<!DOCTYPE html>
<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>November </b></i></font></font><font
size="+2" face="Calibri"><i><b>7, 2023</b></i></font><font
face="Calibri"><br>
</font> <br>
<i>[ the United Nations warn of future risks</i><i> - </i><i> ]</i><br>
<b>Risk tipping points</b><br>
The 2023 Interconnected Disaster Risks report analyses six
interconnected risk tipping points, representing immediate and
increasing risks across the world.<br>
A risk tipping point is reached when the systems that we rely on for
our lives and societies cannot buffer risks and stop functioning
like we expect it to.<br>
Today, we are moving close to the brink of multiple risk tipping
points. Human actions are behind this rapid and fundamental change
to the planet, driving us towards potential catastrophe.<br>
<br>
Luckily, we are able to see the danger ahead of us. Changing our
behaviours and priorities can shape a path towards a bright,
sustainable and equitable future.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://interconnectedrisks.org/">https://interconnectedrisks.org/</a>
<p>- -</p>
<i>[ UN lists Six Tipping Points ]</i><br>
<b>2023 Executive Summary</b><br>
Humans often think of processes as being simple and predictable.
When we need water, we turn on the tap and water comes out. However,
we do not give much thought to where the water came from in the
first place, and we are often unaware of the many underlying
processes that occur before it reaches us. This leaves us with
little understanding of the effect of our usage on others in the
system, or the risk that one day the source of our water could be
gone.<br>
<br>
Systems are all around us and closely connected to us. Water
systems, food systems, transport systems, information systems,
ecosystems and others: our world is made up of systems where the
individual parts interact with one another. Over time, human
activities have made these systems increasingly complex, be it
through global supply chains, communication networks, international
trade and more. As these interconnections get stronger, they offer
opportunities for global cooperation and support, but also expose us
to greater risks and unpleasant surprises, particularly when our own
actions threaten to damage a system.<br>
<br>
When our life-sustaining systems, such as those for our water or
food, deteriorate, it is typically not a simple and predictable
process. A tower made of building blocks might remain standing at
first if you remove one piece at a time, but instability slowly
builds in until you remove one block too many and it topples over.
Like the stack of blocks, when a certain threshold of instability is
reached in a system, it might collapse or fundamentally change. We
open the tap, and suddenly nothing comes out. This is called a
tipping point, and tipping points can have irreversible,
catastrophic impacts for people and the planet.<br>
<br>
<b>Risk tipping points</b><br>
There are different kinds of tipping points. Climate change has
so-called “climate tipping points”, specific thresholds after which
unstoppable changes occur, influencing the global climate. When the
increasing temperatures push vast systems around the world, like the
Amazon rainforest or the Greenland Ice Sheet, past certain
thresholds, they will enter a path towards collapse.<br>
<br>
But tipping points are not always physical, and climate change is
just one of the many drivers of risk. Many new risks emerge when and
where our physical and natural worlds interconnect with human
society. Some tipping points trigger abrupt changes in our
life-sustaining systems that can shake the foundations of our
societies. This is why the 2023 edition of the Interconnected
Disaster Risks report proposes a new category of tipping points:
risk tipping points. A risk tipping point is the moment at which a
given socioecological system is no longer able to buffer risks and
provide its expected functions, after which the risk of catastrophic
impacts to these systems increases substantially.<br>
<p>- -</p>
<blockquote>[ YouTube 9 mins ]<br>
<b>Interconnected Disaster Risks 2023: Risk Tipping Points - Human
Interest Video - long version</b><br>
United Nations University <br>
Oct 25, 2023<br>
If you are a rice farmer, one of the resources you need most for
your rice paddies, is water. Much of that water will come from
rain, rivers and canals, but when that is insufficient or not
available, farmers tend to rely on groundwater. Globally, water
taken from underground reservoirs supports 40 per cent of
agriculture. But if we take out more water than what can naturally
be replenished, the groundwater levels fall, and it becomes harder
to reach over time. <br>
<br>
For farmers in the Punjab region of India, this is the harsh
reality they face. They depend on groundwater from the
Indo-Gangetic basin´s aquifer system, which spans across India,
Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh. As this highly productive
agricultural region is India´s food basket, the groundwater is
being heavily used and depleted faster than it can replenish,
resulting in consistently falling groundwater levels. <br>
<br>
Interconnected Disaster Risks is an annual science-based report
from United Nations University – Institute for Environment and
Human Security (UNU-EHS). It takes a closer look at disasters
happening around the world, their interconnections with each other
and with human activities, and highlights solutions.<br>
<br>
This year’s edition, published on 25 October 2023, focuses on
“risk tipping points”, points past which the systems we rely on
stop functioning as we expect, substantially increasing the risk
of catastrophic impacts. It analyses and warns about six impending
risk tipping points, groundwater depletion being one of them. <br>
More information on risk tipping points as well as strategies to
avert their worst impacts is available on the dedicated
Interconnected Disaster Risks website: <a
class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://interconnectedrisks.org/">https://interconnectedrisks.org/</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ka5DRcucTWs">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ka5DRcucTWs</a><br>
</blockquote>
<b>Six Tipping Points</b><br>
<blockquote><b>Accelerating extinctions</b><br>
A chain reaction to ecosystem collapse<br>
<br>
<b>Groundwater depletion</b><br>
Draining our water, risking our food supply<br>
<br>
<b>Mountain glacier melting</b><br>
Running on thin ice<br>
<br>
<b>Space debris</b><br>
Losing our eyes in the sky<br>
<br>
<b>Unbearable heat</b><br>
Living in the unliveable<br>
<br>
<b>Uninsurable future</b><br>
With rising risks, insurance becomes unreachable<br>
</blockquote>
<p><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://interconnectedrisks.org/summaries/2023-executive-summary">https://interconnectedrisks.org/summaries/2023-executive-summary</a><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<i>[ study of risk to humans reveals our bodies are not so
resilient ]</i><br>
<b>Greatly enhanced risk to humans as a consequence of empirically
determined lower moist heat stress tolerance</b><br>
Daniel J. Vecellio <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9431-0744">https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9431-0744</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:dvecelli@gmu.edu">dvecelli@gmu.edu</a>, Qinqin Kong <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4593-3643">https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4593-3643</a>,
W. Larry Kenney <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1326-8175">https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1326-8175</a>, and Matthew
Huber <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2771-9977Authors">https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2771-9977Authors</a> Info &
Affiliations<br>
Edited by Kerry Emanuel, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, New
Harbor, ME...<br>
October 9, 2023<br>
120 (42) e2305427120<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2305427120">https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2305427120</a><br>
<b>Significance</b><br>
Increased heat and humidity potentially threaten people and
societies. Here, we incorporate our laboratory-measured,
physiologically based wet-bulb temperature thresholds across a range
of air temperatures and relative humidities, to project future heat
stress risk from bias-corrected climate model output. These
vulnerability thresholds substantially increase the calculated risk
of widespread potentially dangerous, uncompensable humid heat
stress. Some of the most populated regions, typically lower-middle
income countries in the moist tropics and subtropics, violate this
threshold well before 3 °C of warming. Further global warming
increases the extent of threshold crossing into drier regions, e.g.,
in North America and the Middle East. These differentiated patterns
imply vastly different heat adaption strategies. Limiting warming to
under 2 °C nearly eliminates this risk.<br>
<blockquote><b>Abstract</b><br>
As heatwaves become more frequent, intense, and longer-lasting due
to climate change, the question of breaching thermal limits
becomes pressing. A wet-bulb temperature (Tw) of 35 °C has been
proposed as a theoretical upper limit on human abilities to
biologically thermoregulate. But, recent—empirical—research using
human subjects found a significantly lower maximum Tw at which
thermoregulation is possible even with minimal metabolic activity.
Projecting future exposure to this empirical critical
environmental limit has not been done. Here, using this more
accurate threshold and the latest coupled climate model results,
we quantify exposure to dangerous, potentially lethal heat for
future climates at various global warming levels. We find that
humanity is more vulnerable to moist heat stress than previously
proposed because of these lower thermal limits. Still, limiting
warming to under 2 °C nearly eliminates exposure and risk of
widespread uncompensable moist heatwaves as a sharp rise in
exposure occurs at 3 °C of warming. Parts of the Middle East and
the Indus River Valley experience brief exceedances with only 1.5
°C warming. More widespread, but brief, dangerous heat stress
occurs in a +2 °C climate, including in eastern China and
sub-Saharan Africa, while the US Midwest emerges as a moist heat
stress hotspot in a +3 °C climate. In the future, moist heat
extremes will lie outside the bounds of past human experience and
beyond current heat mitigation strategies for billions of people.
While some physiological adaptation from the thresholds described
here is possible, additional behavioral, cultural, and technical
adaptation will be required to maintain healthy lifestyles.<br>
</blockquote>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2305427120">https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2305427120</a>
<p>- -</p>
<i>[ explaining future heat hours and human heat stress - video ]</i><br>
<b>Billions of People at Risk from Wet Bulb Temperature’s Rendering
Major Cities Uninhabitable</b><br>
Paul Beckwith<br>
Nov 5, 2023<br>
<b>Crucial Point:</b><br>
<blockquote>Although the theoretical limit of the human body to
tolerate heat and humidity is a wet bulb temperature of 35 C (with
100% humidity), practical empirical studies show that the limit
for healthy, young, individuals is more like 30.6 C (with 100%
humidity). Thus, our human body is nowhere near as resilient to
heat and humidity as we previously thought. <br>
</blockquote>
Also, very bad is the fact that the elderly, the very young, people
on medications like antidepressants, the obese, those with medical
conditions, and people exercising outside, and exposed to sunlight,
are much less resilient than those healthy, young individuals in the
study, so the heat and humidity combination for them to collapse is
even lower than 30.6 C with 100% humidity. <br>
<br>
Not good.<br>
<br>
The new study that I chat about is:<br>
“Greatly enhanced risk to humans as a consequence of empirically
determined lower moist heat stress tolerance”<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas">https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas</a>...<br>
<br>
Basically, this study used the empirical body resilience wet bulb
numbers to see which regions of the planet will become uninhabitable
first. <br>
<br>
Climate models project warming and humidity conditions into the
future for various warming levels, and show that billions of people
will soon be exposed to temperature-humidity conditions not
conducive to survival outside. They will have to stay indoors with
air conditioning, unless they burrow underground or wear spacesuit
like chill suits to be outside for any length of time.<br>
<br>
You may ask: What is the world coming to? <br>
<br>
I am trying to tell you.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUT4hN9e5Ds">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUT4hN9e5Ds</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<br>
<i>[ change now or die sooner ]</i><br>
<b>Scientists say only transformational change will avoid
environmental tipping points</b><br>
Ahead of COP28, UN-backed scientists warn that to avoid six
irreversible climatic and ecological changes, the root causes must
be addressed.<br>
By Catherine Early, China Dialogue<br>
Nov. 5, 2023<br>
The world is facing several environmental “tipping points” that are
interrelated and could cause drastic changes to societies if
unaddressed, scientists have said in a new report.<br>
<br>
Published by the UN University Institute for Environment and Human
Security (UNU EHS), “Interconnected Disaster Risks” is designed to
highlight the interconnections between the risks the world faces. It
underlines that when ecosystems, food systems and water systems
deteriorate, instability can slowly build until a tipping point is
reached, changing the system fundamentally or even causing it to
collapse.<br>
<br>
The report favours solutions that address the root causes of the six
risks it highlights: unbearable heat, biodiversity extinctions,
groundwater depletion, glacial melt, uninsurability and space
debris.<br>
<br>
These risks are all apparent already in some regions of the world.
For example, more than 50 per cent of the world’s aquifers are
losing water faster than it is being replaced. If water falls below
the level that wells can access it, food production is put at risk.
Saudi Arabia has passed this tipping point: in the mid-1990s,
large-scale groundwater extraction allowed the country to become the
world’s sixth-largest wheat exporter. Since 2017, however, it has
relied on imports.<br>
<br>
The report’s solutions include: slashing greenhouse gas emissions;
creating a world without waste; respecting the needs of nature;
nurturing “a global civic mindset”; and replacing growth based on
relentless economic increase with one based on supporting human
wellbeing while remaining within planetary boundaries.<br>
<br>
<b>Melting ice</b><br>
Meltwater from glaciers and snow provides water for drinking,
irrigation, hydropower and ecosystems. But, like groundwater
overexraction, glacial retreat – when glaciers melt faster than snow
can replenish them – is underway in many locations. Between 2000 and
2019, glaciers experienced a net loss of 267 billion tonnes of ice
per year.<br>
<br>
Glacial “peak water” – the point at which a glacier produces its
maximum volume of water run-off due to melting – has already passed
in the Andes, leaving communities with unreliable sources for
drinking and irrigation. Peak water is expected within the next ten
years for many small glaciers in Central Europe, western Canada and
South America, according to the report.<br>
<br>
Meanwhile, heatwaves are becoming more frequent and intense. In the
past two decades, extreme heat has been responsible for an average
of 500,000 excess deaths per year. This is disproportionally
affecting people who are particularly vulnerable due to, for
example, age, health conditions or profession.<br>
<br>
The tipping point at which a human body can no longer survive is a
“wet-bulb temperature” of 35C for more than six hours. This
measurement combines temperature and humidity and is important
because high humidity hinders the sweat evaporation needed to
maintain a stable core body temperature.<br>
<br>
Wet-bulb temperatures have already crossed the human survival
threshold on occasion in the Persian Gulf and the Indus River Basin,
researchers warn. By 2070, parts of South Asia and the Middle East
are predicted to surpass it regularly. The report says that by 2100,
more than 70 per cent of the global population may be exposed to
deadly climate conditions for at least 20 days per year.<br>
<br>
Events this year back up these findings. Record-breaking heat in the
south-west of the US and Mexico, Southern Europe and China raised
heat-related hospitalisations and caused multiple deaths. In July,
more than 200 people in Mexico died in this way, while authorities
issued heat warnings for large parts of the population in Italy and
Spain and over 100 million people in the southern US.<br>
<br>
<b>Uninsurable</b><br>
The researchers also outline how adapting to severe weather will
become more challenging as locations or activities become
uninsurable. Insurance premiums have climbed by as much as 57 per
cent since 2015 in areas where extreme weather events are already
common. Some insurance companies have limited the amount or type of
damages they can cover, cancelled policies or left the market
altogether.<br>
<br>
If this trend reaches a tipping point, where insurance becomes
unaffordable or unavailable, people will be left without an economic
safety net if disaster strikes. This will increase socio-economic
consequences, particularly for those least able to move to safer
areas.<br>
<br>
Extinctions are also at risk of a tipping point, the report warns.
If a strongly connected species in a particular ecosystem
disappears, this can trigger cascading extinctions of dependent
species, eventually leading to ecosystem collapse.<br>
<br>
For example, sea otters help balance Pacific kelp forests by feeding
on sea urchins, but they are endangered due to overhunting. If sea
otters are not there to protect kelp from urchins, more than 1,000
species, including sharks, turtles and whales, will lose the
shelter, food and protection of these forests.<br>
<br>
Transformational change<br>
The report asserts that societies and governments are currently
failing to deal with the root causes of these problems with the
necessary transformational change. Instead, action is being delayed
with temporary solutions that merely slow the journey to tipping
points, rather than halting it.<br>
<br>
For example, global heating has led to a huge rise in air
conditioning installations across the world. The report’s lead
author Dr Zita Sebesvari points out that while this is
understandable, these cooling technologies are also increasing
greenhouse gas emissions. She says the world could be slashing these
emissions by using more efficient technology, for example.<br>
<br>
Sebesvari says the upcoming UN climate talks at COP28 will provide
an opportunity to deal with this: the United Arab Emirates
presidency and the UN Environment Programme have been promoting a
pledge to reduce emissions from cooling that they hope governments
will sign up to.<br>
<br>
Dr Jack O’Connor, lead author and senior expert at the UNU EHS, says
the issues raised in “Interconnected Disaster Risks” are very much
related to COP28: “If we look at these tipping points, continuing
CO2 emissions is connected to driving up risk in many different
areas, so addressing this will logically reduce our risk in many
different areas.”<br>
<br>
This article was originally published on China Dialogue under a
Creative Commons license.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.eco-business.com/news/scientists-say-only-transformational-change-will-avoid-environmental-tipping-points/">https://www.eco-business.com/news/scientists-say-only-transformational-change-will-avoid-environmental-tipping-points/</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
<font face="Calibri"><i>[The news archive - Note the important
acronym: "DTFM" = ( Do The Fuckin' Math) ]</i></font><br>
<font face="Calibri"> <font size="+2"><i><b>November 7, 2012 </b></i></font>
</font><br>
<font face="Calibri"> </font> November 7, 2012: The 350.org "Do
the Math" tour commences in Seattle.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2012/11/08/bill-mckibben-kicks-do-math-tour-seattle">http://www.desmogblog.com/2012/11/08/bill-mckibben-kicks-do-math-tour-seattle</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbdJRb7yaWY">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbdJRb7yaWY</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><font face="Calibri"><br>
</font><font face="Calibri"><br>
=== Other climate news sources
===========================================<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>
/Archive of Daily Global Warming News <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 -- and carries no
images or attachments which may originate from remote servers.
Text-only messages 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. </font><font
face="Calibri"><br>
</font>
</body>
</html>