<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
</head>
<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<font size="+2"><font face="Calibri"><i><b>May</b></i></font></font><font
size="+2" face="Calibri"><i><b> 21, 2023</b></i></font><font
face="Calibri"><br>
</font> <font face="Calibri"> </font> <br>
<font face="Calibri"><i>[ NPR is new to climate journalism ] </i><br>
</font> <font face="Calibri"><b>More than half of the world's
largest lakes are shrinking. Here's why that matters</b><br>
May 20, 2023<br>
Nathan Rott</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">Human activities have caused more than half of
the world's largest lakes to shrink dramatically over the last 30
years, according to a new study published in the journal Science.
The implications pose risks to human health, economies and the
natural world.<br>
<br>
Combined, researchers found, the global decline in water storage
equivalent to 17 Lake Meads — the largest reservoir in the U.S.<br>
<br>
People overusing water for agriculture and development, and
human-caused climate change are the primary drivers of the
decline, particularly in natural lakes, said Fangfang Yao, the
study's lead author. In reservoirs, dirt and sand piled up behind
dams also played a major role in declining water levels.<br>
<br>
The findings were staggering, the authors said.<br>
<br>
"Roughly one-quarter of the world's population lives in a basin
with a drying lake," Yao said. "So the potential impact could be
significant."<br>
<br>
The study looked at nearly 2,000 of the planet's largest lakes and
reservoirs using three decades of satellite observations and
climate models to measure how bodies of water have shrunk or grown
over time, and to parse out what influenced the change. For
example, did a lake shrink because of increased evaporation with
hotter temperatures, or because it was diverted for agriculture?<br>
</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">The findings revealed "significant declines,"
the research paper said, across 53% of the lakes and reservoirs
surveyed by the team from the University of Colorado Boulder's
Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences.<br>
<br>
At least half of the decline in natural lakes was driven by
human-caused climate change and overconsumption. That's a finding,
Yao said, that should help water managers better manage and
protect threatened lakes around the world.<br>
<br>
"If you know a lake is falling and that loss was attributable to
human activities, can we put more of an emphasis on conservation
and improving water efficiency?" Yao said.<br>
<br>
A climate change-driven megadrought and an ever-growing human
thirst have continued to drain the two largest reservoirs in the
U.S. — Lake Powell and Lake Mead, which the Colorado River feeds.
Lake Chad, one of Africa's largest freshwater lakes which supplies
nearly 40 million people with water, has shrunk by an estimated
90% since the 1960s.<br>
<br>
The United Nations regards access to safe drinking water as a
universal human right. But its own figures show roughly 2 billion
people around the world do not have access to it and roughly half
the world's population experiences severe water scarcity at least
once a year.<br>
<br>
"Uncertainties are increasing," said Richard Connor, the
editor-in-chief of a U.N. water report published earlier this year
at a press conference in late March, where world leaders met to
try and find better strategies for managing the planet's rare
freshwater. "If we don't address it, there will definitely be a
global crisis."<br>
</font><br>
<font face="Calibri"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.npr.org/2023/05/20/1177221645/more-than-half-of-the-worlds-largest-lakes-are-shrinking-heres-why-that-matters">https://www.npr.org/2023/05/20/1177221645/more-than-half-of-the-worlds-largest-lakes-are-shrinking-heres-why-that-matters</a></font><br>
<p> - -</p>
<i>[ Research article ]</i><br>
<b>Satellites reveal widespread decline in global lake water storage</b><br>
Editor’s summary<br>
The amount of water stored in large lakes has decreased over the
past three decades due to both human and climatic drivers. Yao et
al. used satellite observations, climate models, and hydrologic
models to show that more than 50% of both large natural lakes and
reservoirs experienced volume loss over this time (see the
Perspective by Cooley). Their findings underscore the importance of
better water management to protect essential ecosystem services such
as freshwater storage, food supply, waterbird habitat, cycling of
pollutants and nutrients, and recreation. —H. Jesse Smith<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abo2812">https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abo2812</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<i>[ High aspirations ]</i><br>
<b>The future of wind energy in the US is floating turbines as tall
as 30 Rock</b><br>
By Ella Nilsen, CNN<br>
Fri May 19, 2023<br>
Orono, Maine<br>
CNN<br>
— <br>
The first, full-sized floating offshore wind turbine in the United
States will tower 850 feet above the waves in the Gulf of Maine –
roughly as tall as New York City’s famed 30 Rockefeller Plaza.<br>
<br>
The gigantic machine, with 774-foot diameter blades and tethered to
the seabed with thick metal cables, is planned to be put into the
water 20 miles south of Maine’s tiny Monhegan Island by the end of
the decade. It is expected to generate up to 15 megawatts of
electricity – enough to power thousands of homes – and will be just
one in an array of 10 such turbines that would together produce up
to 144 megawatts of clean energy.<br>
<br>
The Maine turbine array will join the ranks of only around 20
deepwater “floaters” around the world, located mostly in Europe.
Developers, government officials and experts say these floating
turbines are the future of the wind energy industry and are eyeing
projects that could each deliver clean electricity to 750,000 homes.<br>
<br>
“That number is set to explode,” Henrik Stiesdal, the Danish wind
turbine inventor and pioneer, told CNN. Stiesdal was the first to
pioneer the three-blade turbine that has become the icon of wind
energy. In a sign of the times, his company is now focused on
putting floating turbines in deeper water...<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/19/us/floating-offshore-wind-energy-turbines-climate/index.html">https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/19/us/floating-offshore-wind-energy-turbines-climate/index.html</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><i><font face="Calibri">[ Serious flooding ]</font></i><br>
<font face="Calibri"><b>Italy's deadly floods just latest example
of climate change's all-or-nothing weather extremes</b></font><br>
<font face="Calibri">Climate experts say the floods that sent
rivers of mud tearing through towns in Italy’s northeast this
week are the result of extreme weather phenomena that are
becoming increasingly frequent around the world</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">By PAOLO SANTALUCIA, SETH BORENSTEIN and
NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">May 19, 2023</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">ROME -- The floods that sent rivers of mud
tearing through towns in Italy’s northeast are another drenching
dose of climate change's all-or-nothing weather extremes,
something that has been happening around the globe, scientists
say.<br>
<br>
The coastal region of Emilia-Romagna was struck twice, first by
heavy rain two weeks ago on drought-parched ground that could
not absorb it, causing rivers to overflow overnight, followed by
this week's deluge that killed 14 and caused damages estimated
in the billions of euros.<br>
<br>
In a changing climate, more rain is coming, but it’s falling on
fewer days in less useful and more dangerous downpours.<br>
<br>
The hard-hit Emilia-Romagna region was particularly vulnerable.
Its location between the Apennine mountains and the Adriatic Sea
trapped the weather system this week that dumped half the
average annual amount of rain in 36 hours.<br>
<br>
"These are events that developed with persistence and are
classified as rare,'' Fabrizio Curcio, the head of Italy's Civil
Protection Agency, told reporters.<br>
</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">Authorities on Friday said that 43 towns were
impacted by flooding and landslides, and that more than 500
roads had been closed or destroyed.<br>
<br>
Antonello Pasini, a climate scientist at Italy’s National
Research Council, said a trend had been establishing itself: “An
increase in rainfall overall per year, for example, but a
decrease in the number of rainy days and an increase in the
intensity of the rain in those few days when it rains,” he said.<br>
<br>
Italy’s north has been parched by two years of drought, thanks
to less-than-average snowfall during the winter months. Melting
snow from the Alps, Dolomites and Apennines normally provides
the steady runoff through spring and summer that fills Italy's
lakes, irrigates the agricultural heartland and keeps the Po and
other key rivers and tributaries flowing.<br>
<br>
Without that normal snowfall in the mountains, plains have gone
dry and riverbeds, lakes and reservoirs have receded. They
cannot recover even when it rains because the ground is
essentially “impermeable” and the rain just washes over the
topsoil and out to the sea, Pasini said.<br>
<br>
“So the drought is not necessarily compensated for by these
extreme rains,” he said, “Because in northern Italy, the drought
depends more on snow being stored in the Alps than on rain. And
in the last two years, we have had very little snow.”<br>
</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">Civil Protection Minister Nello Musumeci said
the new normal of extreme weather events in the Mediterranean
requires Italians to adapt and Italy to rethink its flood
protections nationwide. He cited a fierce storm-triggered
landslide last fall on the southern island of Ischia, off
Naples, that left 12 dead.<br>
<br>
“We can’t just pretend that nothing is happening,” he said
Thursday. “Everything must change: the programming in hydraulic
infrastructures must change, the engineering approach must
change.”<br>
<br>
He said those changes were necessary to prevent the types of
floods that have left entire towns swamped with mud after two
dozen rivers burst their banks.<br>
<br>
The key going forward is prevention, he said, acknowledging
that’s not an easy sell due to costs.<br>
<br>
“We are not a nation inclined to prevention. We like to rebuild
more than to prevent,” he told Sky TG24.<br>
</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">Italy is far from alone in lurching from dry
to deluge. California and the United States West sloshed their
way from a record-setting megadrought to at least a dozen
atmospheric rivers dousing the region with so much rain that a
long-dormant lake reappeared.<br>
<br>
Scientists say flash floods of the kind seen in Germany and
Belgium two years ago, which killed more than 220 people and
caused billions of euros in damage, will become more likely as
the planet warms.<br>
<br>
“The rainiest events seem to be in many places getting rainier,”
Princeton University climate scientist Gabe Vecchi said
Thursday.<br>
<br>
In 2021, the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change scientific panel said it was “established fact” that
humans' greenhouse gas emissions had made for more frequent and
intense weather extremes. The panel called heat waves the most
obvious, but said heavy precipitation events had also likely
increased over most of the world.<br>
<br>
The U.N. report said “there is robust evidence” that record
rainfall and one-in-five, one-in-10 and one-in-20 year type
rainfall “became more common since the 1950s.”<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/italys-deadly-floods-latest-climate-weather-extremes-99451031">https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/italys-deadly-floods-latest-climate-weather-extremes-99451031</a><br>
</font>
</p>
<p><font face="Calibri"><br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Calibri"><br>
</font></p>
<font face="Calibri"><i>[ Paul Beckwith explains in a video lecture
]</i><br>
</font><font face="Calibri"><b>Earth Likely to Breach UN 1.5 C
Temperature GuardBand Within Five Years During El Niño</b><br>
</font>Paul Beckwith<br>
May 19, 2023<br>
A few days ago the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) published
their annual assessment of what we can expect for 2023 and for the
five year period 2023 to 2027. <br>
<br>
There was a lot of mainstream news articles published on this in the
last few days, and I want to explain why and the consequences that
we can expect. It is not a pretty picture.<br>
<br>
Basically, we are on the very edge of the 1.5 C precipice, relative
to the 1850-1900 baseline, and the WMO calculates a 2 in 3 chance
(66.66%, although all the press truncates to 66%) of passing this
within 5 years. The odds of setting a new global temperature record,
namely passing the peak of the last strong El Niño in 2016, is
pegged at 98%. The three consecutive years of La Niña that we have
just moved on from kept us from breaking global temperature records
in the last few years.<br>
<br>
Please be aware that the baseline used for these temperatures
discussed are the 1850 to 1900 climatological average. Remember that
when the UN first discussed the 2 C temperature, and then the 1.5 C
temperature, it was relative to the originally defined preindustrial
baseline of 1750. From 1750 to the 1850 to 1900 average, the global
average temperature increased between 0.2 C and 0.3 C so to
reference to 1750 you need to add this rise to all of the above
data. This, 2022 was 1.15 C above the 1850 to 1900 baseline, meaning
it was 1.35 C to 1.45 C above the year 1750. <br>
<font face="Calibri"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uty7i45il8Y">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uty7i45il8Y</a><br>
</font>
<p><font face="Calibri"><br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Calibri"><br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Calibri"> <i>[ comically called the ignorosphere --
high and thin, but Yale says there are changes in the
structure of Earth's atmosphere ]</i></font><br>
<b>The Upper Atmosphere Is Cooling, Prompting New Climate Concerns</b><br>
A new study reaffirming that global climate change is human-made
also found the upper atmosphere is cooling dramatically because of
rising CO2 levels. Scientists are worried about the effect this
cooling could have on orbiting satellites, the ozone layer, and
Earth’s weather.<br>
BY FRED PEARCE • MAY 18, 2023<br>
There is a paradox at the heart of our changing climate. While the
blanket of air close to the Earth’s surface is warming, most of
the atmosphere above is becoming dramatically colder. The same
gases that are warming the bottom few miles of air are cooling the
much greater expanses above that stretch to the edge of space.<br>
<br>
This paradox has long been predicted by climate modelers, but only
recently quantified in detail by satellite sensors. The new
findings are providing a definitive confirmation on one important
issue, but at the same time raising other questions.<br>
<br>
The good news for climate scientists is that the data on cooling
aloft do more than confirm the accuracy of the models that
identify surface warming as human-made. A new study published this
month in the journal PNAS by veteran climate modeler Ben Santer of
the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution found that it increased
the strength of the “signal” of the human fingerprint of climate
change fivefold, by reducing the interference “noise” from
background natural variability. Sander says the finding is
“incontrovertible.”...<br>
- - <br>
But the new discoveries about the scale of cooling aloft are
leaving atmospheric physicists with new worries — about the safety
of orbiting satellites, about the fate of the ozone layer, and
about the potential of these rapid changes aloft to visit sudden
and unanticipated turmoil on our weather below.<br>
<br>
Increases in CO2 are now “manifest throughout the entire
perceptible atmosphere,” a physicist says.<br>
Until recently, scientists called the remote zones of the upper
atmosphere the “ignorosphere” because they knew so little about
them. So now that they know more, what are we learning, and should
it reassure or alarm us?<br>
<br>
The Earth’s atmosphere has a number of layers. The region we know
best, because it is where our weather happens, is the troposphere.
This dense blanket of air five to nine miles thick contains 80
percent of the mass of the atmosphere but only a small fraction of
its volume. Above it are wide open spaces of progressively less
dense air. The stratosphere, which ends around 30 miles up, is
followed by the mesosphere, which extends to 50 miles, and then
the thermosphere, which reaches more than 400 miles up.<br>
<br>
From below, these distant zones appear as placid and pristine blue
sky. But in fact, they are buffeted by high winds and huge tides
of rising and descending air that occasionally invade our
troposphere. And the concern is that this already dynamic
environment could change again as it is infiltrated by CO2 and
other human-made chemicals that mess with the temperature,
density, and chemistry of the air aloft.<br>
<br>
Climate change is almost always thought about in terms of the
lowest regions of the atmosphere. But physicists now warn that we
need to rethink this assumption. Increases in the amount of CO2
are now “manifest throughout the entire perceptible atmosphere,”
says Martin Mlynczak, an atmospheric physicist at the NASA Langley
Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. They are “driving dramatic
changes [that] scientists are just now beginning to grasp.” Those
changes in the wild blue yonder far above our heads could feed
back to change our world below.<br>
<br>
The story of changing temperatures in the atmosphere at all levels
is largely the story of CO2. We know all too well that our
emissions of more than 40 billion tons of the gas annually are
warming the troposphere. This happens because the gas absorbs and
re-emits solar radiation, heating other molecules in the dense air
and raising temperatures overall.<br>
<br>
But the gas does not all stay in the troposphere. It also spreads
upward through the entire atmosphere. We now know that the rate of
increase in its concentration at the top of the atmosphere is as
great as at the bottom. But its effect on temperature aloft is
very different. In the thinner air aloft, most of the heat
re-emitted by the CO2 does not bump into other molecules. It
escapes to space. Combined with the greater trapping of heat at
lower levels, the result is a rapid cooling of the surrounding
atmosphere.<br>
<br>
The cooling of the upper air also causes it to contract, which
concerns NASA. The sky is falling — literally.<br>
Satellite data have recently revealed that between 2002 and 2019,
the mesosphere and lower thermosphere cooled by 3.1 degrees F (1.7
degrees C ). Mlynczak estimates that the doubling of CO2 levels
thought likely by later this century will cause a cooling in these
zones of around 13.5 degrees F (7.5 degrees C), which is between
two and three times faster than the average warming expected at
ground level.<br>
<br>
Early climate modelers predicted back in the 1960s that this
combination of tropospheric warming and strong cooling higher up
was the likely effect of increasing CO2 in the air. But its recent
detailed confirmation by satellite measurements greatly enhances
our confidence in the influence of CO2 on atmospheric
temperatures, says Santer, who has been modeling climate change
for 30 years.<br>
<br>
This month, he used new data on cooling in the middle and upper
stratosphere to recalculate the strength of the statistical
“signal” of the human fingerprint in climate change. He found that
it was greatly strengthened, in particular because of the
additional benefit provided by the lower level of background
“noise” in the upper atmosphere from natural temperature
variability. Santer found that the signal-to noise ratio for human
influence grew fivefold, providing “incontrovertible evidence of
human effects of the thermal structure of the Earth’s atmosphere.”
We are “fundamentally changing” that thermal structure, he says.
“These results make me very worried.”<br>
<br>
Much of the research analyzing changes aloft has been done by
scientists employed by NASA. The space agency has the satellites
to measure what is happening, but it also has a particular
interest in the implications for the safety of the satellites
themselves.<br>
<br>
This interest arises because the cooling of the upper air also
causes it to contract. The sky is falling — literally.<br>
<br>
The depth of the stratosphere has diminished by about 1 percent,
or 1,300 feet, since 1980, according to an analysis of NASA data
by Petr Pisoft, an atmospheric physicist at Charles University in
Prague. Above the stratosphere, Mlynczak found that the mesosphere
and lower thermosphere contracted by almost 4,400 feet between
2002 and 2019. Part of this shrinking was due to a short-term
decline in solar activity that has since ended, but 1,120 feet of
it was due to cooling caused by the extra CO2, he calculates.<br>
Microplastics are filling the skies. Will they affect the climate?<br>
<br>
This contraction means the upper atmosphere is becoming less
dense, which in turn reduces drag on satellites and other objects
in low orbit — by around a third by 2070, calculates Ingrid
Cnossen, a research fellow at the British Antarctic Survey.<br>
<br>
On the face of it, this is good news for satellite operators.
Their payloads should stay operational for longer before falling
back to Earth. But the problem is the other objects that share
these altitudes. The growing amount of space junk — bits of
equipment of various sorts left behind in orbit — are also
sticking around longer, increasing the risk of collisions with
currently operational satellites.<br>
<br>
In 2020, the Arctic had its first full-blown ozone hole, with more
than half the ozone layer lost in places.<br>
More than 5000 active and defunct satellites, including the
International Space Station, are in orbit at these altitudes,
accompanied by more than 30,000 known items of debris more than
four inches in diameter. The risks of collision, says Cnossen,
will grow ever greater as the cooling and contraction gathers
pace.<br>
<br>
This may be bad for business at space agencies, but how will the
changes aloft affect our world below?<br>
<br>
One big concern is the already fragile state of the ozone layer in
the lower stratosphere, which protects us from harmful solar
radiation that causes skin cancers. For much of the 20th century,
the ozone layer thinned under assault from industrial emissions of
ozone-eating chemicals such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).
Outright ozone holes formed each spring over Antarctica.<br>
<br>
The 1987 Montreal Protocol aimed to heal the annual holes by
eliminating those emissions. But it is now clear that another
factor is undermining this effort: stratospheric cooling.<br>
<br>
Ozone destruction operates in overdrive in polar stratospheric
clouds, which only form at very low temperatures, particularly
over polar regions in winter. But the cooler stratosphere has
meant more occasions when such clouds can form. While the ozone
layer over the Antarctic is slowly reforming as CFCs disappear,
the Arctic is proving different, says Peter von der Gathen of the
Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Potsdam,
Germany. In the Arctic, the cooling is worsening ozone loss. Von
der Gathen says the reason for this difference is not clear.<br>
<br>
In the spring of 2020, the Arctic had its first full-blown ozone
hole with more than half the ozone layer lost in places, which von
der Gathen blames on rising CO2 concentrations. It could be the
first of many. In a recent paper in Nature Communications, he
warned that the continued cooling means current expectations that
the ozone layer should be fully healed by mid-century are almost
certainly overly optimistic. On current trends, he said,
“conditions favorable for large seasonal loss of Arctic column
ozone could persist or even worsen until the end of this century …
much longer than is commonly appreciated.”<br>
<br>
This is made more concerning because, while the regions beneath
previous Antarctic holes have been largely devoid of people, the
regions beneath future Arctic ozone holes are potentially some of
the more densely populated on the planet, including Central and
Western Europe. If we thought the thinning ozone layer was a 20th
century worry, we may have to think again.<br>
<br>
Chemistry is not the only issue. Atmospheric physicists are also
growing concerned that cooling could change air movements aloft in
ways that impinge on weather and climate at ground level. One of
the most turbulent of these phenomena is known as sudden
stratospheric warming. Westerly winds in the stratosphere
periodically reverse, resulting in big temperatures swings during
which parts of the stratosphere can warm by as much as 90 degrees
F (50 degrees C) in a couple of days.<br>
<br>
This is typically accompanied by a rapid sinking of air that
pushes onto the Atlantic jet stream at the top of the troposphere.
The jet stream, which drives weather systems widely across the
Northern Hemisphere, begins to snake. This disturbance can cause a
variety of extreme weather, from persistent intense rains to
summer droughts and “blocking highs” that can cause weeks of
intense cold winter weather from eastern North America to Europe
and parts of Asia.<br>
<br>
This much is already known. In the past 20 years, weather
forecasters have included such stratospheric influences in their
models. This has significantly improved the accuracy of their
long-range forecasts, according to the Met Office, a U.K.
government forecasting agency.<br>
<br>
“If we don’t get our models right about what is happening up
there, we could get things wrong down below.”<br>
The question now being asked is how the extra CO2 and overall
stratospheric cooling will influence the frequency and intensity
of these sudden warming events. Mark Baldwin, a climate scientist
at the University of Exeter in England, who has studied the
phenomenon, says most models agree that sudden stratospheric
warming is indeed sensitive to more CO2. But while some models
predict many more sudden warming events, others suggest fewer. If
we knew more, Baldwin says, it would “lead to improved confidence
in both long-term weather forecasts and climate change
projections.”<br>
<br>
It is becoming ever clearer that, as Gary Thomas, an atmospheric
physicist at the University of Colorado Boulder, puts it, “If we
don’t get our models right about what is happening up there, we
could get things wrong down below.” But improving models of how
the upper atmosphere works — and verifying their accuracy —
requires good up-to-date data on real conditions aloft. And the
supply of that data is set to dry up, Mlynczak warns.<br>
<br>
Most of the satellites that have supplied information from the
upper atmosphere over the past three decades — delivering his and
others’ forecasts of cooling and contraction — are reaching the
ends of their lives. Of six NASA satellites on the case, one
failed in December, another was decommissioned in March, and three
more are set to shut down soon. “There is as yet no new mission
planned or in development,” he says.<br>
<br>
Mlynczak is hoping to reboot interest in monitoring with a special
session that he is organizing at the American Geophysical Union
this fall to discuss the upper atmosphere as “the next frontier in
climate change.” Without continued monitoring, the fear is we
could soon be returning to the days of the ignorosphere.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://e360.yale.edu/features/climate-change-upper-atmosphere-cooling">https://e360.yale.edu/features/climate-change-upper-atmosphere-cooling</a><font
face="Calibri"></font></p>
<p><font face="Calibri"><br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Calibri"><br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Calibri"> </font> </p>
<font face="Calibri"><i>[ From the New Straits Times -- some poetry
]</i></font><br>
<font face="Calibri"><b>Odes to love gained and lost in the time of
climate change</b><br>
By Roli Srivastava - May 20, 2023<br>
</font><font face="Calibri">Indian poet Amandeep Singh turned to the
peace of the mountains for inspiration in the past, but the idea
for his latest poem was born in a workshop on climate change in
busy Mumbai.<br>
<br>
His poem, She Came Back — which references a drying lake, solar
panels and the girl he loves riding an electric scooter — was the
result of a unique collaboration between poets and researchers to
create new works on love and climate change.<br>
<br>
The "Love in the Times of Climate Change" campaign by the Council
on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) features videos of seven
poets reciting poems intended to make climate change easier to
understand and more relatable.<br>
<br>
"If we only talk about how things have changed, or that there is
climate change, people may not even notice it," said Singh, 28,
whose climate change-themed poem garnered more than 30,000 views
on YouTube in less than two months.<br>
</font><br>
<font face="Calibri">"But if we talk about how we are experiencing
climate change and not just what is happening, people will
register it better."<br>
<br>
He credited the workshop with helping him notice that rising heat
in April and May was keeping him homebound more, and how he no
longer wore warm woollen clothes during Deepavali which is
celebrated in the col-<br>
der months of October or November.<br>
</font><br>
<font face="Calibri"> </font><font face="Calibri">Other poems in
the campaign feature a grandmother noticing the disappearance of
sparrows from her courtyard as climate change affects nature, and
lovers thanking untimely rains for allowing them a few more
moments of intimacy.<br>
<br>
In recent years, India has recorded frequent heatwaves, rising sea
levels and recurring droughts and cyclones that scientists say are
fuelled by climate change.<br>
<br>
Concern is growing that rising global temperatures will bring even
more severe impacts, with scientists predicting that 1.5°C of
warming — considered a guardrail limit — is likely to be passed
within five years.<br>
<br>
Efforts to communicate the urgent need for action have largely
come from climate activists and scientists, with warnings about
cities going underwater due to worsening floods and sea level rise
grabbing some headlines.<br>
<br>
Still, such warnings have failed to move large numbers of people
to demand adequate political action, and this has led to a search
for new, more effective, messages and messengers.<br>
<br>
Climate change discourse needs to "break out of the clutches of
academicians, researchers and policymakers", said Anjal Prakash of
the Hyderabad-based Indian School of Business.<br>
<br>
"The more informed the people are, the more they will demand from
the government in terms of climate action."<br>
<br>
In recent years, some schools have introduced lessons on extreme
weather and rising sea levels, while art festivals have showcased
climate change to raise awareness.<br>
<br>
But when Simar Singh, 23, created an online platform for poets
called UnErase Poetry six years ago, highlighting climate threats
was not on his radar.<br>
<br>
"I love poetry and I wanted to talk about different causes.<br>
<br>
"I was climate conscious, but I never consumed facts or research
around climate change, nor did I ever look for it," he said.<br>
<br>
With 1.5 million subscribers on YouTube and 1.1 million on
Instagram, UnErase Poetry was a natural choice as CEEW's partner
for its campaign.<br>
<br>
Singh said the climate change-based poems will be performed at
colleges, where the theme of love should resonate.<br>
<br>
"People in that age group are falling in love and going through
heartbreak. So, if you can talk about love and give (another)
message too, that's great."<br>
<br>
Nitin Bassi, a programme lead at CEEW, said the poems could make
people feel in a more visceral way the need to act on climate
change "without making the conversation too heavy and
guilt-driven".<br>
<br>
"The idea was to showcase how our loved ones can be impacted by
climate change."<br>
<br>
That was a fresh lesson for another poet in the campaign, Helly
Shah, 24, who had collaborated with non-profits in the past to
write about financial empowerment for women and the country's
voiceless poor.<br>
<br>
Shah's new poem, When Will You Come Home, explores flash floods in
a city that compound the growing distance in a relationship.<br>
<br>
"We often use imagery and metaphors from nature to talk about
love. But, nature is changing now. The climate is not the same any
more," said Shah.<br>
</font><font face="Calibri"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnists/2023/05/911606/odes-love-gained-and-lost-time-climate-change">https://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnists/2023/05/911606/odes-love-gained-and-lost-time-climate-change</a><br>
</font><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<font face="Calibri"> </font> <font face="Calibri"><i>[The news
archive - looking back early understanding ]</i></font><br>
<font face="Calibri"><font size="+2"><i><b>May 21, 2010</b></i></font>
</font><br>
<font face="Calibri"> May 21, 2010: In the New Republic, Al Gore
notes:</font><br>
<blockquote><font face="Calibri"> "During the last 22 years, the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has produced four
massive studies warning the world of the looming catastrophe
that is being caused by the massive dumping of global-warming
pollution into the atmosphere. Unfortunately, this process has
been vulnerable to disruption and paralysis by a cynical and
lavishly funded disinformation campaign. A number of large
carbon polluters, whose business plans rely on their continued
ability to freely dump their gaseous waste products into the
global atmospheric commons—as if it is an open sewer—have chosen
to pursue a determined and highly organized campaign aimed at
undermining public confidence in the accuracy and integrity of
the global scientific community. They have attacked the
scientific community by financing pseudo-studies aimed at
creating public doubt about peer-reviewed science. They have
also manipulated the political and regulatory process with
outsized campaign contributions and legions of lobbyists (there
are now four anti-climate lobbyists for every single member of
the House and Senate).</font><br>
<font face="Calibri"> </font><br>
<font face="Calibri"> "This epic public contest between the broad
public interest and a small but powerful special interest has
taken place during a time when American democracy has grown
sclerotic. The role of money in our politics has exploded to a
dangerous level. Our democratic conversation is now dominated by
expensive 30-second television commercials, which consume
two-thirds of the campaign budgets of candidates in both
political parties. The only reliable source of such large sums
of campaign cash is business lobbies. Most members of the House
and Senate facing competitive election contests are forced to
spend several hours each day asking special interests for money
to finance their campaigns. Instead of participating in
committee hearings, floor debates, and Burkean reflection on the
impact of the questions being considered, they spend their time
as supplicants. Though many struggle to resist the influence
their donors intend to have on their decision-making process,
all too frequently human nature takes its course.</font><br>
<font face="Calibri"> </font><br>
<font face="Calibri"> "Their constituents now spend an average of
five hours per day watching television—which is, of course, why
campaigns in both political parties spend most of their money on
TV advertising. Viewers also absorb political messages from the
same special interests that are wining and dining and
contributing to their elected officials. The largest carbon
polluters have, for the last 17 years, sought to manipulate
public opinion with a massive and continuing propaganda
campaign, using TV advertisements and all other forms of mass
persuasion. It is a game plan spelled out in one of their
internal documents, which was leaked to an enterprising
reporter, that stated: 'reposition global warming as theory
rather than fact.' In other words, they have mimicked the
strategy pioneered by the tobacco industry, which undermined the
scientific consensus linking the smoking of cigarettes with
diseases of the lung and heart—successfully delaying appropriate
health measures for almost 40 years after the landmark surgeon
general’s report of 1964."</font><br>
</blockquote>
<font face="Calibri"> <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.newrepublic.com/article/politics/the-crisis-comes-ashore">http://www.newrepublic.com/article/politics/the-crisis-comes-ashore</a>
</font><br>
<font face="Calibri"> <br>
<br>
</font>
<p><font face="Calibri">======================================= <br>
</font> <font face="Calibri"><b class="moz-txt-star"><span
class="moz-txt-tag">*Mass media is lacking, many </span>daily
summaries<span class="moz-txt-tag"> deliver global warming
news - a few are email delivered*</span></b> <br>
</font> <font face="Calibri"><br>
=========================================================<br>
</font> <font face="Calibri"><b>*Inside Climate News</b><br>
Newsletters<br>
We deliver climate news to your inbox like nobody else. Every
day or once a week, our original stories and digest of the web’s
top headlines deliver the full story, for free.<br>
</font> <font face="Calibri"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://insideclimatenews.org/">https://insideclimatenews.org/</a><br>
--------------------------------------- <br>
*<b>Climate Nexus</b> <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://climatenexus.org/hot-news/*">https://climatenexus.org/hot-news/*</a>
<br>
Delivered straight to your inbox every morning, Hot News
summarizes the most important climate and energy news of the
day, delivering an unmatched aggregation of timely, relevant
reporting. It also provides original reporting and commentary on
climate denial and pro-polluter activity that would otherwise
remain largely unexposed. 5 weekday <br>
================================= <br>
</font> <font face="Calibri"><b class="moz-txt-star"><span
class="moz-txt-tag">*</span>Carbon Brief Daily </b><span
class="moz-txt-star"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/newsletter-sign-up">https://www.carbonbrief.org/newsletter-sign-up</a></span><b
class="moz-txt-star"><span class="moz-txt-tag">*</span></b> <br>
Every weekday morning, in time for your morning coffee, Carbon
Brief sends out a free email known as the “Daily Briefing” to
thousands of subscribers around the world. The email is a digest
of the past 24 hours of media coverage related to climate change
and energy, as well as our pick of the key studies published in
the peer-reviewed journals. <br>
more at <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.getrevue.co/publisher/carbon-brief">https://www.getrevue.co/publisher/carbon-brief</a>
<br>
================================== <br>
*T<b>he Daily Climate </b>Subscribe <a
class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://ehsciences.activehosted.com/f/61*">https://ehsciences.activehosted.com/f/61*</a>
<br>
Get The Daily Climate in your inbox - FREE! Top news on climate
impacts, solutions, politics, drivers. Delivered week days.
Better than coffee. <br>
Other newsletters at <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.dailyclimate.org/originals/">https://www.dailyclimate.org/originals/</a>
<br>
<br>
</font> </p>
<font face="Calibri">
/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------/
<br>
/ to explore the archive <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote/">https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote/</a><br>
<br>
<br>
/To receive daily mailings - click to Subscribe <a
class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:subscribe@theClimate.Vote?subject=Click%20SEND%20to%20process%20your%20request"><mailto:subscribe@theClimate.Vote?subject=Click%20SEND%20to%20process%20your%20request></a>
to news digest./<br>
<br>
Privacy and Security:*This mailing is text-only. It does not
carry images or attachments which may originate from remote
servers. A text-only message can provide greater privacy to the
receiver and sender. This is a personal hobby production curated
by Richard Pauli<br>
By regulation, the .VOTE top-level domain cannot be used for
commercial purposes. Messages have no tracking software.<br>
To subscribe, email: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated
moz-txt-link-freetext" href="mailto:contact@theclimate.vote">contact@theclimate.vote</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:contact@theclimate.vote"><mailto:contact@theclimate.vote></a>
with subject subscribe, To Unsubscribe, subject: unsubscribe<br>
Also you may subscribe/unsubscribe at <a
class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://pairlist10.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/theclimate.vote">https://pairlist10.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/theclimate.vote</a><br>
Links and headlines assembled and curated by Richard Pauli for <a
class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://TheClimate.Vote">http://TheClimate.Vote</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://TheClimate.Vote/"><http://TheClimate.Vote/></a>
delivering succinct information for citizens and responsible
governments of all levels. List membership is confidential and
records are scrupulously restricted to this mailing list. <br>
</font>
</body>
</html>