfully biodiverse,
home to tens of thousands of insects per square mile, makes
understanding it extremely hard. Shimmering green leaves suck CO2
from the sky, converting it through photosynthesis into
carbohydrates that end up in woody trunks and branches as trees
grow. In trees and carbon-rich soils, the Amazon stores the
equivalent of four or five years worth of human-made carbon
emissions, up to 200 gigatons of carbon.<br>
<br>
But the Amazon is also super wet, with floodwaters rising dozens of
feet a year across the forest floor. Microbes in those drenched
soils make methane, which is 28 to 86 times more potent as a
greenhouse gas than CO2. Trees act like smokestacks, channeling that
methane to the atmosphere.<br>
<br>
Meanwhile, moisture from the Atlantic Ocean that falls as rain gets
sucked up by plants, used for photosynthesis, and exhaled by leaves
through the same pores that take up CO2. Back in the atmosphere, it
falls as rain again.<br>
<br>
Humans complicate these natural cycles not just through climate
change but through logging, reservoir-building, mining, and
agriculture. Deforestation in Brazil has exploded in recent years,
hitting a 12-year high in 2020, increasing nearly 10 percent from
the year before...<br>
- -<br>
A recent analysis by Lovejoy and Carlos Nobre, a climate scientist
with the University of São Paulo's Institute for Advanced Studies,
suggests that rising deforestation might so alter the flow of that
moisture that it could push large stretches of the Amazon toward a
permanent transition to a drier woodland savanna. The duo believes
that tipping point could be reached if as little as 20 to 25 percent
of the rainforest is cleared.<br>
<br>
That would spell big trouble for the climate, substantially reducing
even more the forests’ potential to scrub the skies of some of our
fossil-fuel emissions. By the Brazilian government’s own measure,
forest clearing already tops 17 percent...<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/amazon-rainforest-now-appears-to-be-contributing-to-climate-change">https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/amazon-rainforest-now-appears-to-be-contributing-to-climate-change</a><br>
- -<br>
[Frontiers in Forests and Global Change]<br>
For. Glob. Change, 11 March 2021 |
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://doi.org/10.3389/ffgc.2021.618401">https://doi.org/10.3389/ffgc.2021.618401</a><br>
<b>Carbon and Beyond: The Biogeochemistry of Climate in a Rapidly
Changing Amazon</b><br>
<blockquote>The Amazon Basin is at the center of an intensifying
discourse about deforestation, land-use, and global change. To
date, climate research in the Basin has overwhelmingly focused on
the cycling and storage of carbon (C) and its implications for
global climate. Missing, however, is a more comprehensive
consideration of other significant biophysical climate feedbacks
[i.e., CH4, N2O, black carbon, biogenic volatile organic compounds
(BVOCs), aerosols, evapotranspiration, and albedo] and their
dynamic responses to both localized (fire, land-use change,
infrastructure development, and storms) and global (warming,
drying, and some related to El Niño or to warming in the tropical
Atlantic) changes. Here, we synthesize the current understanding
of (1) sources and fluxes of all major forcing agents, (2) the
demonstrated or expected impact of global and local changes on
each agent, and (3) the nature, extent, and drivers of
anthropogenic change in the Basin. We highlight the large
uncertainty in flux magnitude and responses, and their
corresponding direct and indirect effects on the regional and
global climate system. Despite uncertainty in their responses to
change, we conclude that current warming from non-CO2 agents
(especially CH4 and N2O) in the Amazon Basin largely offsets—and
most likely exceeds—the climate service provided by atmospheric
CO2 uptake. We also find that the majority of anthropogenic
impacts act to increase the radiative forcing potential of the
Basin. Given the large contribution of less-recognized agents
(e.g., Amazonian trees alone emit ~3.5% of all global CH4), a
continuing focus on a single metric (i.e., C uptake and storage)
is incompatible with genuine efforts to understand and manage the
biogeochemistry of climate in a rapidly changing Amazon Basin.<br>
</blockquote>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/ffgc.2021.618401/full">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/ffgc.2021.618401/full</a><br>
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[new fires]<br>
<b>Homes burn as several large fires break out in Kansas</b><br>
Bill Gabbert -- March 10, 2021<br>
Strong winds and low humidities created difficult conditions for
firefighters<br>
In anticipation of the fire threat caused by the extreme winds and
low humidity additional engines were brought in from South Dakota,
Wyoming, and Colorado. This mobilization was facilitated by
provisions in the Great Plains Interstate Fire Compact. Blackhawk
helicopters operated by the Kansas National Guard have also been
assisting firefighters by dropping water.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://wildfiretoday.com/2021/03/10/homes-burn-as-several-large-fires-break-out-in-kansas/">https://wildfiretoday.com/2021/03/10/homes-burn-as-several-large-fires-break-out-in-kansas/</a><br>
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[US Military]<br>
<b>Pentagon announces climate working group</b><br>
BY ELLEN MITCHELL - 03/10/21<br>
The Pentagon on Wednesday announced the creation of a working group
to respond to President Biden’s series of executive orders aimed at
addressing the climate crisis.<br>
<br>
“Climate change presents a growing threat to U.S. national security
interests and defense objectives,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin
wrote in a March 9 memo to senior Pentagon leadership and combatant
command leaders. “The changing climate is altering the global
security and operating environments, impacting our missions, plans
and installations.”<br>
<br>
The group, which will be chaired by Joe Bryan, the current special
assistant to the secretary for climate, will “co-coordinate
department responses to the executive order and subsequent climate
and energy related directives,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told
reporters...<br>
- -<br>
The DOD since 2010 has acknowledged that climate change could pose a
threat to where the military operates and its roles and missions –
as heavy downpours, drought, rising temperature and sea level as
well as repeated forest fires affect where the military trains and
fights across the globe.<br>
<br>
But moves to shore up planning and acknowledgement of such issues
were hindered under former President Trump, who repeatedly indicated
he thought climate change was a "hoax," despite the scientific
consensus.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://thehill.com/policy/defense/542632-pentagon-announces-climate-working-group?rl=1">https://thehill.com/policy/defense/542632-pentagon-announces-climate-working-group?rl=1</a><br>
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[New flooding]<br>
<b>Hawaii: flooding forces evacuations as officials warn 'this is
climate change'</b><br>
Scientists say residents should expect to see more intense
rainstorms more frequently as the planet warms<br>
“This is really an example of climate change in the present day,”
Suzanne Case, the head of the department of land and natural
resources, said in a statement. “We have a flood emergency because
of the heavy rain bomb. And we’re seeing these more and more across
the island chain – more frequent and more extreme events.”<br>
<br>
The warming climate is affecting rainfall patterns in the state. A
2010 report from the University of Hawaii’s Sea Grant College
Program said rainfall declined 15% over the prior 20 years. Yet the
same report found between 1958 and 2007, rain events with the
heaviest downpours increased 12%, underscoring that more intense
rainstorms are growing in number.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/11/hawaii-flooding-evacuations-climate-crisis">https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/11/hawaii-flooding-evacuations-climate-crisis</a><br>
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[future predictions]<br>
<b>Global heating pushes tropical regions towards limits of human
livability</b><br>
Rising heat and humidity threatening to plunge much of the world’s
population into potentially lethal conditions, study finds<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/mar/08/global-heating-tropical-regions-human-livability">https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/mar/08/global-heating-tropical-regions-human-livability</a><br>
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[2 video lectures about one research paper]<br>
Mar 11, 2021 - YouTube <br>
<b>Underestimating Challenges for Avoiding a Ghastly Future: Part 1
of 2</b> - <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://youtu.be/TLxD4FMxk6Y">https://youtu.be/TLxD4FMxk6Y</a><br>
Paul Beckwith - Mar 11, 2021<br>
<b>Underestimating Challenges for Avoiding a Ghastly Future: Part 2
of 2 </b>- <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://youtu.be/zg8DZvFE8mQ">https://youtu.be/zg8DZvFE8mQ</a><br>
Paul Beckwith - Mar 11, 2021<br>
Recently a peer reviewed scientific paper titled “Understanding the
Challenges of Avoiding a Ghastly Future” was published in the
journal “Frontiers in Conservation. Science”.<br>
<br>
It used to be extremely unusual for scientific papers to have such
dire titles, but not anymore.<br>
<br>
I chat about some of the key findings in this paper. I review some
of the abundant evidence that future environmental conditions will
be far more dangerous than many people and organizations currently
understand. Political and economic systems and leadership do not
seem prepared or even capable of action at any scale large enough
to even begin to tackle the problem. We need all scientists to
speak out candidly and accurately to convey the enormous scope of
our dire situation.<br>
<br>
I chat about Biodiversity Loss, the Sixth Mass Extinction,
Ecological Overshoot (Population Size and Overconsumption), failed
international goals and future prospects, climate disruption,
political impotence, and how we collectively need to change the
rules of the game...<br>
Part 1 - <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLxD4FMxk6Y">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLxD4FMxk6Y</a><br>
Part 2 <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zg8DZvFE8mQ">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zg8DZvFE8mQ</a><br>
<p>- -<br>
</p>
[here's the text -
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcosc.2020.615419/full">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcosc.2020.615419/full</a>
]<br>
"frontiers in Conservation Science"<br>
<b>Underestimating the Challenges of Avoiding a Ghastly Future</b><br>
Conserv. Sci., 13 January 2021 |
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fcosc.2020.615419">https://doi.org/10.3389/fcosc.2020.615419</a><br>
Corey J. A. Bradshaw, Paul R. Ehrlich, Andrew Beattie, Gerardo
Ceballos, Eileen Crist, Joan Diamond, Rodolfo Dirzo, Anne H.
Ehrlich, John Harte, Mary Ellen Harte, Graham Pyke, Peter H. Raven,
William J. Ripple, Frédérik Saltré, Christine Turnbull, Mathis
Wackernagel and Daniel T. Blumstein<br>
We report three major and confronting environmental issues that have
received little attention and require urgent action. First, we
review the evidence that future environmental conditions will be far
more dangerous than currently believed. The scale of the threats to
the biosphere and all its lifeforms—including humanity—is in fact so
great that it is difficult to grasp for even well-informed experts.
Second, we ask what political or economic system, or leadership, is
prepared to handle the predicted disasters, or even capable of such
action. Third, this dire situation places an extraordinary
responsibility on scientists to speak out candidly and accurately
when engaging with government, business, and the public. We
especially draw attention to the lack of appreciation of the
enormous challenges to creating a sustainable future. The added
stresses to human health, wealth, and well-being will perversely
diminish our political capacity to mitigate the erosion of ecosystem
services on which society depends. The science underlying these
issues is strong, but awareness is weak. Without fully appreciating
and broadcasting the scale of the problems and the enormity of the
solutions required, society will fail to achieve even modest
sustainability goals.<br>
<br>
<b>Introduction</b><br>
Humanity is causing a rapid loss of biodiversity and, with it,
Earth's ability to support complex life. But the mainstream is
having difficulty grasping the magnitude of this loss, despite the
steady erosion of the fabric of human civilization (Ceballos et al.,
2015; IPBES, 2019; Convention on Biological Diversity, 2020; WWF,
2020). While suggested solutions abound (Díaz et al., 2019), the
current scale of their implementation does not match the relentless
progression of biodiversity loss (Cumming et al., 2006) and other
existential threats tied to the continuous expansion of the human
enterprise (Rees, 2020). Time delays between ecological
deterioration and socio-economic penalties, as with climate
disruption for example (IPCC, 2014), impede recognition of the
magnitude of the challenge and timely counteraction needed. In
addition, disciplinary specialization and insularity encourage
unfamiliarity with the complex adaptive systems (Levin, 1999) in
which problems and their potential solutions are embedded (Selby,
2006; Brand and Karvonen, 2007). Widespread ignorance of human
behavior (Van Bavel et al., 2020) and the incremental nature of
socio-political processes that plan and implement solutions further
delay effective action (Shanley and López, 2009; King, 2016).<br>
<br>
We summarize the state of the natural world in stark form here to
help clarify the gravity of the human predicament. We also outline
likely future trends in biodiversity decline (Díaz et al., 2019),
climate disruption (Ripple et al., 2020), and human consumption and
population growth to demonstrate the near certainty that these
problems will worsen over the coming decades, with negative impacts
for centuries to come. Finally, we discuss the ineffectiveness of
current and planned actions that are attempting to address the
ominous erosion of Earth's life-support system. Ours is not a call
to surrender—we aim to provide leaders with a realistic “cold
shower” of the state of the planet that is essential for planning to
avoid a ghastly future...<br>
[- - clipped - more with links at
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcosc.2020.615419/full">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcosc.2020.615419/full</a>
]<br>
<b>Changing the Rules of the Game</b><br>
While it is neither our intention nor capacity in this short
Perspective to delve into the complexities and details of possible
solutions to the human predicament, there is no shortage of
evidence-based literature proposing ways to change human behavior
for the benefit of all extant life. The remaining questions are less
about what to do, and more about how, stimulating the genesis of
many organizations devoted to these pursuits (e.g., ipbes.org,
goodanthropocenes.net, overshootday.org, mahb.stanford.edu,
populationmatters.org, clubofrome.org, steadystate.org, to name a
few). The gravity of the situation requires fundamental changes to
global capitalism, education, and equality, which include <i>inter
alia</i> the abolition of perpetual economic growth, properly
pricing externalities, a rapid exit from fossil-fuel use, strict
regulation of markets and property acquisition, reigning in
corporate lobbying, and the empowerment of women. These choices will
necessarily entail difficult conversations about population growth
and the necessity of dwindling but more equitable standards of
living.<br>
<br>
<b>Conclusions</b><br>
We have summarized predictions of a ghastly future of mass
extinction, declining health, and climate-disruption upheavals
(including looming massive migrations) and resource conflicts this
century. Yet, our goal is not to present a fatalist perspective,
because there are many examples of successful interventions to
prevent extinctions, restore ecosystems, and encourage more
sustainable economic activity at both local and regional scales.
Instead, we contend that only a realistic appreciation of the
colossal challenges facing the international community might allow
it to chart a less-ravaged future. While there have been more recent
calls for the scientific community in particular to be more vocal
about their warnings to humanity (Ripple et al., 2017; Cavicchioli
et al., 2019; Gardner and Wordley, 2019), these have been
insufficiently foreboding to match the scale of the crisis. Given
the existence of a human “optimism bias” that triggers some to
underestimate the severity of a crisis and ignore expert warnings, a
good communication strategy must ideally undercut this bias without
inducing disproportionate feelings of fear and despair (Pyke, 2017;
Van Bavel et al., 2020). It is therefore incumbent on experts in any
discipline that deals with the future of the biosphere and human
well-being to eschew reticence, avoid sugar-coating the overwhelming
challenges ahead and “tell it like it is.” Anything else is
misleading at best, or negligent and potentially lethal for the
human enterprise at worst.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://scientistswarning.forestry.oregonstate.edu/sites/sw/files/Bradshaw2021.pdf">https://scientistswarning.forestry.oregonstate.edu/sites/sw/files/Bradshaw2021.pdf</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcosc.2020.615419/full">https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcosc.2020.615419/full</a><br>
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[book discussion video]<b><br>
</b><b>The Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal</b><br>
Mar 9, 2021<br>
theAnalysis-news<br>
The transcript is available at <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://theanalysis.news">https://theanalysis.news</a><br>
UMass Amherst professor and PERI Co-Director Robert Pollin discusses
his latest book that he co-authored with Noam Chomsky, about the
Global Green New Deal and the opportunities and challenges that lie
ahead in addressing the climate crisis.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHGtzcwhF5U">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHGtzcwhF5U</a><br>
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[California needs our help]<br>
<b>One of the most polluted counties in America is getting 40,000
more oil wells</b><br>
By Alexandria Herr on Mar 11, 2021<br>
Kern County, in the south Central Valley of California, produces 80
percent of the state’s onshore oil and gas — and has some of the
country’s worst year-round air pollution. Now, the county is set to
increase the number of oil and gas wells from 78,000 to 121,000,
after a controversial ordinance was unanimously approved earlier
this week by the Kern County Board of Supervisors to fast-track the
permitting of 43,000 new wells over the next 15 years.<br>
<br>
Oil and gas drilling in the county already weighs heavily on the
residents of Kern. Some 71,000 people in Kern County — nearly 8
percent of residents — live within roughly a half-mile of oil and
gas wells, and a third of the county’s wells are within the same
distance of schools and hospitals. As a result, drilling has taken a
toll on public health from the particulate matter in the air as well
as from the toxic soup of chemicals in the wells. Living near these
sites is linked to a host of health conditions: respiratory
problems, migraines, nosebleeds, higher rates of asthma attacks,
cancer, and preterm birth.<br>
<br>
More than 250 residents spoke out against the ordinance at a Board
of Supervisors meeting before the vote on Monday, with many citing
the effects of oil and gas drilling on their health. These burdens
are not evenly distributed: Of the 1.8 million Californians who live
within a mile of oil and gas development and live in heavily
polluted areas, 92 percent are people of color. “It’s not going to
be the rich, white suburbs that are affected, it’s Black, Latinx,
and low-income communities that will be,” said Riddhi Patel, the
communications coordinator for the Center for Race, Poverty, and
Environment, or CRPE, at the hearing. “If you choose to approve this
ordinance, there is blood on your hands.”<br>
<br>
The ordinance is an updated version of one that was passed in 2015,
which allowed oil and gas companies to bypass a lengthy review for
each proposed well by issuing a blanket environmental statement.
Last year, a California appellate court deemed that ordinance
illegal for violating the California Environmental Quality Act.
Before it was struck down, however, the county had approved more
than 18,000 permits under the old ordinance, most of them in census
tracts that were predominantly low-income and Hispanic — creating
sacrifice zones in the service of oil extraction.<br>
<br>
Juan Flores, a Kern County organizer for CRPE, said he’s not
surprised that the Board of Supervisors approved the ordinance
despite the pushback at Monday’s hearing. In Flores’ view, the Board
of Supervisors is highly sympathetic to the oil industry. Now that
the ordinance has passed, he says it’s time for California Governor
Gavin Newsom and state agencies such as the California Geologic
Energy Management Division, the agency in charge of regulating the
oil and gas industry, to take action. He noted that Newsom has
failed to follow through on campaign promises to ban fracking and
get tough on the oil industry. “So far with this administration,
we’ve seen a lot of rhetoric, a lot of words, a lot of promises,”
said Flores. “Yet we have not gotten to the actions.”<br>
One way to mitigate the public health impacts of drilling in Kern
County, and statewide, would be to introduce setback regulations, a
mandatory minimum distance between oil and gas wells and residential
areas — a regulation that many oil-producing states already have in
place. Activists in California have been advocating for setbacks for
years, but haven’t yet succeeded at the state level. A bill that
would have introduced 2,500-foot setbacks in the state was voted
down last August by the California Senate Committee on Natural
Resources and Water, with three Democratic senators voting against
the bill. A new bill that would ban fracking and institute setbacks
for new and renewed oil and gas permits, SB 467, was introduced last
month in the California state Senate.<br>
<br>
One obstacle to passing legislation like SB 467 is the sheer amount
of money invested by the oil industry into California politics. The
oil industry spent more than $10 million lobbying California
politicians last year against policies they opposed, including
setback regulations.<br>
<br>
Flores pointed to SB 467 as an opportunity for legislators to prove
that they’re serious about fighting environmental injustice and
climate change. But in the meantime, regarding California’s image as
a green state, Flores said, “The reality is that we’re way too far
from it. Our communities are still dying.”<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://grist.org/justice/one-of-the-most-polluted-counties-in-america-is-getting-40000-more-oil-wells/">https://grist.org/justice/one-of-the-most-polluted-counties-in-america-is-getting-40000-more-oil-wells/</a><br>
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<p>[My favorite movie too]<br>
<b>It is the question of the century: will tech solve the climate
crisis - or make it worse?</b><br>
Jonathan Watts<br>
Robots on coral reefs, vast barriers to hold back the glaciers,
simulated volcanic eruptions to offset global heating ... Can
technology repair the mess we have made? Elizabeth Kolbert is not
convinced<br>
Sat 6 Mar 2021<br>
<br>
Elizabeth Kolbert’s favourite movie is the end-of-the-world comedy
Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the
Bomb. For those who need a quick recap, this cold war film
features a deranged US air force general who orders a nuclear
attack on the Soviet Union using weapons developed by a mad Nazi
scientist played by Peter Sellers. A last-minute glitch almost
forestalls an apocalyptic war, but a gung-ho B-52 pilot has other
ideas. He opens the bomb doors and mounts the H-bomb as if it were
a horse, waving his hat and whooping as he rides the missile
towards the world’s oblivion. No heroism could be more misguided.
No movie could end with a blunter message: how on Earth can we
humans trust ourselves with planet-altering technology?<br>
<br>
The same absurdly serious question lies at the heart of Kolbert’s
new book, Under a White Sky. The Sixth Extinction, her previous
book, won a Pulitzer prize for its investigation into how mankind
has devastated the natural world. Now she has widened her gaze to
whether we can remedy this with ingenious technological fixes – or
make things worse. “There was definitely a question left hanging:
now we have become such a dominant force on planet Earth, and
created so many problems through our intervention, what happens
next?”, she says.<br>
<br>
In Under a White Sky she examines cutting-edge scientific
advances: how much hope can we place in gene-modification,
geoengineering and assisted evolution? To what extent can we
repair the mess we have made? Thanks to humans, the planet is
heating dangerously fast, there is now more carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere than at any time in millions of years, the extinction
rate of other species is hundreds, maybe thousands, of times above
natural levels, and just about every planetary warning gauge is
heading further into the red. Are there mega-solutions out there
for these mega-problems?<br>
<br>
One of the most advanced geoengineering plans under discussion is
to simulate a volcano eruption by filling the atmosphere with a
million tonnes of sulphur dioxide each year to reflect the heat of
the sun back into space. Scientists calculate this cooling effect
would offset human-caused global heating, but the benefits would
be temporary and unevenly distributed. To prevent the temperature
from jumping back up, repeated applications would be needed,
potentially causing catastrophes in some parts of the world to
save others. Kolbert says this, at best, might buy a little time,
but at worst could make life impossible for millions. Among the
potential side effects are conflict, acid rain, ozone layer
depletion, lower power generation from solar panels and an
alteration of the spectrum of light so profound that the blue
heavens would fade and leave us all living under a white sky.<br>
<br>
Kolbert’s deftly crafted book explores some of the biggest
challenges of our age – it also manages to be wickedly funny<br>
<br>
The last time the world’s air was filled with so many particles
was after Mount Tambora blew in Indonesia in 1815. This led to a
year of endless winter in some parts of the world. In the US, one
writer observed: “The very face of nature seemed to be shrouded in
a deathlike gloom.”<br>
<br>
Kolbert’s book is a meticulously researched and deftly crafted
work of journalism that explores some of the biggest challenges of
our age. It also manages to be wickedly funny. Some passages read
like an absurdist novel by Kurt Vonnegut or Joseph Heller. As in
Cat’s Cradle or Catch-22, humanity is trapped within an ever more
vicious circle created by its own skewed logic and
techno-dependency. As the author writes early on, this is “a book
about people trying to solve problems created by people trying to
solve problems”.<br>
<br>
“I hope the book is a bit of a dark comedy,” says Kolbert, who
writes for the New Yorker, over Google Chat from her home in
Massachusetts. “I am trying to turn something of that Strangelove
sensibility on this grave and depressing problem. I want to make
people think but in a way that is not unrelentingly grim. Whether
to laugh or cry has always been a fine line.”<br>
<br>
So far, the Anthropocene is not going so well: humans, she notes,
have transformed half the ice-free land on Earth, dammed or
diverted most of the world’s major rivers and emitted about a
hundred times more carbon dioxide than volcanoes. In terms of
biomass, people and our domesticated animals now outweigh wild
mammals by a ratio of 22 to 1. From nuclear bomb test fallout to
microplastics, signs of our presence are everywhere.<br>
<br>
Under a White Sky reflects on “our habit of mind - that when we
come up against one of these problems we try to come up with the
technology to solve it. That is a profound thread in recent human
history. How it plays out is perhaps the crucial question in the
coming century.”<br>
<br>
Technology by itself is not intrinsically bad. Much of it, vaccine
technology for example, is brilliant and beneficial – at least to
humans. But invention often originates in short-term or siloed
thinking. And even more frequently, its application fails because
of political and economic decisions taken with little heed for
non-humans and future generations.<br>
<br>
Even the great environmentalist Rachel Carson cannot escape the
irony of history. In one passage, she is admiringly quoted as
observing: “The ‘control of nature’ is a phrase conceived in
arrogance, born of the Neanderthal age of biology and philosophy,
when it was supposed that nature exists for the convenience of
man.” A few pages later, however, we discover that Carson’s
warnings about pesticides and herbicides were used as an excuse
for river managers in Arkansas to cut costs. Instead of upgrading
treatment plants, they imported Asian carp to eat
nitrogen-overloaded algae. This was supposed to be a “natural
solution”. Unfortunately, the carp escaped from the treatment
ponds and devastated the Mississippi river system.<br>
<br>
Kolbert tracks the unfolding disaster as the carp problem grew
bigger and bigger and the proposed solutions became more and more
outlandish – physical barriers, electrification, poisoning,
bubble-and-noise deterrents, bounty fishing and an $18bn
hydrological separation scheme drawn up by the United States
Engineering Corps. Military interventions crop up again and again
in the book, underscoring how the old idea of conquering nature
has never really gone away.<br>
<br>
Instead of changing ourselves, we adapt the environment. “It was
easier to imagine changing the river… than changing the lives of
the people around it,” Kolbert writes.<br>
<br>
Our pursuit of convenience is accelerating the destruction of the
natural world. Kolbert’s considers the 19th-century extirpation of
buffaloes, moose, cougar, beaver, wolverines, wild turkey and
eastern elks, which she attributes in part to the inventions of
railways and repeating rifles. Back then, extinctions were still
considered shocking. To commemorate the demise of the passenger
pigeon, Aldo Leopold wrote: “For one species to mourn the passing
of another is a new thing under the sun.” Now, however, it is so
common as to be banal. Scientists estimate that 150 species are
lost every day due to land conversion, road expansion, chemical
use and global heating.<br>
<br>
For many species, survival is no longer about being the fittest in
the wild; it’s about fitting in best with mankind. The creatures
that abound are livestock, domestic pets and semi-parasitic
synanthropes such as rats, crows and foxes that live off our
waste. Most other populations are plummeting, though humans have
the power to put certain endangered species on life support.<br>
<br>
A jaw-dropping chapter explores the lengths the US goes to protect
the Devils Hole pupfish. This tiny creature lived in a single
underground pool in Nevada that was being sucked dry in the 1970s
by nearby farm irrigation. Numbers declined to just a few dozen,
prompting a bumper-sticker campaign, a congressional debate and a
supreme court conservation order. Since then, the entire Devils
Hole pupfish population – which weighs less than a single
Filet-O-Fish – have been transplanted to a simulacrum, built at a
cost of $4.5m and monitored by cameras and a team of four
full-time staff. At one point, the ratio was one fishkeeper for
every 16 fish.<br>
<br>
Over the past two centuries, we have decimated the collective
value of species and habitats, and then congratulated ourselves on
saving a small number of survivors in an artificial environment.
Pupfish are among thousands of similarly “conservation reliant”
species that have to be hand-reared, medically assisted, guarded
in enclosures or guided in migration. In another of those
absurdist twists, “protecting” the wild increasingly means
encasing it.<br>
<br>
Some of the scientists involved tell Kolbert they hope their
research will never be applied<br>
“We get to hear about stories when a population is down to the
last survivors and only then is there a big push. It’s how the
human mind works. We don’t pay attention until a crisis point is
reached, and by then it is extremely difficult,” Kolbert says. She
describes animals on life support as “Stockholm species” –
captives that become accustomed to their prison. The same term
might be used to describe humans, who also come across as trapped
in the pursuit of more domination, which requires the development
of ever more disruptive technology. It’s an escalator we can’t get
off. “We are deep into this,” Kolbert says. “There are no easy
answers. There is no way we can all go back to hunter-gatherer
society. That isn’t happening.” But surely there are alternatives.
I tell Kolbert I liked the book but wish it had delved into other
options – politics, economics, culture, education, nature-based
solutions. Humans used these levers to address problems before the
advent of carbon-fuelled capitalism in the late 18th century.<br>
<br>
The United States, though, pays little heed to its pre-industrial
history. The country’s identity is deeply enmeshed with
technology, which is treated as the great enabler of progress and
freedom. It has also long been used as an excuse for climate
inaction. In the late 1980s, the first President George Bush
backed away from fossil fuel controls partly on the grounds that
the climate problem would likely be solved by future inventions.
That has become a mantra for Republicans ever since. Under the
Trump presidency, US climate diplomats focused on largely unproven
carbon capture technology in the future rather than emissions cuts
now.<br>
<br>
Under a White Sky is one of three high-profile books recently
published on the climate crisis. Another is by Bill Gates, who
proposes an unapologetically US-technocapitalist approach in his
book How to Prevent a Climate Disaster. It reads like a cross
between a planetary instruction manual and a “Global Warming for
Dummies” guide. The Microsoft co-founder suggests what might be
described as a global systems upgrade to fix the bugs in the
planet and reveals that he is investing in most of the proposed
technological solutions, including direct air capture, meat
substitutes and fertiliser alternatives. He makes a very strong
business case for change. But there is little evidence Gates is
willing to think outside the techno-economy he helped to create.
It could be argued he is simply being pragmatic. After all,
upgrades are easier than reinventing a system from scratch. They
are certainly more politically palatable to those in power. But
what if the system itself is the problem?<br>
<br>
When I challenge Kolbert on her techno-fatalism, she agrees that
she looks on these technologies “with a jaundiced eye and a degree
of horror. But I do see it as the overriding pattern. I don’t see
us moving in another direction.” Though it “is definitely a step
forward when someone as eminent as Bill Gates is assessing what
technologies we need.”<br>
<br>
Her book concludes with the ultimate example of fiddling with the
planetary controls: the kind of geoengineering that might produce
a white sky. This section could almost be printed in red with a
warning sign, “Do not open, except in the event of a catastrophe -
and even then think twice.” Solar radiation management, ocean
seeding and other efforts to fix the world’s thermostat are no
mere tweaks, no simple re-wiring jobs. Some of the scientists
involved tell Kolbert they hope their research will never be
applied. One says he is studying this topic now simply to avoid
ill-informed decision making later. She also quotes a revealing
exchange between two scientists at Harvard University.
“Geo-engineering is not something to do lightly. The reason we are
thinking about it is because the real world has dealt us a shitty
hand,” one advocate says. “We dealt it ourselves,” the other
replies.<br>
<br>
Plastic bottles and other garbage floats in the Potpecko lake near
Priboj, in southwest Serbia, January 2021.<br>
Plastic bottles and other garbage floats in the Potpecko lake near
Priboj, in southwest Serbia, January 2021. Photograph: Darko
Vojinović/AP<br>
When I ask Kolbert if she thinks we will see manipulated white
skies in her lifetime, she says it depends first on the still
uncertain speed of climate change, and then on who is making the
decisions. “If we are on the luckier side and things happen more
slowly or warming is on the lower end of estimates, then maybe we
will avoid that conversation. But I don’t know if it will be a
conversation. It could be small group of powerful nations making
decisions for everyone. So will we see a white sky in my lifetime?
I don’t think so. But in my kids’ lifetime? That is not
impossible.”<br>
<br>
She is clearly uncomfortable about the direction of travel. The
technology can’t take us back to an undisturbed world. Instead, we
are are heading towards a future in which humanity will be
constantly reinventing our planet. Her book considers plans to use
robots to manage coral reefs and the building of concrete barriers
to hold greenland glaciers in place, but such efforts to buy time
cannot last indefinitely. As one pithy Danish interlocutor puts
it: “Pissing in your pants will only keep you warm for so long.”
Soon humanity will need another fix that will likely create
another problem.<br>
<br>
“We are as gods and we might as well get good at it,” Stewart
Brand, editor of the Whole Earth Catalog, wrote in its first
edition in 1968. This view was later dismissed by the eminent
biologist EO Wilson, who stated: “We are not as gods. We are
neither intelligent or sentient enough to be much of anything.”
More recently, the British writer Paul Kingsnorth took a different
tack again. “We are as gods but we have failed to get good at it
... We are Loki, killing the beautiful for fun. We are Saturn
devouring our children.”<br>
<br>
I ask Kolbert which of these three views are closest to her own.
“That is the question at the heart of the book,” she responds.
“Are we gods or are we just bumbling, technologically advanced
creatures? As Ed Wilson also said: ‘We have paleolithic brains, we
have medieval institutions and space-age technologies.’ That is a
really dangerous combination and we are seeing that.”<br>
<br>
Such philosophical considerations lift this book out of the
ordinary. I wish Kolbert had gone further still. We have forgotten
or ignored that our planet is already a technological marvel – the
only life-support system that we know of in the universe.
Strengthening that natural system is surely the goal our smartest
brains should be focused on. After all, it has been done before.
Archeologists have discovered evidence that much of the Amazon
rainforest is anthropogenic – fruit trees and medicinal plants
cultivated by the indigenous communities who have lived there for
millennia. Such nondisruptive technology might also be called
wisdom.<br>
<br>
The third of the three big new environment books, The New Climate
War by Michael Mann, goes furthest in this regard, with a
strategic, wide-ranging overview of humanity’s present predicament
and an exploration of possible pathways out of it. He champions
overall system change to decarbonise our civilisation. This
involves ethics, politics, finance, communication, psychology,
behaviour and belief. Technology, in the forms of wind, solar and
other renewables is an important part of the picture, but Mann – a
veteran climate scientist – warns against over-reliance on
unproven fixes such as geoengineering, that distract from simpler,
cheaper, safer alternatives.<br>
<br>
“Geoengineering appeals to free-market conservatives, as it plays
to the notion that market-driven technological innovation can
solve any problems without governmental intervention or
regulation,” he writes. “A price on carbon, or incentives for
renewable energy? Too difficult and risky. Engaging in a massive,
uncontrolled experiment in a desperate effort to somehow offset
the effects of global warming? Perfect!”.<br>
<br>
While Kolbert takes a journalistic position of wry detachment,
Mann is a sociopolitical activist. I ask Kolbert if she has ever
considered following the example of Bill McKibben, a former New
York Times writer who has become a leading climate campaigner.
“Absolutely, I also thought about it. What is most useful thing
for me to be doing?” she says. “McKibben has had an incredible
impact. He is very good at it, very inspiring. But I don’t think
that is where my own strengths lie.”<br>
<br>
I ask her how her optimism-pessimism dial has shifted since the
election of Joe Biden. “It has moved from: ‘We are doing the
stupidest possible things given the situation’, which is where my
needle was for the past four years. Now in the US at least, we
have smart and committed people thinking about these questions. We
have an interior secretary that for the first time in history is a
native American. I think she will have very different priorities
from many of her predecessors. But how much influence can one
presidency have on the great forces of history?”<br>
<br>
Has writing the book made Kolbert more or less enthusiastic about
human interference? “My adventures with some of these scientists
who work on really cutting-edge projects with gene editing, with
carbon dioxide removal, with geo-engineering, did force me to
confront some of my own deep seated and unexamined mental habits,”
she answers.<br>
<br>
“The question of how to feel about that - whether we are entering
a brave new world that is exciting or a brave new world that is
horrifying, I hope to leave that up to you.”<br>
<br>
Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future by Elizabeth Kolbert
is published by Bodley Head... <br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/mar/06/it-is-the-question-of-the-century-will-tech-solve-the-climate-crisis-or-make-it-worse">https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/mar/06/it-is-the-question-of-the-century-will-tech-solve-the-climate-crisis-or-make-it-worse</a><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[Digging back into the internet news archive]<br>
<font size="+1"><b>On this day in the history of global warming -
March 12, 2013 </b></font><br>
<p> The Boston Phoenix's Wen Stephenson observes:<br>
<br>
"On January 24, Congressman [Edward] Markey joined his colleague
Henry Waxman of California and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode
Island — three of the most vocal climate champions in the United
States Congress — in sending a letter to President Obama,
informing him that they are creating a special 'bicameral task
force on climate change.' It's a strongly worded letter. 'We
believe, as you do,' they write, 'that climate change is a
profound threat to our nation, that our window for preventing
irreversible harm is rapidly closing, and that leaders have a
moral obligation to act.' They call upon Obama for 'decisive
presidential leadership.' This does not include, at least in their
letter, any mention of the Keystone XL pipeline. But it does
include 'executive action' — such as using the EPA's authority
under the Clean Air Act to regulate existing power plants — to
ensure that U.S. emissions are reduced 'at least 17 percent below
2005 levels by 2020.'<br>
<br>
"Yes, that's the same target Obama pledged at Copenhagen, and the
same as the 2009 Waxman-Markey bill. Never mind that the window is
'rapidly closing.' With fossil-fuel funded deniers controlling the
House, with the U.S. Senate no longer bound to 51-vote majority
rule, even the strongest advocates for climate action in Congress
make no pretense that what's necessary — that what science demands
— can be seriously discussed in Washington.<br>
<br>
"As I write this, President Obama's State of the Union address is
still days away. There's chatter about another 'strong' statement
on climate. But it's too much to expect that the president is
finally ready to lead, to level with the American people about
what it would actually mean to 'respond to the threat of climate
change,' as he said on January 21 — in a speech invoking Lincoln
and the abolition of slavery — and 'preserve our planet, commanded
to our care by God.'<br>
<br>
"No, the only thing that matters now is whether there are enough
of us ready to lead him, and the rest of our country, in the
direction that science — and hope, and patriotism, and love — tell
us we must go."<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20130509041103/http://thephoenix.com/boston/news/151670-new-abolitionists-global-warming-is-the-great/">http://web.archive.org/web/20130509041103/http://thephoenix.com/boston/news/151670-new-abolitionists-global-warming-is-the-great/</a>
<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
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