Posted on

Will China Deplete the Oceans?

Photo by Knut Troim on Unsplash
Photo by Knut Troim on Unsplash

Will China Deplete the Oceans

By Robert Hunziker

According to the Marine Stewardship Council, depletion of fish stocks is the most urgent threat to the world’s oceans.

Ninety-three percent (93%) of the world’s major marine fish stocks are classified as fully exploited, overexploited, or significantly depleted. “Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) fishing is a pervasive, far-reaching security threat.” (Source: Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing, United States Coast Guard, 2022)

“Demand for seafood and advances in technology have led to fishing practices that are depleting fish and shellfish populations around the world. Fishers remove more than 77 billion kilograms (170 billion pounds) of wildlife from the sea each year. Scientists fear that continuing to fish at this rate may soon result in a collapse of the world’s fisheries.” (Source: Sustainable Fishing, National Geographic, June 2, 2022) As a follow up question to scientists’ concerns: Who’s counting the illegal catch?

The population of Pacific Bluefin tuna, one of the ocean’s most ecologically as well as economically valuable top predators, has plunged 97% from historic levels.

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, commercial fish stocks are 90% fully exploited. That leaves 10% exposed to the world’s fishing fleet.

As for example, the oceans are pretty much open prey to China’s 17,000 fishing vessels. It is the largest fleet in the world. This compares to 250-to-300 total vessels for both the United States and the EU. Not only is China’s fishing fleet 55 times larger than the combined fleets of the US and EU, but China is ceremoniously ranked as the worst abuser of sea laws as well as inhumane practices, based upon facts from the IUU Fishing Index.

China’s distant-water fleet numbers 3,000 ships. Enormous refrigerated vessels referred to as “motherships” upload the catch of the Chinese fleet, thus allowing an entire fleet of trawlers to continuously fish 24/7 without returning to port. Moreover, this strategy makes it very easy to (1) underreport catch size and (2) hide locations of catch, as Chinese trawlers have a proclivity to drift into restricted territorial boundaries, as ship captains turn off Automatic Identification System (AIS) transponders that are required international tracking devices, thus, making trawlers invisible to satellite tracking.

“Over the last two decades, China has built the world’s largest deep-water fishing fleet, by far, with nearly 3,000 ships. Having severely depleted stocks in its own coastal waters, China now fishes in any ocean in the world, and on a scale that dwarfs some countries’ entire fleets near their own waters. The impact is increasingly being felt from the Indian Ocean to the South Pacific, from the coasts of Africa to those off South America — a manifestation on the high seas of China’s global economic might.” (Source: How China Targets the Global Fish Supply, The New York Times, September 26, 2022)

The IUU Fishing Index computes illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing. By all accounts, Chinese fishing fleets break every rule in the book, inclusive of (1) overfishing, (2) targeting endangered shark species, (3) illegal intrusion into restricted territorial waters, (4) falsifying licenses and catch documents and (5) employing forced labor.

The first-ever “global footprint” of Chinese distant-water fishing fleet operations published by the Environmental Justice Foundation (UK) claims the Chinese fleet is “frequently associated with illegal fishing.” (Source: The Ever-Widening Net, Environmental Justice Foundation, 2022)

Compared to investigations of distant-water fishing fleets of Taiwan and South Korea, Chinese vessels have the highest rates of alleged IUU abuses. Examples include (1) hunting turtles, cetaceans and seals (2) shark finning (3) human rights abuse, including the withholding of money and personal documents. Curiously, there’s been a major shift from Chinese state ownership to private ownership of distant-water fleets, which effectively inhibits government oversight.

The EJF report claims that 78% of offshore fishery projects that are expressly approved by China’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs fall within “exclusive economic zones of 20 African states.” These are crucial zones for the local populations. West Africa is a favorite target for these distant-water fishing fleets utilizing bottom trawlers that drag heavy nets across the seafloor capturing everything in sight including non-target species and undersized fish.

Offshore South America, the Galapagos Islands are a prime target for Chinese trawlers surrounding restricted areas full of abundant ocean wildlife. Satellite imagery 2020-2021 showed the fleets lined up along the edges of international waters surrounding Galapagos, as trawlers catch marine life entering and leaving the protection zone with clear evidence of some trawlers entering the protection zone for quickie catches within restricted areas.

“Out on the lawless high seas off South America’s Pacific coast, a quiet war over the overfishing of endangered squid stocks is being waged— and China is winning.” (Source: China Ramps Up Illegal Fishing in Lawless High Seas off South America, The Telegraph, February 10, 2022)

Global Fishing Watch, which utilizes data from ship transponders to monitor trawlers, followed the pathway of “transshipment” by Hai Feng 718, a Chinese mothership, which has refrigerated storage capable of holding tons of catch as well as fuel and supplies for the fleet at sea. This operation follows the coastline of South American year-round, 24/7 as trawlers catch whatever is available. Motherships are not illegal; however, transshipment makes it easy to underreport catch by individual trawlers and disguise origin of catch.

Drift-Net Fishing

On 20 December 1991 U.N. passed Resolution 46/215 banning operation of large-scale pelagic high seas drift-net fishing and to ensure that a global moratorium on all large-scale pelagic drift-net fishing is fully implemented on the high seas of the world’s oceans and seas, including enclosed seas and semi-enclosed seas, by 31 December 1992.

“Across the Indo-Pacific, oversize fishing trawlers owned by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) are using dragnets large enough to swallow a football stadium. Such illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing threatens regional food security, including in the waters of American Samoa, Guam and Hawaii. For Pacific island nations, IUU fishing is also a national security threat.” (Source: Chinese Fishing Fleet Poses Threat to Pacific Island Economies, Indo-Pacific Defense Forum, June 21, 2021)

“The impact of these drift nets is absolutely disastrous,” says Vanya Vulperhorst, campaign director of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing at Oceana Europe, a conservation non-profit that has investigated illegal drift net fishing across the Mediterranean. “They are indiscriminate in what they trap, and the result is that endangered and protected species are being killed in large numbers.” (Source: California: Trump Vetoes Bipartisan Driftnet Fishing Bill, Wine & Water Watch, Sonoma County Tomorrow, Jan. 4, 2021)

Yep, Donald Trump vetoed the bipartisan driftnet fishing bill.

“The recreational fishing and boating community has long advocated for transitioning away from large-mesh drift gillnets which needlessly kill non-target species including sportfish,” Jeff Angers, president of the Center for Sportfishing Policy… “Today marks a significant victory for marine conservation, and we are grateful for the bipartisan effort to get the Driftnet Modernization and Bycatch Reduction Act across the finish line.” (Source: Trump Vetoes Bipartisan Driftnet Fishing Bill, The Hill, January 1, 2021) Oops, vetoed!

Robert Hunziker is a freelance writer and environmental journalist whose articles have been translated into foreign languages and published in over 50 journals, magazines and sites worldwide.

This article was originally published on October 4, 2022 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

Posted on

Monumental Plans to Fix the Planet

Image of Earth by NASA is in the public domain.
Image of Earth by NASA is in the public domain.

Monumental Plans to Fix the Planet

By Robert Hunziker

When Congress directs the White House Office of Science and Technology (OSTP) to coordinate with other relevant federal agencies to research a five-year scientific assessment of solar and other rapid climate interventions, it’s only too apparent that the highest levels of government have gotten the internal memo that the climate is in trouble. Even so, they are still fashionably late to the party.

Scientists have been warning about the consequences of excessive levels of CO2 and urging both Congress and the White House to take action for decades.

Now that the broken climate system has been recognized as a serious threat, as a general rule, if something is broken, it can be fixed. There’s no other plausible outcome. Otherwise it wouldn’t have been possible to build it in the first instance, or looked at another way, if it can be built, it can be fixed.

But, is it possible to fix a broken climate system? Meaning the system that we all depend upon for life support. But, we didn’t build it. Yet, we broke it. So, it does not conform to the axiom: “If it can be built, it can be fixed.” Ergo, it may be a challenge that’s bigger than the current scramble to find solutions to build-out quickly enough to turn down the heat.

Along those lines, there’s a multitude of facts readily available to prove that the climate system is truly broken (a lengthy list is available upon request). Most concerning is the breakdown in various, but not all ecosystems happening so much earlier at such a lower global average temperature change +1.2°C above pre-industrial than anybody thought possible. At only +1.2°C life support by the planet, which is our only life support, is at some indeterminate level of risk, and nobody knows how soon the major breakdown will occur, guesstimates run the gamut from (a) within this decade to (b) beyond this century. All of which brings forth the troublesome consideration that scientists’ models have been off target by a country mile over the past decades. They’re almost always too conservative and outpaced by actual climate change. They’re late to parties.

Nevertheless, there are plenty of climate scientists, engineers, physicists that say: “Yes, it can be fixed via engineering the climate system.” In point of fact, they are currently sending recommendations to the White House Office of Science and Technology. It’s that seriously urgent.

Whereas interestingly, in point of fact, human influence has already engineered or geo-engineered the climate system by changing the composition or the chemistry of the atmosphere with massive emissions of greenhouse gases, CO2 as an example.

Engineering, or is it geo-engineering, the climate system is a yes/no issue amongst experts and non-experts, no maybes allowed, and it’s loaded with controversy enough to inspire loud screaming and physical threats. It’s wild out there in the provocative world of “pro or anti” geo-engineering.

Depending upon whom y0u happen to bump into at the airport bar and grill and strike up a conversation about geo-engineering, it’s either feared or ridiculed or praised or a fist to the face, no mushy in-between opinions. There are web sites dedicated to studying geo-engineering. There are conspiracy theories galore. And, there are serious-minded research programs ongoing at major universities of the world like MIT and Harvard and Stanford and Cambridge.

“Relevant scientific research on direct climate cooling methods and technologies currently being conducted include marine cloud brightening, stratospheric aerosol injection, sea-ice freezing, ocean thermal energy conversion, ocean and glacier microspheres, terrestrial and atmospheric mirrors, cirrus cloud thinning, iron salt aerosols, and white reflective rooftops and streets.” (Source: Suzanne Reed, Healthy Planet Action Coalition, Compilation of Comments Submitted to White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Regarding US Climate Intervention Study by HPAC and Affiliated Organizations and Individuals, September 9, 2022)

In the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2022 the White House Office of Science and Technology (OSTP) in coordination with other relevant federal agencies has been directed by Congress to research a five-year scientific assessment of solar and other rapid climate interventions in the context of near-term climate risks and hazards. In other words, key people at the highest levels have gotten the troubling message that climate change is deadly serious business and a threat to the stability of lifestyles.

The Assessment will address: “(1) goals for scientific research (2) the capabilities needed to model, analyze, observe, and monitor atmospheric composition (3) climate impacts and the radiation budget for the planet (4) what’s required for coordination of federal research and investments necessary to deliver an assessment to the point of managing near-term climate risk as well as research addressing climate intervention,” Ibid.

The Assessment, as outlined above, is the long version of saying: We’ve got a serious problem that needs immediate attention.

A fixit program labeled The Climate Triad is being proposed by the Healthy Planet Action Coalition (HPAC), which is a diverse international coalition of scientists, engineers, technologists, and public policy wonks. HPAC recommends a coordinated program involving (1) Direct Climate Cooling, DCC (2) Greenhouse Emissions Reductions (3) Greenhouse Gas Removal, GHGR. All three should be treated as co-equal priorities with a goal of keeping global average temperatures below 1.5°C pre-industrial (whenever that started?).

The tone of the fixit message is one of urgency to deploy direct climate cooling “now necessary to reduce current and near term human and other species harm and risk from current and near term future levels of global warming,” Ibid.

As such, and with even more urgency, the coalition is requesting the White House to work towards shortening the proposed five-year research and implementation plan by accelerating it to one-to-two years. Implicit in this urgent request, the coalition members evidently believe that climate change is so dangerously proactive that mitigation efforts must start ASAP, which reinforces the HPAC request to jumpstart by compressing the timeframe to 1-2 years versus the 5-year plan as outlined by Congress.

For a list of proposals by HPAC or to join in their efforts, go to: https://www.collaborationconnection.org/

For example, the coalition has submitted a menu of 15 proposed climate-cooling approaches, such as: (a) cirrus cloud thinning (b) ice shields to thicken polar ice (c) stratospheric aerosol injection. And, of utmost importance, refreezing the poles is considered a top priority in support of national and international security purposes, biodiversity protection, reducing extreme weather episodes and sea level rise.

At the top of the HPAC list: “Arctic Amplification (with up to four times the temperature rise of the equator) and the role of Arctic sea-ice in regulating climate through the jet stream and ocean currents make the Arctic Circle the most serious planetary warming risk and cooling priority,” Ibid.

This sense of urgency about climate change and the big push by Congress for the White House to take a leadership role in a massive attempt to fix the climate system is a positive testimonial to the influence of a Democratic-led Congress. There’s no other way to look at it. What is the GOP’s position?

Still, there are two sides to this hurry-up hopeful keeping fingers crossed rescue plan. One side is almost 100% certain that human engineering of the climate system will be positive, and thus the only way out of a sticky problematic climate change/global warming morass.

The other side believes an artificially (human) engineered climate system is destined to trigger negative unforeseen consequences that may spin out of control.

And, by all appearances certain aspects of the climate system are already out of control. Just ask anybody in Pakistan about the Himalayan range, where global warming has whacked the alpine glaciers with glacial lakes bursting or ask barge companies on European rivers or the hundreds of towns living on trucked water in both France and Italy, or Lake Mead nearing “dead pool” status, and the list could go on and on. All of which is happening at unprecedented levels, never before seen, signs of a disruptive or broken climate system. Nothing’s normal any longer.

Understandably, it’s the foreseen consequences (mentioned above) that are the big push behind the urgency and necessity for massive planetary experimentation. But, so far, almost all proposals are desktop modeling. The real world waits for testing hopefully leading to actual results that work according to plan.

If it works, it’ll be something to behold, kinda like a miracle.

Stay tuned!

Robert Hunziker is a freelance writer and environmental journalist whose articles have been translated into foreign languages and published in over 50 journals, magazines and sites worldwide.

This article was originally published on September 16, 2022 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

Posted on

Kiss The Amazon Goodbye?

Photo by Boudewijn Huysmans on Unsplash
Photo by Boudewijn Huysmans on Unsplash

Kiss-The-Amazon-Goodbye?

By Robert Hunziker

The ecosystems of the world that support life-like Brazil’s Amazon rainforest have an incompatible relationship with far-right governments, like the United States under Trump, who took a baseball bat to the EPA. According to Christine Todd Whitman, who headed EPA under George W. Bush: “I’ve never seen such an orchestrated war on the environment or science.” (How Trump Damaged Science – Why It Could Take Decades To Recover, Nature, Oct. 5, 2020)

As devastating as Trump (4 more years?) was for the environment, President Jair Bolsonaro’s MBGA or Make Brazil Great Again has one-upped Trump. He’s single-handedly destroying the world’s largest rainforest. It may be the single most important ecosystem for the survival of Homo sapiens. As such, with such a big important target to ravage, Bolsonaro’s making Trump look weak.

MBGA Bolsonaro has denied the existence of massive intentionally lit fires in the Amazon rainforest, calling the public reports “lies” despite data produced by his own government monitoring satellites showing tens of thousands of fires. The MBGA Bolsonaro forest-clearing fires have raged like never before in Brazilian history. The fires are intentional to clear land for development, as armed men in combat boots crunch across smoldering ashes whilst hunting down/killing obstructionist environmentalists.

“Brazil is among the most dangerous countries in the world for environmental defenders and journalists. A recent study estimates that at least 20 environmental activists were killed in Brazil in 2021 alone.” (Source: A Violent Tragedy Foretold in the Amazon, NPR, June 17, 2022)

“National space research agency INPE registered 31,513 fire alerts in the Amazon via satellite in the first 30 days of the month.” (Source: Brazil’s Amazon Sees Worst August Fires, Reuters, August 31, 2022)

Bolsonaro’s fires have finally done the job so completely, so thoroughly that the Amazon rainforest has reached its tipping point, no looking back on a downward slope to a barren savannah replacing eons of thick moist forest. For decades climate scientists have warned that once a certain amount of the forest is lost, it will no longer be able to hold the necessary moisture and regenerate rainfall to support itself.

The Amazon Network of Georeferenced Socio-Environmental Information (“RAISG”), a consortium of civil society orgs from Amazon countries use forest coverage data to map how much of the Amazon has been lost since 1985. Forest density and rainfall patterns and carbon storage capacity are also studied. Accordingly, carbon storage and self-regulation of precipitation are indicators of the rainforest capacity to survive.

The RAISG report found that 33% of the Amazon remains pristine 41% registered low degradation and 26% beyond restoration. Areas of dense rainforest are already turning into savannah and trees in the north have stopped producing fruits. The composition of the rainforest is changing right before our eyes.

According to Marlene Quintanill of RAISG: “The ecological response of the forest is changing and its resilience is being lost. We are at a point of no return.” (Source: The Amazon Rainforest Has Already Reached a Crucial Tipping Point, NewScientist, September 5, 2022)

Carlos Nobre, University of Sao Paulo, who has been running climate models for three decades to understand when the Amazon could reach its tipping point says: “Unfortunately what we’re seeing today is no longer based on models. What we are seeing today is observations across the entire southern Amazon that indicates that the risk of this tipping point is immediate. The RAISG study showing the high levels of deforestation and degradation is very, very, very worrying,” Ibid.

The length of the dry season in the southern Amazon, which makes up a third of the entire rainforest, now lasts four to five months, five weeks longer today than it was in 1999. According to Nobre, if it reaches five to six months, it will no longer survive.

Crucially for the future and survival of the Amazon, Brazil is about to hold a national election, scheduled for October 2nd between incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro (67), since 2019, and former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (76), presidency from 2003 to 2011.

According to The New Republic, The Amazon Rain Forest’s Future is on the Ballot in Brazil, August 18, 2022: “Put Bolsonaro’s record next to that of his challenger, former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and it’s easy to see why the Amazon is shaping up as a key campaign issue. Lula, as he is known, presided over a drastic drop in the rate of deforestation during his eight years as president (2003–2011), a feat that is all the more impressive given that Brazil increased its soy and beef exports at the same time.”

With the national election less than a month away, polls snow leftist candidate Lula with a double-digit lead. Nevertheless, for months now, Mr. Bolsonaro has attacked Brazil’s electronic voting machines as “rife with fraud.” And convincingly told supporters that election officials are aligned against him, suggesting he may dispute a loss. In a June speech, he said: “If need be, we will go to war.”

“According to interviews with more than 35 Bolsonaro administration officials, military generals, federal judges, election authorities, members of Congress and foreign diplomats, the people in power in Brazil feel confident that while Mr. Bolsonaro could dispute the election’s results, he lacks the institutional support to stage a successful coup.” (Source: The Question Menacing Brazil’s Elections: Coup or No Coup? The New York Times, August 22, 2022)

What happens in Brazil over the next several weeks will determine the fate of the Amazon rainforest. It may be the most important election of this decade. Well, come to think of it, actually it’s the most significant election of this 21st century. The rainforests hydrological role for the planet extends all the way to the cornfields of Iowa and across the oceans. The Amazon embodies the essence of life for our biosphere. Nothing else comes close to its significance for life on the planet other than the Great Barrier Reef for ocean life.

“Amazon rainforest, 60% of the world’s remaining rainforests, plays a critical role in the global water, energy, and carbon cycles. Evapotranspiration (ET) is a key component of the surface water and energy balance, through which the Amazon forest transfers a large volume of water from the land surface to the atmosphere. Therefore, any change of ET over Amazonia may affect climate at the regional and global scales.” (Source: Estimation of Evapotranspiration of Amazon Rainforest using tbe Maximum Entropy Production Method, Geophysical Research Letters, 10/29/2019)

“Synergistic trends in Amazon economies, forests and climate could lead to the replacement or severe degradation of more than half of the closed-canopy forests of the Amazon Basin by the year 2030.” (Source: Interactions Among Amazon Land Use, Forests, and Climate: Prospects for Near-Term Forest Tipping Point, The Royal Society Publishing, May 27, 2008)

According to the following recent article: Bolsonaro’s False Fraud Claims Involve This Brazil Voting System, Aljazeera, Sept. 6, 2022: Brazilian authorities adopted electronic voting machines to tackle long-standing fraud. In earlier elections, ballot boxes had arrived at voting stations already stuffed with votes. Others were stolen and individual votes were routinely falsified, according to Brazil’s electoral authority.

Electronic machines were first used in 1996 and the first nationwide, electronic-only vote took place four years later. Today, results from more than 150 million eligible voters are presented mere hours after polls close. And no significant fraud has ever been detected.

Bolsonaro critics claim his strong admiration for and emulation of former president Trump has prompted him to challenge the election well ahead of his likely loss. Meanwhile, the Amazon rainforest has two thoughtless (ill-advised, reckless, doltish) adversaries with far-reaching influence that need to be eliminated, somehow, someway, whatever it takes, the sooner it happens the better for life.

On October 2nd the planet is on the line.

Robert Hunziker is a freelance writer and environmental journalist whose articles have been translated into foreign languages and published in over 50 journals, magazines and sites worldwide.

This article was originally published on September 9, 2022 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

Posted on

How Bad Can It Get?

Photo by Matt Palmer on Unsplash
Photo by Matt Palmer on Unsplash

How Bad Can It Get?

By Robert Hunziker

How bad can it (climate change) get?

The sky’s the limit! No pun intended.

Still, the general public is tired of negative articles about climate change. It turns them off. Climate change is impossible to deal with. It’s too much; it’s too negative!

As a result, baffling emails come with loud and clear messages, some subtle but some not so subtle. Yet, these same people want access to scientific facts and data that describes just how challenging things really are. They even admit to that while complaining about too much doom and gloom. Nobody is satisfied.

All of which serves as an ideal segue for introduction to a new book about how bad things really truly are: Hothouse Earth (Icon Books, August 2022) by Bill McGuire, Emeritus Professor of Geophysical and Climate Hazards at University College London.

Dr. McGuire doesn’t pull any punches. Accordingly, “There is no chance of avoiding climate breakdown.” That statement prompts the idea that maybe climate breakdown is already here. It sure looks and feels that way.

McGuire’s book is discussed in an article entitled: ’Soon the World Will be Unrecognizable’: Is it Still Possible to Prevent Total Climate Meltdown? The Guardian, July 30, 2022: Accordingly, most other climate experts still maintain we have time left, although not very much, to bring about meaningful reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. This, of course, is a well-worn posture that goes nowhere.

Not so McGuire: “I know a lot of people working in climate science who say one thing in public but a very different thing in private. In confidence, they are all much more scared about the future we face, but they won’t admit that in public. I call this climate appeasement and I believe it only makes things worse. The world needs to know how bad things are going to get before we can hope to tackle the crisis.”

McGuire’s thesis, in turn, is relevant to an article dealing with politically charged, compromised Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports: Big Oil’s Capture of IPCC Assessment for Policymakers ‘Shakes Our Faith’ (Commentary), Mongabay, August 25, 2022.

Big Oil’s Capture is all about the necessity for the public to know that IPCC reports are edited by oil and gas representatives and governments that are fossil fuel dependent, exercising a hand in the final drafting of IPCC reports.

Yes, the same publicly lambasted interests that cause global warming also write and/or edit portions of the all-important IPCC reports. Full stop! Nothing more needs to be said to fully understand the dichotomy between McGuire’s exposure of the dangers of climate change and doctored IPCC reports, claiming, in so many words: It can be fixed. “Don’t worry” as an underlying message, “carbon capture will fix it,” etc. etc. etc. But wrong and misleading on several counts!

Pro-fossil fuel input is so wrongheaded that it deserves a bit more color, as follows: A senior staff member of Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil company, was one of two lead coordinating authors for IPCC Chapter 12 on Cross-Sector Perspectives. A staff member of Chevron reviewed the IPCC chapter on Energy Systems.

Moreover, a recent report by the UN Environmental Programme says producers plan twice the amount of fossil fuels “than would be consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C in plans for development by 2030.” In other words, climate change mitigation efforts to limit global warming to 1.5°C increasingly look more and more like a paper tiger hanging by a thread.

Fossil fuel interests embedded in the details and the editing of IPCC reports is preposterous. It makes the fox-in-the-henhouse metaphor a laughing stock simply because it’s way too simple of a metaphor to explain the complexity and full upshot.

All of which lends more and more credence to McGuire’s thesis that the bright light at the end of the tunnel is not a signal of salvation in waiting; rather, it’s a fully loaded freight train clipping along at full throttle.

According to McGuire: “We have passed the point of no return and can expect a future in which lethal heat waves and temperatures in excess of 50C (120F) are common in the tropics; where summers at temperate latitudes will invariably be baking hot, and where our oceans are destined to become warm and acidic. A child born in 2020 will face a far more hostile world that its grandparents did,” Ibid.

McGuire’s statement “a future in which lethal heat waves…” makes one wonder where all of those people in the tropics will go to live.

“Lethal heat” is death by heat.

“Just look at what is happening already to a world which has only heated up by just over one degree. It turns out the climate is changing for the worse far quicker than predicted by early climate models. That’s something that was never expected.” (McGuire)

McGuire poo-poos the COP26 agreement in Glasgow last year stating that every effort will be exercised to limit global temps to 1.5°C, also agreeing to reduce global carbon emissions by 45% by 2030. According to McGuire, rather than reduction of emissions, the real world is on course for a 14% increase in emissions by 2030, meaning the 1.5C guardrail will be shattered, hands down!

Rystad Energy claims: “Just 20 of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies, including the likes of Shell, Exxon and Gazprom, are projected to spend $932B by the end of 2030 developing new oil and gas fields, and $1.5 trillion in total by 2040.” That’s a lot of CO2 emissions going somewhere, like up into the atmosphere. (Source: World’s Biggest Fossil Fuel Firms Projected to Spend Almost a Trillion Dollars on New Oil and Gas Fields by 2030, Global Witness org., April 2022)

Here are some consequences of exceeding 1.5C, including mention of highest impact areas: (1) more intense and longer lasting blistering summer heat (India) (2) continuing extreme drought drying out major reservoirs (Lake Mead) (3) periodic unexpected destructive flooding episodes (China) (4) weak crop yields and food starvation (Horn of Africa) (5) loss of glaciers supporting major commercial waterways (Europe) (6) ice sheet melt off & rising seas (Miami) (7) public disaffection with pockets of hatred leading to more deadly extremism as desperate people reject establishmentarianism. (America)

According to McGuire, based upon the most hopeful estimates of emission cut pledges at COP26, the planet is still on course for 2.4C and 3C. McGuire expects a rise of 2C to seriously threaten stability of global society. As people panic, somebody somewhere pays the price or consequences, history is full of examples, e.g., thousands of aristocrat heads rolled during the French Revolution 1789-1794, including a king and a queen and entire retinues, as tens of thousands Parisians lined the streets to watch an open cart drawn by two white stallions trudge along, carrying former Queen Marie Antoinette with her executioner Henri Sanson to the guillotine. Her last words were an apology to Sanson for stepping on his foot as she slowly approached the towering guillotine’s headrest.

McGuire claims there is little that can prevent climate breakdown. Therefore, adaptation to a bleaker world will be all-important. In that regard, he believes that all-out disaster may be prevented if carbon emissions are substantially cut in the near future and if adapting to a hotter world is properly employed. For example, in the UK thousands of inappropriate homes are built each year. These are modern, tiny, poorly insulated homes that can, and do, turn into heat traps. Adaptation to hotter longer lasting heatwaves is one helpful solution.

According to McGuire, a grimmer world in the days ahead may or may not threaten survival of human civilization, assuming people realize it and act posthaste. Indeed, that would be a first!

For a gut check on posthaste behavior, check out the film Don’t Look Up (Netflix December 2021) staring Leonardo DiCaprio for convincing evidence of philistinism at work. Umm, on second thought forget about the posthaste idea. Don’t Look Up is the most accurate big screen depiction of how and why global warming has spun out of control. It’s a must-see film.

McGuire concludes: “This is a call to arms. So if you feel the need to glue yourself to a motorway or blockade an oil refinery, do it. Drive an electric car or, even better use public transport, walk or cycle. Switch to a green energy tariff; eat less meat. Stop flying; lobby your elected representatives at both local and national level; and use your vote wisely to put in power a government that walks the talk on the climate emergency,” Ibid.

For the first time in modern history major changes in lifestyle are now a requirement for human survival.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if climate scientists like Bill McGuire (there are several others with very similar views) had it all wrong?

Robert Hunziker is a freelance writer and environmental journalist whose articles have been translated into foreign languages and published in over 50 journals, magazines and sites worldwide.

This article was originally published on September 2, 2022 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

Posted on

Is There Enough Metal to Replace Oil?

Photo by Dan Cristian Pădureț on Unsplash
Photo by Dan Cristian Pădureț on Unsplash

Is There Enough Metal to Replace Oil?

By Robert Hunziker

The short answer: No, not even close!

Nations of the world are only too aware that fossil fuels need to be phased out for two reasons. First, oil is a finite commodity. It’ll run out in time. Secondly, fossil fuel emissions such as CO2 are destroying the planet’s climate system.

However, a recent study puts a damper on the prospects of phasing out fossil fuels in favor of renewables. More to the point, a phase out of fossil fuels by mid century looks to be a nearly impossible Sisyphean task. It’s all about quantities of minerals/metals contained in Mother Earth. There aren’t enough.

Simon Michaux, PhD, Geological Survey Finland has done a detailed study of what’s required to phase out fossil fuels in favor of renewables, to wit:

“The quantity of metal required to make just one generation of renewable tech units to replace fossil fuels is much larger than first thought. Current mining production of these metals is not even close to meeting demand. Current reported mineral reserves are also not enough in size. Most concerning is copper as one of the flagged shortfalls. Exploration for more at required volumes will be difficult, with this seminar addressing these issues.” (Source: Simon P. Michaux, Associate Research Professor of Geometallurgy Unit Minerals Processing and Materials Research, Geological Survey of Finland, August 18, 2022 – Seminar: What Would It Take To Replace The Existing Fossil Fuel System?)

Metals/minerals required to source gigafactories producing renewables to power the world’s economies when fossil fuels phase out looks to be one of the biggest quandaries of all time. There’s not enough metal.

Michaux researched and analyzed the current status of the internal combustion engine fleet of cars, trucks, rail, maritime shipping, and aviation for the US, Europe, and China, accessing databases to gather information as a starting point for the study.

Michaux’s calculations for what’s required to phase out fossil fuels uses a starting point of 2018 with 84.5% of primary energy still fossil fuel-based and less than 1% of the world’s vehicle fleet electric. Therefore, the first generation of renewable energy is only now coming on stream, meaning there will be no recycling availability of production materials for some time. Production will have to be sourced from mining.

When Michaux presented basic information to EU analysts, it was a shock to them. To his dismay, they had not put together the various mineral/metal data requirements to phase out fossil fuels and replaced by renewables. They assumed, using guesstimates, the metals would be available.

A key issue for the accomplishment of renewables is power storage because of the impact of wind and solar intermittency, both of which are highly intermittent. Most studies assume gas will be the buffer for intermittency. Other than using fossil fuel such as gas as a buffer, an adequate power storage system to handle intermittency will require 30 times more material than what electric vehicles require with current plans, meaning the scope is much larger than the current paradigm allows.

One factor that will influence what materials and systems are used to build out renewables is the fact that EVs require a battery that is 3.2 times the mass of the equivalent of a hydrogen fuel tank. Therefore, an analysis of EVs versus hydrogen fuel cells indicates it’ll be necessary to build out the global fleet with EVs for city traffic and hydrogen fuel cells for all long-range vehicles like semi-trailers, rails, and maritime shipping.

The entire renewable build-out requires 36,000 terawatt hours to operate, meaning 586,000 new non-fossil fuel power stations of average size. The current fleet of power stations is only 46,000, meaning it’ll take 10 times the current number of power stations, yet to be built.

The new annual energy capacity of 36,007.9 terrawatt hours will supply (1) 29 million EV Buses (2) 601.3 million Commercial EV Vans (3) 695.2 million EV Passenger Cars (4) 28.9 million H2-Cell Trucks (5) 62 million EV Motorcycles (6). Hydro will also need to be expanded by 115% by 2050 and nuclear will need to double. Biomass will stay the same. It’s already at limitations. Geothermal triples.

Additionally, buffer systems are crucial to handle intermittency. For example, Hornsdale Power Reserve in Australia, which is an Elon Musk project with a 100-megawatt capacity. The EU is using Hornsdale as the standard buffer system. Globally, 15,635,478 Hornsdale-type stations will need to be built across the planet and connected to the power grid system just to meet a 4-week buffer system. This is 30 times the capacity compared to the entire global vehicle fleet. Therefore the market for batteries is substantially larger than currently understood and accounted for in planning for a renewable economy.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) released a report on how much metal is required per unit to build out a renewable economy. As well as a study of what 2040 market share would look like for batteries for light duty vehicles and heavy duty vehicles and power storage at the level of the global fleet for solar panels in 2040 and hydrogen fuel cells, trucks, freight locomotives, maritime shipping, wind turbines and power storage buffer.

The total metals required for one generation of technology to phase out fossil fuels is listed by Required Production followed by Known Reserves for all metals based upon tonnes, as follows:

Copper 4,575,523,674 vs. 880,000,000 – a serious shortfall -reserves only cover 20% of requirements.

Zinc 35,704,918 vs. 250,000,000 – adequate reserves.

Manganese 227,889,504 vs 1,500,000,000 – adequate reserves

Nickel 940,578,114 vs. 95,000,000 – huge shortfall – reserves 10% of requirements.

Lithium 944,150,293 vs. 95,000,000 = huge shortfall – reserves 10% of requirements.

Cobalt 218,396,990 vs. 7,600,000 – huge shortfall – reserves 3.48% of requirements.

Graphite 8,973,640,257 vs. 320,000,000 = huge shortfall – 3.57% reserves of requirements.

Silicon (metallurgical) 49,571,460 – adequate reserves

Silver 145,579 vs. 530,000 – adequate reserves

Vanadium 681,865,986 vs. 24,000,000= huge shortfall -3.52% reserves of requirement

Zirconium 2,614,126 vs.70, 000,000 – adequate reserves.

Prior to 2020- the global system mined 700 million tons of copper throughout all history. Looking forward, the same 700 million tons will need to be mined over the next 22 years, which is based upon current economic growth rates without giving consideration to what’s needed for one generation of renewables.

Current reserves of copper are 880 million tons. But 4.5 billion tons of copper are required just to manufacture one generation of renewable technology. Hmm.

Moreover, each renewable technology has a life cycle of 8 to 25 years. Thereafter, they need to be decommissioned and replaced. Also, whether renewables are strong enough, and sustainably enough to power the next industrial era is a question that hangs in the air.

THE PAST – “An industrial ecosystem of unprecedented size and complexity, that took more than a century to build with the support of the highest calorifically dense source of cheap energy the world has ever known (oil) in abundant quantities, with easily available credit, and unlimited mineral resources.” (Michaux)

THE PRESENT – “We now seek to build an even more complex system with very expensive energy, a fragile finance system saturated in debt, not enough minerals, with an unprecedented number of the human population, embedded in a deteriorating environment.” (Michaux)

Current mineral reserves are not adequate to resource metal production to manufacture the generation of renewable energy technology, as current mining is not even close to meeting the expected demand for one generation of renewable technology.

Robert Hunziker is a freelance writer and environmental journalist whose articles have been translated into foreign languages and published in over 50 journals, magazines and sites worldwide.

This article was originally published on August 23, 2022 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

Posted on

Scientists Petition EPA to Take Bold Steps

Photo by Callum Shaw on Unsplash
Photo by Callum Shaw on Unsplash

Scientists Petition EPA to Take Bold Steps

By Robert Hunziker

Scientists are working on a plan to go beyond the Inflation Reduction Act (“IRA”) recently signed by President Biden, which is supposed to tackle global warming, which, in turn, is tearing the planet apart, piece-by-piece. There’s more info on this very important petition filed by scientists to follow below, including a request for supporting signatures.

Meanwhile, even though IRA is loaded with good stuff to fight global warming, it’s not likely enough to put out the heat. After all, the Inflation Reduction Act is the third or fourth iteration of Biden’s Build Back Better $3.5T prominently mentioned in an article in The Economist d/d July 21st, 2022: American Climate Policy is in Tatters—Manchin Single-handedly scuttled Biden’s BBB Plans for $3.5 trillion.

There’s real tragedy behind the slimmed down version of Biden’s BBB $3.5T. Even though the Inflation Reduction Act of a few hundred billion is a big number, inclusive of tax-oriented deductions, it is challenged by a capricious global climate system that appears to be broken down and totally out of kilter.

The planet has turned into a heat machine. It’s not only America that’s sweltering. According to NASA and the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, the planet as a whole is trapping heat twice as fast as 15 years ago. That’s more than threatening; it’s an outright emergency requiring the big guns.

Of even more immediate concern, as the planet dries out, major reservoirs fail, power outages hit, rivers run dry, and tens of thousands of people scramble for water. This is happening right now well ahead of several years build-out of the Inflation Reduction Act.

The vastness and reach of this existential climate threat is finally sinking in with the public as developed mature countries are reduced to third-world status, people standing in line with bottles and jugs waiting for water trucks, for example, more than 200 towns and villages in France and Italy have run out of water. Local reservoirs are dry. They’re gone!

This dystopian illustration is spreading across the globe. The real question is whether there’s enough time to press ahead with the Inflation Reduction Act. It needs to be rapidly accelerated with considerably more funding. Plus, this same climate bill also promotes fossil fuels. There’s something unsettling and untenable about that.

As the entire world reels from extremes of global warming, the United States has a moral obligation to take a leadership role. It has caused more global warming than any other country. Nobody has emitted more CO2 than America.

“The United States has emitted more than 400 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere since the birth of the industrial revolution. This makes the U.S. the biggest contributor to global carbon dioxide emissions by far, having produced almost twice the amount of emissions as the second biggest emitter, China.” (Source: Cumulative CO2 Emissions from Fossil Fuel Combustion Worldwide 1750-2020, by Country, Statista.com)

Climate scientists, fully aware of the dangers of rampant global warming, are now demanding the government take stronger steps than the Inflation Reduction Act to cut emissions in the US and to serve as an example to the world.

A distinguished group of academics and climate scientists, including James Hansen, Dan Galpern, and Donn Viviani of the Climate & Restoration Initiative are petitioning the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases. This has the potential to be a powerful approach for mitigation purposes. Hopefully, their plan will gain a lot of public support.

They have filed a legal document with the EPA stating that greenhouse gas emissions present a danger to the climate and should be regulated under the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 (“TSCA”) the same act that was used to halt CFCs or chlorofluorocarbons destroying atmospheric ozone, also phased out by the Montreal Protocol in 1987. TSCA was used in 1978 on CFCs, which are, in fact, gases similar to fossil fuel gases like CO2. This is an important distinction and precedent, supporting the case for using TSCA today for protection of the atmospheric environment.

Of course, it’s a well-established fact that without strong regulations to stop CFCs, civilization’s closest brush of all time with total annihilation would have wiped out complex life, humans included. Ozone molecules at 10-20 miles up in the stratosphere are absolutely essential to block the UVC radiation, which packs the force of a welder’s torch. Meaning, without ozone molecules life on Earth would cease, full stop. All of which sets a perfect example for TSCA as the ideal mechanism for also stopping greenhouse gases like CO2. It’s all about preserving the life forces of the planet.

The following video explains the petition to the EPA as undertaken by the Climate Emergency Forum:

Please sign the petition to support Dr. James Hansen’s submission to the EPA to Phase Out Greenhouse Gas Pollution To Restore A Stable & Healthy Climate. Your signature is important. A signature form supporting Hansen’s petition is found by searching the following web page: Climate Protection & Restoration Initiative.

The legal document filed by Hansen, et al, argues that greenhouse gas emissions, like CO2, present a danger to the climate and therefore qualify for regulation under the act that allows the EPA to initiate monitoring requirements on companies and to enforce strict controls on substance abuse. TSCA has already been used to stop or restrict asbestos, lead in paint, and PCBs.

Because the act covers substances that “pose an unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment,” Hansen believes TSCA can be used to phase-out greenhouse gas emissions, which shockingly are subsidized in the Inflation Reduction Act with provisions for fossil fuel expansion alongside climate mitigation policies. The irony of these two clashing issues endorsed side-by-side is breathtaking, in fact, stupefying beyond belief. Who’s on first?

Moreover and most significantly, TSCA embodies very strong legal language that allows the EPA to go so far as prohibition of (1) production, (2) importation, (3) processing (4) distribution (5) commercial use and (6) disposal of harmful substances. In short, it’s all-encompassing.

Thus, TSCA is a very strong tool with a firm legal foundation for de-carbonization. Additionally, TSCA provides for EPA to utilize other authorities or other agencies to accomplish its goals.

Importantly, there’s no ambiguity in the language underlying TSCA, therefore dissimilar to the language in the Clean Air Act that was recently negatively ruled upon by the far-right Supremes. In fact, the language of section six of TSCA is crystal clear: Where there are chemical substances or mixtures that present the risk of injury to health of the environment the agency is to act based upon a full gamut of requirements delineated by Congress to eliminate that risk.

Based upon the June 2022 filing date of the Hansen petition, the EPA must respond, by law, by mid-September 2022. Your signature as an endorsement will be meaningful. Governmental agencies respect a show of force of signatures by the public.

Search for the web page: Climate Protection & Restoration Initiative to find access to a preset signature form that takes all of two minutes to complete. Make your day!

Postscript: People vs. Fossil Fuels, a national coalition of more than 1,200 organizations from all 50 states, recently delivered a petition with more than 500,000 signatures to the White House calling on Biden to declare a climate emergency, which would unlock new funds for urgently needed climate adaptation in hard-hit communities, and use executive actions to stop the expansion of fossil fuels. (Mother Jones, August 10, 2022)

Robert Hunziker is a freelance writer and environmental journalist whose articles have been translated into foreign languages and published in over 50 journals, magazines and sites worldwide.

This article was originally published on August 19, 2022 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

Posted on

The Inflation Reduction Act – Is It Enough Soon Enough?

Photo by Matt Palmer on Unsplash
Photo by Matt Palmer on Unsplash

The Inflation Reduction Act – Is It Enough Soon Enough?

By Robert Hunziker

Could somebody please get an extension ladder to help Senator Schumer down from the ceiling? He’s stuck in the rafters in a high-pitched note of self-congratulation whilst spraining his elbow as he awkwardly and repeatedly tries to pat his own back, screaming over and over again “the greatest climate legislation of all time!”

Compared to what?

Still, one signal that something really good must be in the nonsensically titled Inflation Reduction Act is the fact that no Republican senators voted for it. Nowadays, the extreme right has the entire Republican edifice on its hands and knees, almost in a fetal position in a deadly chokehold, and they’re not about to risk voting for anything that smacks of help for ordinary Americans. Plus, as for climate-type legislation, they detest mention of global warming. It gives ‘em the willies.

Nevertheless, in spite of 100% Republican opposition, the bill is likely to pass and become law. It does a lot of really good things to help climate change/global warming. There is no doubt about this.

The real question is whether it’s enough soon enough. And, similar to all commitments by nations of the world to mitigate climate change, will it really happen? Climate change mitigation plans have a very spotty, almost zero, record of achievement.

The bill directs about $370 billion (that’s a lot) over 10 years toward promoting clean energy and climate resilience, with about two-thirds of the money coming in the form of tax credits for producing electricity from clean energy sources, investing in renewable energy technologies and addressing climate change through carbon sequestration, renewable fuel production, and clean energy manufacturing.

According to Evergreen Action, a left-of-center advocacy founded by former staffers to Gov. Jay Inslee’s presidential campaign, which advocated zero emissions by 2035 when some other candidates didn’t even know what zero emissions really meant: “The bill is an opportunity for a major breakthrough in America’s fight against climate change. This bill has the potential to be the single largest investment in clean energy in American history. Making major investments in clean energy is one of the best ways Congress can lower inflation and shield Americans from the volatility of fossil fuel markets.” (Source: How the Senate Climate Bill Could Slash Emissions by 40 Percent, Scientific American, July 28)

The bill includes $60 billion to boost domestic clean energy manufacturing, including $30 billion in production tax credits for solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and critical mineral processing. It also offers lower- and middle-income motorists a $7,500 tax credit for clean vehicles, while states and electric utilities would see $30 billion in grants and loans to expand clean energy. The bill also includes $60 billion for environmental justice communities and a fee on methane emissions that will rise to $1,500 a ton by 2026.

The Nature Conservancy released the following statement on Aug 7th: “The Senate’s approval of the Inflation Reduction Act gives us hope, and more optimism than we’ve had in years, that the U.S. Congress recognizes the urgency of the global climate crisis and is prepared to lead a meaningful response.”

Almost all environmental advocacy groups favor the legislation. Indeed, it would be ridiculous to naysay the only true broad-reaching climate legislation in American history.

But, is it enough soon enough? Which may have been on the minds of legislators in Washington, D.C., assuming the nation’s intelligence agencies sent them classified notes about the most frightening climate behavior in human history, i.e., the world is drying up!

And, maybe they read the recent NASA/National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration report that the planet is trapping heat at a rate that’s twice as fast as only 15 years ago.

Carbon emissions have turned the planet into a heat machine. Compelling evidence of this tragedy is found throughout the world, as follows. It demands a much bigger Inflation Reduction Act but on a worldwide coordinated basis:

According to SPEI Global Drought Monitor, severe drought is now found throughout the planet.

A recent University of Cambridge University study claims that since 2015 European drought has accelerated and intensified. In fact, the continent is experiencing the most intense drought in 250 years.

"CREMONA, Po River Area Map" by Richard Tweney is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0.
“CREMONA, Po River Area Map” by Richard Tweney is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0.

Italy’s Po River Valley, as of July 2022, has cut water for 125 towns. Drinking water is delivered via trucks to Piedmont and Lombardy, as local reservoirs no longer exist. They’re gone! Italy’s drought alert is now spreading to the central part of the country to the rivers Arno, Aniene, and Tiber where water levels are “drastically down.”

The Rhine River, Europe’s most important waterway for commerce and industry and tourism, is close to shutting down. Key shipping lanes are down to 19 inches water depth. This is happening two months before the normal seasonal lows. Transports already reduced from 6000-ton loads to 800 tons but may be forced to halt completely, depending, and making coal shipment to Germany and inclusive of all commercial goods, a horrendous challenge for upcoming winter months.

In France more than 100 towns are without drinking water and now receive water deliveries by truck. The government has established a water crisis team. Trees and bushes are prematurely shedding leaves. France’s nuclear power plants, at a time when half of its 56 reactors are offline due to maintenance and serious corrosion issues, are now threatened due to river water temperatures used to cool the reactors. Restrictions kick in 26°C. Some plants are experiencing 28°C and 30°C river water temps.

In Spain, water restrictions have been imposed on Barcelona, Malaga, Huelva, and Pontevedra. Catalonia has severe restrictions on individual liters per day. The price of olive oil is likely to spike by at least 25% as heat hits crops.

In Portugal, 99% of the country is experiencing severe drought. It’s the driest in 1,200 years. Lawn watering prohibited.

According to NASA, the worst drought in 900 years is hitting the entire Middle East. A Carnegie Endowment study as of 2022 claims water scarcity is threatening violent conflicts throughout MENA, the acronym for the Middle East and North Africa. 80-90 million people in the region will experience water insecurity within three years. The European Commission Joint Research Center, in a recent study, claims there’s a 75%-90% chance of water wars.

Santiago’s population of 6.5 M is on a severe water-rationing program with rotating 24-hour cutoffs for homes in the city. On the suburban outskirts of Santiago, water is delivered by truck to 400,000 families or 1.5M people. They are allotted 50 liters (13.2 gallons) water per day per person. Additionally, in the northern regions of Chile, precipitation is down 90%.

In Argentina, the drought is so bad that the famous Iberia wetland is at its worst levels in 80 years as fires raged earlier this year in one of the world’s largest wetlands.

In SE Asia, the Mekong River, the principal river for the entire region, is in 4-year drought, the worst in 60 years. Cambodian water for crop irrigation is down to 20% of normal.

China has informed Guangzhou (pop 15M) and Shenzhen (pop 12.5M), the country’s tech hub, to cut per capita water use from January to October of 2022. The Pearl River Basin, which serves as the water source for China’s most populous urban centers, as mentioned, has been hit with severe drought, plus the looming drinking water crisis is compounded by drought-induced saltwater intrusion.

In Japan, Matsuyama (pop 515K) and Shikokuchuo (Pop 84K) are rationing water to citizens. Some areas of the country are experiencing crippling water shortages. The country is also experiencing power shortages and intends to go to more coal.

In Africa, Ethiopia and Kenya are faced with brutal drought. Three million livestock have died under the fierce influence of heat. In the Horn of Africa, 20M people are at risk of starvation and failure of water supplies.

America’s two largest water reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell are within a few tens of feet of dead pool status defined as water no longer running downstream beyond Hoover dam and Glen Canyon dam respectively. Lake Mead dead pool is 895 feet elevation; it’s currently 1,041 feet. Lake Powell’s dead pool is 3,370 feet elevation. It is current 3,536 feet. The US Bureau of Reclamation recently informed the seven Colorado River Basin states to cut water usage on an emergency basis.

Is the Senate’s Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 big enough, soon enough? Probably not.

Congress really needs to go back to Biden’s initial $3.5T Build Back Better Plan. In that regard, The Economist, July 21, 2022 ran this article: American Climate Policy is in Tatters—Manchin Single-handedly scuttled Biden’s BBB Plans for $3.5 trillion.

The entire planet is reeling from global warming. America’s modest couple hundred billion climate plan is a drop in the world’s bucket. The whole world needs to mimic Biden’s original BBB plan, or it’s lights out. The evidence of that is compelling, unless, of course, facts don’t count any longer.

Robert Hunziker is a freelance writer and environmental journalist whose articles have been translated into foreign languages and published in over 50 journals, magazines and sites worldwide.

This article was originally published on August 12, 2022 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

Posted on

America’s Biggest Reservoirs Hit By Dead Pool Jitters

Photo Photo by Ryan Thorpe on Unsplash
Photo by Ryan Thorpe on Unsplash

America’s Biggest Reservoirs Hit By Dead Pool Jitters

By Robert Hunziker

Hoover Dam’s Lake Mead is dangerously close to dead pool status for the first time since construction in the mid 1930s. A vicious hammering drought sequence for over two decades throughout the West threatens to bring America’s biggest water reservoir to its knees.

In a word, the implications are unspeakable.

America’s monuments, the Statue of Liberty, Mount Rushmore, the Lincoln Memorial, and Hoover Dam are the foundations of Americana, the essence of America, its character, and its culture. Hoover Dam, one of the greatest engineering feats of all time, 96 lives lost during construction, defines America’s true grit during a bygone era that had to overcome great challenges tagged with the Great Depression, soup kitchens & breadlines (NYC 82 breadlines by 1932), the Dust Bowl, incipient fascism in Europe, and a brewing world war.

Yet, in the face of those overwhelming challenges, similar to a phoenix miraculously rising out of the ashes, in 1934 Hoover Dam’s Lake Mead commenced water filling in celebration of an engineering marvel. Seven years later (1941) Hoover Dam’s Lake Mead stood tall at maximum capacity of 1,220 feet elevation with sparkling blue water that shone for all to behold, becoming the most-visited dam in the world with 7 million annual visitors.

In a twist of climate change fate and echoing the 1930s, America once again is challenged by drought, irreconcilable political squabbling, 42 million SNAPs (electronic food stamps), festering homegrown armed fascism, and entanglement in a European war, as Lake Mead returns to its beginnings of 88 years ago. Today’s 1,041 feet elevation is the same as 1937, as it was then filling. But, in sharp contrast to the outlook for Lake Mead when completed in 1934 full of hope and promise, the outlook today is decidedly negative. What’s changed?

Answer: The climate system has turned upside down, whether it’s gushing massive flash floods or hard-hitting severe parched droughts there’s little middle ground. It’s behaving like the Mad Hatter gone off the deep end.

But, this time is vastly different from the past. Severe drought is now a worldwide phenomenon like never before. It’s hitting everywhere. According to SPEI Global Drought Monitor, no continent is spared the ravages of severe drought, except for Antarctica. Major urban centers in South America (Santiago) and China (Guangzhou and Shenzhen) and Europe (100 Po Valley towns) are already rationing or instituting forced reduction of water usage.

Global heat is on the verge of breaking-out. According to NASA and NOAA, the planet is trapping nearly twice as much heat as it did in 2005, which they describe as an “unprecedented increase amid the climate crisis.” NASA describes this trend as “quite alarming.”

All of which leads to a conclusion that foolhardy use of fossil fuels has created a heat-machine. The evidence of the heat-machine is found by the fact that the planet is trapping twice as much heat as 17 years ago. That’s an off–the-charts data point that should send shivers down anyone’s spine.

For evidence of the heat-machine’s powerful impact, as of June 2022, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation was forced to adopt emergency measures to restrict drawdowns, instructing the seven Colorado River Basin states to reduce water usage by 2-4 million acre-feet over the next 18 months. As for recreational purposes, 5 of 6 boating ramps are now closed.

Such an emergency never happened throughout the dam’s 88-year history, until now. Something’s different, something’s wrong. What’s next for America’s important reservoirs? Is dead pool next?

Dead pool occurs when water in a reservoir drops so low that it cannot flow downstream the dam. America’s two largest reservoirs, Lake Mead behind Hoover Dam and Lake Powell behind Glen Canyon Dam are interconnected and at high risk of dead pool.

The risks impact all of America, as 40 million people and 4-5 million acres of farmland depend upon the reservoirs for electric power and/or drinking and irrigation. Furthermore, the seven states of the Colorado Basin in large measure “feed the country.” California alone produces 33% of the country’s vegetables and 67% of the country’s fruits and nuts.

Lake Mead dead pool is 895 feet and minimum power pool 1,000 feet; its current elevation is 1,041 feet.

Lake Powell dead pool is 3,370 feet and minimum power pool 3,490 feet; its current elevation is 3,536 feet.

Minimum power pool is defined as water reservoir levels so low that turbines start losing capacity to produce power as they start to take on air along with water. Unless shut down, the turbines will suffer damage.

These massive reservoirs have steadily shrunk in concert with the relentless impact of the worst drought for the American West in over 1,000 years, now down to 1,041.30 feet for Lake Mead, as of July 18, 2022 (U.S. Bureau of Reclamation).

But, of even more concern, alarmingly and suddenly Lake Mead dropped 22 feet and Lake Powell dropped 40 feet in 2021 alone much, much faster than ever forecast. California, Nevada, Arizona and others must make big cuts to their allocations or dead pool will become reality. Nobody expected this so soon.

It should be noted that the reservoirs are shaped like giant martini glasses, thereby narrowing with depth. This feature, in part, explains Lake Mead dropping 22 feet in one year and Lake Powell 40 feet. Nevertheless, Lake Mead at 1,041 feet is only 41 feet away from minimum power pool and Lake Powell at 3,526 feet only 46 feet from minimum power pool. Yikes!

The seriousness of this crisis cannot be overly emphasized as the reality of a mega drought hits America right between the eyes. Yet, there are no quick solutions. Of course one solution would be if somebody could wave a magical wand over the Rocky Mountains to regenerate the normality of snowpack since that is the source for 90% of the water flow. But, global warming has walloped snowpack: According to the U.S. EPA’s Climate Change Indicators: Snowpack throughout the Western U.S., as of 2022: The snowpack measured in April has declined by 20-60% at most monitoring sites.

A good explanation for the sorry state of America’s largest reservoirs comes from John Matthews, executive director and co-founder of the Alliance for Global Water Adaptation: “Matthews said the water shortage on the Colorado River reflects fundamental problems in how Hoover Dam and other infrastructure projects were designed for a climate that no longer exists, and how water supplies continue to be divided under a rigid and antiquated system.” (Source: As Climate Talks Put Focus On Water Crisis, The Colorado River Provides A Stark Example, Los Angeles Times, November 4, 2021)

Matthews: “The Colorado Compact is trapped in a climate that went away in 1980 or 1990, and is not coming back for at least another millennium… I think this is an old car without airbags.”

Scientists estimate that one-half of the decrease in water runoff of the Colorado watershed since 2000 is caused by unprecedented warming, a heat-driven erosion of water supply that’s destined to worsen as temperatures continue to rise.

The upshot is a permanent change in the climate system caused by an imbalance as Earth absorbs more energy from the Sun than it emits to space because of the blanket effect of greenhouse gas emissions, such as CO2. This worldwide nemesis is not about to change anytime soon. More likely, it will worsen.

Meanwhile in Washington, D.C., the highly touted Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, if passed, will face a predicament that’s already deeply embedded. It should be noted that Bill McKibben, of 350.org fame, writing in The New Yorker: Congress Looks Set To Finally Pass Historic Climate Legislation, July 31, 2022: “Taken as a whole, the bill is a triumph. It would be the most ambitious climate package ever passed in the U.S. and would allow the country to resume a credible role as an environmental leader.”

The bill penalizes oil and gas companies that fail to cut methane emissions, but it doesn’t actually pressure energy utilities to abandon coal and gas. Still, analysts say that it would cut emissions to forty per cent below 2005 levels by the end of the decade.

Thus, the bill (except for provisions that actually promote more fossil fuel usage) is not bad but also not good enough according to what’s needed to actually mitigate global warming (caused by fossil fuel usage). Accordingly, scientists’ concerns about rapid climate change know that effective mitigation requires much stronger measures, much sooner.

Fixing Lake Powell and Lake Mead

As word of mouth spread that America’s major reservoirs were close to failing, it spurred more and more suggestions of tapping the massive Mississippi River to supplement the Colorado River Basin.

Moreover, according to The Waterways Journal, suggestions to tap the Mississippi River go back decades: “The Bureau of Reclamation did a thorough study of the idea of pumping Mississippi River water to Arizona in 2012, concluding that the project would cost $14 billion (in 2012 dollars) and take 30 years to complete. As recently as 2021, the Arizona state legislature urged Congress to fund a technological and feasibility study of a diversion dam and pipeline scheme to harvest floodwater from the Mississippi River to replenish the Colorado River.”

However, it should be noted that the Trans Alaska Pipeline System was completed in June 1977, taking three years to complete the 800-mile pipeline under extremely harsh conditions. Hmm.

At this point in time, crossing one’s fingers that some relief will come soon in the West is the only short-term viable solution other than stealing water from other reservoirs, which the U.S. Reclamation Bureau was forced to do to save Lake Powell’s power generation. Yes, the Bureau had to scramble to “save” Lake Powell’s power generation capability. This fact alone is chilling.

The Bureau’s changes allow more water to flow into Lake Powell from upstream reservoirs, while releasing less water from Lake Powell downstream. In this bureaucratic scramble to find more water, Lake Mead comes up at the short end of the stick in favor of saving Lake Powell’s power generation. About 500,000 acre-feet of water will be released from Flaming Gorge Reservoir, about 455 river miles upstream of Lake Powell. Meanwhile, 480 kaf will be held back in Lake Powell by reducing Glen Canyon Dam’s annual release volume from 7.48 maf to 7.0 maf. (Source: Bureau of Reclamation Takes Drastic Steps at Lake Powell to Ensure Hydropower Generation, S&P Global, Commodity Insights, May 3, 2022)

Flaming Gorge Reservoir, on the Green River in Utah and Wyoming, currently holds about 3 maf of water and is at 78% of its storage capacity. Operators started sending additional water to Lake Powell in May 2022.

Thus, the Bureau keeps the ship of state together by cut and paste methodology robbing upstream reservoirs in order to keep the lights on for 5 million electric customers and water flowing for 40 million. Obviously, the cut and paste solution cannot go on forever.

Photo of James Hansen by Nasa is in the public domain.
Photo of James Hansen by Nasa is in the public domain.

This horror story of failing reservoirs that provide crucial power and water for dense population centers and key agricultural regions represents an inexcusable failure by leadership in government and business to listen to warnings from scientists for four decades, ever since James Hansen, director of NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, 1981-2013, testified before the Senate in 1988 that the greenhouse effect had been detected, indicating the climate system was changing, not for the better. That testimony was remarkably prophetic.

As it happens, what would have been a relatively simple solution back in the day has turned into a nightmare.

In that regard, The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, the proposed Shumer/Manchin bill, is a Band-Aid, not a solution.

Postscript: “Earth is out of energy balance, more solar energy absorbed than heat radiated to space, by an astounding amount, more than any time with reliable data.” (James Hansen, June Temperature Update & The Bigger Picture, July 29, 2022)

Regarding the Inflation Reduction Act: “It is consistent with the long-standing ‘wishful thinking’ approach to climate policy, ask each nation to try to reduce their emissions and hope that the global results will add up to a solution. And then ignore the blatant scientific data showing that this approach is not working and will not work.” (Hansen)

Robert Hunziker is a freelance writer and environmental journalist whose articles have been translated into foreign languages and published in over 50 journals, magazines and sites worldwide.

This article was originally published on August 5, 2022 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

Posted on

Breakdown of the Marine Food Web

Photo of a grey shark by Gerald Schömbs on Unsplash
Photo by Gerald Schömbs on Unsplash

Breakdown of the Marine Food Web

By Robert Hunziker

For the first time, a significant loss at the base of the marine food web has been detected. The Scottish research vessel Capepod reported the findings in equatorial waters of the Atlantic Ocean.

It’s a disturbing discovery, but first a look at the marine food web, starting with the lowest organisms: (1) phytoplankton – plant-like plankton: green algae, diatoms, and dinoflagellates eaten by (2) zooplankton – microorganisms: crustaceans, rotifers, insect larvae and mites eaten by (3) small fish: anchovies, sardines, shrimp, squid, krill eaten by (4) bigger fish: sturgeon, sunfish, sharks, manta rays eaten by (5) mammals: seals, dolphins, polar bears, and last but certainly not least, humans at an increasingly wobbly end of the food chain.

At the bottom of the food web phytoplankton generically serves as the most significant resource of marine life simply because nothing else eats if phytoplankton doesn’t exist. Moreover, phytoplankton performs photosynthesis, converting sunrays to energy, absorbs CO2, and serves as a major source, producing oxygen for the biosphere.

Teams of scientists study plankton and keep track of changes at the base of the food chain. Their results are reported to various governmental agencies that hopefully take remedial action if things are going sideways. But, umm… well, onward with the story.

Only recently, disturbing news came from the Scottish research group Global Oceanic Environmental Survey (“GOES”) Edinburgh that spent two years gathering samples of plankton along the equatorial Atlantic. The team detected unmistakable signs that the food web is compromised: “Their sampling suggested plankton levels may have fallen by 90% in parts of the Atlantic.” (Source: Expert: Warmer Seas are Forcing Crucial Plankton to Move North, The Sunday Post, Dundee, Scotland, July 24, 2022)

The GOES research team spent two years collecting water samples from the Atlantic and the Caribbean. Previously, it was assumed that plankton had fallen by 50% since the 1940s, but this new evidence suggests a mouth-dropping -90%.

According to the GOES team, plankton is directly impacted by: “An overload of CO2 along with a deluge of lethal manmade chemicals in cosmetics, plastics, sunscreen, drugs, and fertilizers is inundating the marine environment. It’s all toxic to underwater life and once the water reaches a tipping point of activity, vast amounts of plankton will simply dissolve.” (Source: Atlantic Ocean ‘Pretty Much Dead’ Says Scientist as Plankton Wiped Out, Marine Industry News, July 18, 2022)

GOES’s research: “The team expected to find up to five visible pieces of plankton in every 10 litres of water – but found an average of less than one (ed.-meaning some samples were zero) Conversely, they’d expected to discover 20 microscopic specks of toxic particles per litre of Atlantic water – but actually counted between 100 and 1,000. The discovery suggests that plankton faces complete wipeout sooner than was expected,” Ibid.

In addition to the above-referenced GOES survey in parts of the equatorial Atlantic, another research team Continuous Plankton Recorder Survey (“CPR”) of Plymouth, UK monitors plankton with vessels across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, up to 30 vessels generating 5,000 samples per year. CPR has been monitoring plankton in the North Atlantic for 70 years and reports results to governments in the UK, EU, and North America.

Preliminary evidence suggests, in addition to human influenced chemicals, etc., for the first time, microscopic plankton sea creatures are negatively reacting to warming ocean water in a profound manner. In part, the issue is the change of water temperature conditions required to support certain species life cycles. It appears that global warming’s impact is displacing them northward as the equatorial waters turn too warm. This shift northward by plankton may be okay for the short-term but more ocean warming will become extremely problematic as plankton essentially run out of enough cooler water space to migrate without overcrowding its own kind in jumbled clumps of plankton crowding onto and battling over the same space. This can become toxic in many respects.

According to David Johns, head of CPR: “Are we in a situation that requires mitigation as a matter of urgency? Yes, I would say so. If they carry on moving north and run out of water, if the seas become too warm, then we’ll lose a lot of those types of plankton that are critically important for fish species and marine mammals,” Ibid.

Of course, nobody knows for certain whether the horrendous falloff is a result of migration north because of too warm of waters or decimation by toxins such as plastics, chemicals, and farm pesticides/fertilizers. However, it’s likely a combination of factors, which essentially doubles the trouble.

The world community should be overly concerned and overly reactive to do whatever it takes as quickly as possible! This type of bad news has a tendency to get worse over time. Moreover, is there a fast enough solution to make a big enough difference in enough time?

The risk is that a loss of plankton brings in its wake a collapse of the ocean food chain. According to Dr. Howard Dryden of GOES, a tipping point could arrive within 25 years unless direct action is taken on toxins from plastics, chemicals, and farm fertilizers. Still, a big issue is temperatures goosed up by inordinate climate change/global warming as a result of excessive greenhouse gases emitted by humans as well as CO2’s hugely negative impact on ocean acidification.

As for solutions, according to David Johns of CPR: “I’d definitely focus on reducing CO2.”

Which brings forth the heartbreaking reality that CO2 emissions are nearly guaranteed to keep on increasing at the current rate of 10 times more than the paleoclimate record over the past 66 million years. Umm, 10xs faster! And 66 million years left in the dust.

Here’s why CO2 is destined to continue choking the planet: Public announcements of oil and gas production plans guarantee excessive levels of greenhouse gas emissions for years ahead: World’s Biggest Fossil Fuel Firms Projected to Spend Almost a Trillion Dollars on New Oil and Gas Fields by 2030, Global Witness and Oil Change International, April 12, 2022. At the same time, both China and India have once again rediscovered affairs with coal.

Withal, the threat to plankton goes much deeper than human-generated greenhouse gases and toxic chemicals. It’s much worse, to wit: Indeed, scientists have observed zooplankton eating plastic. Micro-plastic resembles food for zooplankton. This horror film analogue introduces a variety of toxic chemicals to the marine food web. Heaven only knows the final results, maybe 3-eyed fish and lots more people with totally fried brains that are easily swayed to believe outright lies. (Source: Plastic Pollution is Killing Plankton. How the Loss of This Species Threatens the Oceans, Onegreenplanet.org, 2021)

All of which brings to mind if, when, and how there’s any chance whatsoever of globally unified remedial policies on a worldwide scale to prevent total collapse of marine life. Hmm! That’s asking for a lot, especially when nations of the world couldn’t even follow thru on Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to the Paris ’15 climate agreement. That’s been a total failure. What then of the oceans?

Photo of James Lovelock in 2005
Photo of James Lovelock in 2005

R.I.P.

James Lovelock, July 26, 1919 – July 26, 2022

Gaia theory – Earth is a self-regulating living organism

Robert Hunziker is a freelance writer and environmental journalist whose articles have been translated into foreign languages and published in over 50 journals, magazines and sites worldwide.

This article was originally published on July 29, 2022 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

Posted on

Paper Straws Are Not Enough

Photo by Brian Yurasits on Unsplash
Photo by Brian Yurasits on Unsplash

Paper Straws Are Not Enough

By Robert Hunziker

As the UK suffered its hottest-ever temperatures only recently, Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now, interviewed Britain’s erudite environmental journalist George Monbiot July 21, 2022 about his most recent article in The Guardian: This Heatwave Has Eviscerated The Idea That Small Changes Can Tackle Extreme Weather, July 18, 2022.

According to Monbiot: “Paper straws are not enough. Only System Change can halt the climate crisis.” Of course, System Change can only mean throwing out the neoliberal brand of capitalism in favor of almost anything else.

Adam Smith would be spinning in his grave with today’s crony capitalism. Interestingly, “the term ‘capitalism’ appears nowhere in Smith’s writings.” (Source: Jesse Norman, Adam Smith, Penguin Random House/UK 2018, pgs. 265-66)

According to Jesse Norman, former Financial Secretary to the UK Treasury, 2019-2021 and Member of Parliament since 2010: “The real Adam Smith was (a) not an advocate of self-interest (b) did not believe rational behavior was constituted solely by the pursuit of profit (c) was not a believer in laissez-faire (d) was not pro-rich (e) was not anti-government.”

In other words, Adam Smith is/was the antithesis of today’s brand of neoliberal capitalism, and oh yes, (f) “far from glorifying consumption for its own sake, Smith deprecated it.”

Everything that Smith was against is found in neoliberalism today, especially the failure to protect and benefit the common good.

Today’s capitalism couldn’t fix climate change if its existence depended upon it, which it does, as self-interest looks elsewhere far beyond the common good or welfare.

Photo of George Monbiot by TED Conference is licens under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
Photo of George Monbiot (“TS2019_20190723_2BH8236_1920“)by TED Conference is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

George Monbiot echoes Adam Smith in many respects. Like Smith, Monbiot has been recognized and awarded by his contemporaries, recently winning the Orwell Prize for Journalism 2022 for his article: Capitalism is Killing the Planet – it’s Time to Stop Buying into our Destruction, The Guardian, October 30, 2021.

Capitalism is Killing… is a scathing critique of how we’re dealing with the climate crisis by focusing on what he terms micro consumerist ballocks.

Monbiot explains: What we’re collectively saying as environmentalists is that we’re facing the biggest existential crisis humanity has ever faced, a potential collapse of our life support systems, the domino effect as one earth system pulls down another until habitable space on the planet collapses into a state from which we did not evolve.

In response, environmentalists are saying we want to use less plastic bags, and replace plastic shafts with paper shafts, and stop using plastic straws. Essentially, the environmental movement has been calling for micro solutions to solve macro problems. The upshot is a very low threshold for people to get involved in this way of thinking. In turn, it creates a mindset that believes “we cannot possibly have such a big problem if the solutions are so tiny.” People continue to whistle whilst they work with nothing too serious to care about. Micro consumerist ballock is the dominant narrative within the media and amongst environmental orgs.

However, “incremental change can never develop the transformation which is required… it just does not deliver.” The only way to deliver quickly and effectively is by radical system change.

Meanwhile, as environmentalists have been messing around with micro fixes, the global Right has instituted insurgency and has achieved system change that’s tearing down democracy, tearing down equality before the law, tearing down basic rights, human rights, regulations, and taxes, ripping down everything, and changing the system to suit billionaires, oligarchs, and predatory corporations. They have proven that it’s possible to achieve system change. They’ve done it!

The Right has executed the biggest system change in American history, while the Left’s timidity and failure to demand system change chokes in the dust as a big part of why we collectively are stuck where we are, and why almost no effective broad based measures to address the greatest crisis of all time have been instituted.

Meanwhile, what we really truly want is “private sufficiency with public luxury.” Meaning people have their own home base with necessities, which is private sufficiency. Then, for luxury we collectively pursue it in the public domain as public luxury.

Whereas luxury-for-all is a huge indomitable challenge. “There is not enough physical or ecological space for everybody to pursue private luxury.” For example, if everyone has a private jet and a big luxury car and overly spacious home, that’s planet-gone (devastation) within hours. We’d burn through everything in a flash of time.” If everyone in London had a swimming pool and tennis court and art collection, the city would physically need to be as big as all of Europe to accommodate it all. Where would everybody else in Europe go to live?

There simply is not enough planet space for everybody to be a billionaire, but there is enough space for public luxury, e.g. public swimming pools and public tennis courts and public health service and public transport, which creates space for people by sharing resources on a per capita basis that is manageable.

Kate Rayworth’s Doughnut Economics (Random House, 2017) outlines such a life style where we all live within planetary boundaries but above welfare boundaries. The message is clear that mitigation of the climate crisis requires an ecological civilization with participatory democracy, once again.

The Left’s blatant failure to openly call for system change is its biggest failing and quite the opposite of the Right’s success with system change, leaving the Left speechless and coughing and wheezing in an effortless cloud of dust. The Left has never learned to fight by taking off the gloves, bare-knuckled.

In Montbiot’s book Regenesis, Feeding the World Without Devouring the Planet, Penguin Random House 2022, he looks at the world via a global prism. Therein, he discovers that it is as important to stop animal agriculture as it is to leave fossil fuels in the ground.

According to Monbiot, “the great majority of people have got to stop eating animals.” It is a primary driver of environmental destruction, a major cause of habitat loss, of wildlife loss, of extinction, of abusive land use, of fresh water overuse, of soil degradation, a major cause of climate breakdown and of water pollution and air pollution. Animal agriculture is at the top of the list along side fossil fuels as the planet’s biggest drivers of mass destruction.

Monbiot says plant-based diets are far better than animal agricultural diets, but he feels society can go much further than that with new technologies, including fermentation, which produces a protein-rich food from single-cell organisms or microbes that are essentially brewed. It is a process that can be done anywhere. No need for fertile land or chemicals or using massive quantities of water. It is also an avenue to break away from multinational corporations that control global trade, e.g. four corporations control 90% of the global grain trade, which is essentially a long and highly vulnerable food chain.

Of concern, the global food system has lost its resilience, and it’s starting to approach the deplorable state of the financial system in 2008. Threateningly, the global food system has switched from stocks to flows. Basically our global food reserves are floating at sea in container ships. The dangers are legion.

To mitigate the climate crisis, precision fermentation offers an opportunity to break the hold of four corporations controlling the world’s food system, as well as offering release of the all-powerful destructive tension hitting ecosystems throughout the world that are fast approaching a Big Snap!

Examples of Fermentation

In response to a question about fermentation examples, the following comes from an article of mine some time ago:

Factory farming is about to be disrupted via better foods, tastier foods, cheaper foods, healthier foods, and a much healthier environment. That future, sans institutional slaughterhouses and sans widespread use of chemicals and the end of clear-cutting has been theorized in detail by the independent think tank RethinkX.

The not-so-secret formula to better, tastier, cheaper, healthier, more prevalent food is the production of microorganisms. Already over past centuries humanity has shown the value of controlling microorganisms through fermentation, producing bread, cheese, alcohol, as well as preserving fruit and vegetables.

“Moving food production to the molecular level promises a more efficient means of feeding ourselves and the delivery of superior, cleaner nutrients without the unhealthy chemical/antibiotic/insecticide additives required by current industrial means of production.” (RethinkX)

The capability to create foods with exact attributes of nutrition, structure, taste, and texture is advancing whereby ordering food will be similar to installing software on your phone but via databases of engineered molecules, as fermentation farms displace factory farms.

Impossible Foods is an example that utilizes fermented (heme) to create a higher-performing product. (Source: A Rainbow of Opportunity: How Fermentation Biotech is Creating “Agricultural 2.0”, Food Navigator, March 25, 2021)

Robert Hunziker is a freelance writer and environmental journalist whose articles have been translated into foreign languages and published in over 50 journals, magazines and sites worldwide.

This article was originally published on July 25, 2022 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.