In case you have lingering doubts about the reality of human-caused global warming, hop on an airplane to parts of India or Pakistan and spend a few days. And, as long as you’re there, maybe be a good citizen and pick up a few of the dehydrated birds that drop out of the sky. Then, use the syringe you brought along to feed it some water before it dies in your hands.
And, maybe do the same for some of the people sprawled out on the roadside before they die right before your eyes. After all, people are already dying from the humid heat. Maybe you could help them survive and while at it maybe bring along that friend who’s a climate denier for help saving some lives. It’s good for his or her soul to open their eyes to reality.
According to a recent Business Insider article: Birds Are Falling From the Sky in India as a Record Heatwave Dries up Water Sources, May 14th, 2022. And, it’s not just a few random instances: “Vets in an animal hospital in Ahmedabad said they had treated thousands of birds in recent weeks,” Ibid.
According to Yale Climate Connections: “The nearly ‘unsurvivable’ heat is increasingly as the result of human-caused climate change.”
Here’s a snippet from the Yale Climate Connections article entitled India and Pakistan’s Brutal Heat Wave Poised to Resurge: “Inferno-like temperatures of up to 50 degrees Celsius (122°F). The heat, when combined with high levels of humidity – especially near the coast and along the Indus River Valley – will produce dangerously high levels of heat stress that will approach or exceed the limit of survivability for people outdoors for an extended period.”
According to the prestigious UK Met Office: “The blistering heat wave in northwest India and Pakistan was made over 100 times more likely because of human-caused climate change.” (Source: Climate Change Has Made India’s Heat Wave 100 Times More Likely, UK Weather Service Says, CNBC, May 18, 2022.)
The extraordinary blistering heat has prompted Umair Haque, a British economist (former blogger for the Harvard Business Review, but he attended University of Oxford, London Business School, and McGill University) to write a special article about the scenario entitled: The Age of Extinction Is Here — Some of Us Just Don’t Know It Yet published in Eudaimonia and Co, May 2022 in which he describes a world that has “already crossed the threshold of survivability.”
Umair has friends in the Indian Subcontinent. So, he hears first hand what’s happening without the filter of a news organization. Here’s one quote: “The heatwave there is pushing the boundaries of survivability. My other sister says that in the old, beautiful city of artists and poets, eagles are falling dead from the sky. They are just dropping dead and landing on houses, monuments, and shops. They can’t fly anymore.”
Here’s some more reporting from the streets, as related to Umair: “The streets, she says, are lined with dead things. Dogs. Cats. Cows. Animals of all kinds are just there, dead. They’ve perished in the killing heat. They can’t survive.”
People spend all day in canals and rivers and lakes. Some people line the streets passed out at the edge of life or death. He suggests the death count will not be known for some time and many probably won’t be counted.
Here’s an interesting take from Umair’s perspective: “You see, my Western friends read stories like this, and then they go back to obsessing over the Kardashians or Wonder Woman or Johnny Depp or Batman. They don’t understand yet. Because this is beyond the limits of what Homo sapiens can really comprehend, the Event. That world is coming for them, too.”
He claims: “We are at the threshold of the Cataclysm. Some of us are now crossing over to the other side, of a different planet, one that’s going to become unlivable. This isn’t ‘going to happen’ or ‘might happen,’ it is actually happening now.”
Here’s one more quote: “At 50 degrees, which is where the Subcontinent is now, life dies off. The birds fall from the sky. The streets become mass graves. People flee and try to just survive. Energy grids begin to break. Economies grind to a halt.”
Umair claims civilization collapses somewhere between 50 -60 degrees Celsius. “Nothing works after that point.” Animals die and systems shut down, economics crater, inflation skyrockets, people grow poorer, fascism erupts as a consequence. People become frightened and turn to fundamentalist religion or authoritarian rule to “give them answers.” The regular old economics and politics don’t work any longer. Sound familiar?
Death by humid heat in India equates to the tolling of bells, slowly, repeatedly, as black flags flutter along the distant horizon. Another one has died and another, and one more, and another and another, as the monotonous tolling becomes an atrocious irritation.
Postscript: It’s in every bird falling from the sky, every animal dropping dead from the heat, every democracy being shredded by lunatics, in all the deaths we will never count. Our systems — all of them — economic, social, political — are beginning to fail. (Umair Haque)
Based in Los Angeles, 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.
Woody biomass, or burning trees to produce renewable energy, is spreading beyond the shores of Europe, where it’s wildly popular and outpacing solar and wind. It’s headed for Japan and South Korea, where subsidies for woody biomass displace funding for solar and wind. Umm, what’s wrong with this picture?
In order to know specifically what’s wrong it’s pertinent to take notice of the factual details about the integrity of woody biomass to discover whether it’s truly one of the biggest blunders of the 21st century.
Woody biomass is not a viable solution for global warming mitigation purposes. It has been the subject of considerable scientific debate with several voices expressing alarm over the absurd concept of burning trees to reduce global emissions. It’s shocking!
Nevertheless, it is happening right under our collective noses and fully endorsed by the European Union (EU) yet the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) does not endorse it. This is proof-positive that absurdity knows no limits.
After this article was written and before it was posted the EU Environment Committee voted to amend the European Union’s stance on woody biomass. It appears the EU is scrambling to save face. See more details at the end of this article.
The term “carbon neutral,” which is not the same as “zero carbon” and not a scientific term, but glorified by the EU when used to distinguish a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions really means this: “Someone else, at some other time, removes carbon, so I can emit more.” (Quote by Dr. William Moomaw, IPCC co-author of several reports)
If you’re worried about the deleterious impact of global warming, DUCK! You’re about to get hit right between the eyes as woody biomass emits as much CO2 as coal, or more. And, it’s popular. Developed countries like it better than coal. It’s cheaper than building solar or wind, and it’s easy, and it helps countries meet the Nationally Determined Contributions at the heart of the Paris Agreement. Here’s how: Stop shoveling coal into the furnace and replace it with woody biomass chips, Eureka! The lights go on!
But, there’s a catch: Woody Biomass is one of Runaway Global Warming’s favorite accomplices. It’s a stealthy renewable faux source emitting tons of excessive amounts of CO2 that people mistakenly think is just fine, whereas coal has a dirty image but emits less CO2 than woody biomass.
Contrary to popular opinion by proponents of woody biomass, replanting trees to offset CO2 emitted by burning woody biomass is not true (not even close to true), more on this later.
Furthermore and contrary to statements by forest biomass companies: “Despite claims from forest biomass proponents, the IPCC does not even assess, let alone support, the use of forest bioenergy and BECCS as a climate solution and has not determined that biomass is essential to addressing climate change. (Source: What the IPCC Really Says About Forest Biomass & Climate Change, National Resources Defense Council –NRDC- Nov. 9, 2021)
According to the NRDC report on the IPCC position: “Cutting and burning forests in the southeastern United States – the leading global region for wood pellet manufacturing – leads to a net shift of carbon from the land to the air that lasts for decades,” Ibid. That’s horrible news for the woody biomass industry, which is growing like a weed, spreading across the globe.
Bottom line, major developed countries the use woody biomass operate under the pretense that they are meeting carbon reduction goals under the guidelines of IPCC AR6 when in fact they are amplifying global warming.
That results in a hopeless scenario where nobody knows what to believe. The only reliable data points are CO2 levels from independent entities like NOAA’s Mauna Loa Atmospheric Baseline Observatory in Hawaii managed by NOAA scientists and Scripps Institution of Oceanography. For example, the CO2 weekly average for May 8th was 421.13 ppm versus 418.34 ppm one year ago. That’s a rapid rate of increase +2.79 ppm, which is far above the historical average, which means annual CO2 emissions are truly rapidly escalating. This has extremely negative ramifications for ecosystems, biodiversity loss, the climate system, and last but not least, Homo sapiens, the main protagonists of this Greek tragedy
And, oh yes, speaking of global warming, especially to the shrilly denier charlatans, it is notable that worldwide drought is on a chilling rampage. Name any continent, except Antarctica, which has its own problems, and destructive drought is there. For specific references, Google: (1) World Drought Gets Worse, Cities Ration, May 9, 2022 (2) Adapting to Drought, May 3, 2022 (3) Dangerous Heat Across the Globe, January 24, 2022 (4) Drought Clobbers the World, August 27, 2021.
The Woody Biomass Growth Industry
Woody biomass, a multi-billion dollar world market is growing from its major base in the EU and UK by spreading to Japan and South Korea. Those two economic powerhouses are rapidly adopting it as a solution to meet greenhouse gas emission mitigation standards by flipping coal usage to woody biomass tree burning.
Yikes! Don’t they know (their scientists or engineers or somebody knowledgeable) that woody biomass will increase CO2 emissions, the same as coal, and then some?
The only way they’ll legitimately meet their emission targets is by illegitimately (cheating) using fancy accounting principles which of course is the modus operandi, stating that woody biomass is carbon neutral and of course they’ve got the EU imprimatur to prove it. Even better yet as for falsifying records, the EU does not recognize CO2 emissions from woody biomass, and it is largely ignored by the IPCC. So, why count it? Yes, it is true that for some inexplicable reason (maybe the carbon neutral ruse) the EU does not understand that burning trees emits CO2, same as coal. Hence, it’s easy to falsify records about achieving targets towards net zero by 2050.
In all fairness, it should be noted that coal usage does not burn trees, which actually makes it a better solution than woody biomass (P.S.-this article does not endorse coal): “All of this wood burning is putting intensifying pressure on global forests — which are desperately important for the tremendous amounts of carbon they store.” (Source: COP 26: E.U. is Committed to Forest Biomass Burning to Cut Fossil Fuel Use, Mongabay, November 2022)
Several recent studies have exposed false claims that woody pellets are manufactured from “waste wood or residues such as limbs, tops, scraps, or rotted trees.” Analyses of woody biomass operations in Canada (BC) and the US (southern states), in some cases, showed the vast majority of material consists of boles or tree trunks, not scrap waste material.
According to the Southern Environmental Law Center: “Despite industry claims, most of the wood used to manufacture pellets is not waste wood or residues – like limbs, tops, scraps, or rotten trees. Instead, the vast majority of material harvested for these wood pellet facilities were tree trunks or boles.” (Source: New Study Confirms Harmful Impacts of Biomass Industry, Southern Environmental Law Center, March 28, 2022)
A study of Canada’s Inland Temperate Rainforest at the site of a major woody biomass manufacturer: “According to the NGO Sustainable Biomass Program, the use of whole logs has ballooned from 6% in 2019 to 50% in 2020 (Ed.-SBP claims 36% in an updated statement). Still, satellite imagery by the Living Atlas of the World “confirmed a shift to whole trees.” Furthermore, a 2021 Google Image shows log piles around the wood-pellet plant that are equivalent to four soccer fields, which is an eye-opening 6xs the area of wood residuals on the property. (Source: Burning Up: The Controversial Biofuel Threatening BC’s Last Inland Rainforest, The Whale, 2022)
According to the Environmental Paper Network, a global coalition of forest advocates that tracks biomass, demand for pellets in Japan will rise to 9 million metric tons annually by 2027, up from 0.5 million metric tons in 2017. South Korea will hit 8.2 million metric tons annually by 2027, up from 2.4 million metric tons in 2017. That Asian combination is close to future demand predicted for both the EU and the U.K.
The South Korean government subsidy for biomass is so substantial that the country will reduce investment in wind and solar to make room for woody biomass, which is a prime example of out-and-out insanity at work.
Henceforth, Woody Biomass will meaningfully contribute to excessive greenhouse gas emissions and contribute to heating up the planet. Global warming is the only winner in this race to the bottom of upside down global warming mitigation craziness.
Even more perplexing, in the face of the EU not recognizing CO2 emissions from burning woody biomass, in November 2021 more than 100 nations agreed at the Glasgow UN climate summit to: “reduce global deforestation as a primary climate-mitigation strategy.” Yet, doesn’t woody biomass include chopping down trees, which works against the 100-nation declaration?
“Forest advocates have been arguing for years that burning wood for energy on an industrial scale, a practice virtually nonexistent little more than a decade ago, poses a host of environmental threats while undermining effective global warming mitigation efforts, these include: (1) increased deforestation (2) elevated carbon emissions (3) loss of carbon sequestration capacity and (4) adverse biodiversity impacts,” Ibid.
Woody Biomass proponents claim they replant trees to replace chopped down trees. So, no harm done as the newly planted trees will absorb the CO2 from burned trees. Wrong!
According to John Sterman (MIT), a biomass expert, the carbon released today by burning wood pellets “will take 44-to-104 years to be reabsorbed by new tree plantings,” Ibid.
That should be reason enough, standing alone as one primary fact about the negative impact, to abandon woody biomass altogether.
But there is more: Making matters even worse, wood pellets produce more emissions per unit of energy than carbon-intensive coal because wood isn’t as energy dense as coal, which is one more reason why coal is better than woody biomass.
“Increasing biomass burning for energy in place of coal [fails] to reduce emissions at the smokestack and actually increases them,” according to Peg Putt, a leader of the Environmental Paper Network in Australia. “Also, where forest biomass from natural forests is burnt, it is depleting the carbon stocks of those forests and undermines their potential to sequester carbon during the vital period for emissions reductions between now and 2050,” Ibid.
It’s nearly impossible to find a worse approach to fixing global warming than substituting woody biomass for coal. Maybe tar sands?
Facts About Woody Biomass:
“The wood pellet industry is a monster out of control… Burning wood puts out more carbon dioxide per unit of electricity produced than coal does.” (Bill Moomaw, emeritus professor Tufts University and co-author of several IPCC reports – 2019 Mongabay interview).
More than 500 scientists & economists signed a letter addressed to: (1) President Joseph Biden, (2) EU President Ursula Von der Leyen, (3) Charles Michel, President of the EU Council, (4) Japanese PM Yoshihide Suga and (5) So. Korean President Moon Jae-in: “We urge you not to undermine both climate goals and the world’s biodiversity by shifting from burning fossil fuels to burning trees to generate energy.” (Source: 500+ Experts Call on World’s Nations to Not Burn Forest to Make Energy, Mongabay, February 16, 2021)
The letter from the 500 scientists and economists states: “Overall, for each kilowatt hour of heat or electricity produced, [burning] wood initially is likely to add two to three times as much carbon to the air as using fossil fuels, refuting the policy and industry claims of zero emissions.”
Nearly 800 scientists and academics, including two Nobel laureates and three winners of the US National Medal of Science, signed a similar letter in 2018.
Under the EU’s second Renewable Energy Directive (REDII) — tolerated by the United Nations under the Paris Climate Agreement — emissions from burning forest biomass are not counted at all. This one shocking fact is nearly impossible to read without falling to one’s knees in utter disbelief.
In Europe 42,210 people signed a petition to end EU support for “fake renewables,” i.e., burning trees is not a climate solution. (Source: EU Bioenergy, News, January 25, 2021) The petition did not influence the EU decision to continue championing woody biomass.
In the UK, the Drax Group converted 4 of 6 coal-generating units to biomass, powering 12% of UK electricity for 4 million households. The Drax biomass plant has an enormous appetite for wood, e.g., in less than two hours an entire freight train of wooden pellets goes up in smoke. That could be up to 12 freight train loads of wood pellets going up in smoke every 24 hours. That’s an amazing image to behold!
According to Drax’s PR department, the operation has slashed CO2 by over 80% since 2012, claiming to be “the largest decarbonization project in Europe.” (Source: Biomass Energy: Green or Dirty? Environment & Energy – Feature Article, Jan. 8, 2020)
Yet, when scientists analyze Drax’s claims, they do not hold up. Not even close! When wood pellets burn, Drax assumes the released carbon is recaptured instantly by new growth. That is a fairy tale. John Sterman (MIT), a biomass expert, claims the carbon released today by burning wood pellets “will take 44-to-104 years to be reabsorbed by new tree plantings.”
An article entitled The “Green Energy” That Might Be Ruining the Planet appeared in Politico, March 2021: “Here’s a multibillion-dollar question that could help determine the fate of the global climate: If a tree falls in a forest—and then it’s driven to a mill, where it’s chopped and chipped and compressed into wood pellets, which are then driven to a port and shipped across the ocean to be burned for electricity in European power plants—does it warm the planet? Most scientists and environmentalists say yes.”
“Burning wood puts out more carbon dioxide per unit of electricity produced then coal does.” (Source: Humanity’s Mortality Moment, @ 25:00 on video, ScientistsWarning.TV, December 11,2019)
Carbon is emitted in the biomass combustion process, resulting in a net increase of CO2 (Columbia University study)
Woody biomass power plants actually produce more global warming CO2 than fossil fuel plants (Earth Institute).
Europe now generates more energy from burning wood than from wind and solar combined, even though solar produces 100 times as much power per acre as biomass. Please reread that!
“The whole thing boils down to the obvious fact that burning things emits carbon quickly and re-growing things to sequester carbon takes a long time,” according to Mary Booth, director of the Partnership for Policy Integrity, a US-based environmental nonprofit. “In other words, climate change will have wreaked havoc long before those young trees mature into an ecosystem that holds as much carbon as the one they replaced.” (Source: Burning Up: The Controversial Biofuel Threatening BC’s Last Inland Rainforests, The Whale, 2022)
After this article was written, the EU Parliament’s Environment Committee voted to reduce “eligibility of heat and power from burning trees and other forest biomass as counting toward the EU’s renewable energy targets, and largely ending renewable energy subsidies for forest biomass, with certain exceptions.” (Source: European Parliament’s Environment Committee Recommends Curtailing Burning Forest Biomass for Renewable Energy, Forest Defenders Alliance, May 17, 2022)
NGOs are concerned by the amount of wood that would still be burned under the agreement. Lina Burnelius, Project Leader at Protect the Forest Sweden, said: “We are afraid that this half-step will be celebrated as some sort of victory, when in reality more than half of the biomass burned will, under this proposal, still receive subsidies and still not be included in the emissions statistics. The gap between what the science shows is needed and what’s been put on the table is severe,” Ibid.
Meanwhile, over the past decade biomass power plants established solid operations in the U.K., the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, France, Italy, Austria, and Sweden. Asia is the new growth market, including Japan and South Korea with India ramping up and African nations looking to get involved.
“The result of this soaring demand: Trees are being stripped from old growth forests, boreal forests and/or native hardwood forests in Canada, Eastern Europe, the U.S. Southeast and Russia; and cut in tropical forests in Vietnam and Malaysia, all to produce wood pellets.” (Source: COP26: Surging Wood Pellet Industry Threatens Climate, Say Experts, Mongabay, Nov. 9, 2021)
By all appearances, woody biomass is an unstoppable behemoth initiated by the EU, which is now scrambling, as it tries to undo a monster of its own creation.
Forget about achieving net zero anytime this lifetime. Woody biomass is on the rise!
Based in Los Angeles, 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.
The planet is wheezing, coughing and sputtering because of vicious attacks by worldwide droughts aided and abetted by global warming at only 1.2C above baseline. Some major metropolises are rationing water.
What’ll happen at 1.5C?
It’s not as if droughts are not a normal feature of the climate system. They are, but the problem nowadays is highlighted by reports from NASA and NOAA stating that earth is trapping nearly twice as much heat is it did in 2005 described as an “unprecedented increase amid the climate crisis.” This trend is described as “quite alarming.”
The planet trapping heat at double the rate of only 17 years ago is off-the-charts bad news and reason enough for the world’s leaders to go all-in on global warming preventive measures, and then hope and pray that it’s not too late.
Throughout Earth’s history drought has been a normal feature of climate change, but that’s the past. Droughts are no longer normal features. They are much, much more severe and longer lasting, for example, America’s drought in the West is ongoing for 20 years, the worst in 1,200 years, and it’s taken Lake Mead water levels down to 1937 when it first started filling up.
On a worldwide basis, drought’s impact on water reservoirs on every continent is chilling. Agricultural yields are suffering.
Undoubtedly, the utter failure by the world’s political leaders to respect 30-50 years of public warnings by scientists to “get off fossil fuels ASAP” is coming home to roost. When will the general public fight back and throw out climate change denial politicians along with their motley shrilly charlatans?
Along those lines, in an historic judgment, a Belgian court ruled that Belgium’s climate failures violate human rights, stating that public authorities broke promises to tackle the climate issue. 58,000 citizens served as co-plaintiffs in the case. To wit: “By not taking all ‘necessary measures’ to prevent the ‘detrimental’ effects of climate change, the court said, Belgian authorities had breached the right to life (Article 2) and the right to respect for private and family life (Article 8).” (Source: Drought: The New Global Calamity? The Kashmir Monitor, June 30, 2021)
A major study of soil moisture drought in Europe during the period from 1766 to 2020 led to the conclusion that recent drought events brought the “most intense drought conditions for Europe in 250 years: “We conclude that Europe should prepare adaptation and mitigation plans for future events whose intensity may be comparable to the previous event, but whose duration (and partly their spatial extent) will be much greater than any event observed in the last 250 years.” (Source: The 2018-2020 Multi-Year Drought Sets a New Benchmark in Europe, American Geophysical Union, 15 March 2022)
An international team, led by the University of Cambridge… found that after a long-term drying trend, European drought conditions since 2015 suddenly intensified, beyond anything in the past two thousand (2,000) years.
Eastern Europe is feeling the impact of serious drought. A report from the Atlantic Council in 2021 “emphasized the impacts of drought on Ukraine’s grain exports, noting that they had ‘fallen sharply year-on-year during the current season due to smaller harvests caused by severe drought conditions.’ When an agricultural power as important as Ukraine suddenly starts producing and exporting much less food, it is a recipe for social dislocation, human suffering, and political unrest, both inside the country and beyond.” (Source: Extreme Drought Is Crashing Food Production Whether Russia Invades or Not, The Nation, Feb. 17, 2022)
According to the European Commission: “A severe drought has been affecting northern Italy and the Po River basin in particular.” (Source: Drought in Northern Italy – March 2022: GDO Analytical Report, European Commission) In Northern Italy, “Most of the reservoirs are below the minimum historical values… stored energy as of March 2022 is 27.5% less than the 8-year minimum. Both agricultural yield and costs for power are negatively impacted. That -27.5% is 27.5% below the 8-yr minimum!
In the US, according to the Palmer Drought index, severe-to-extreme drought is affecting 38% of the contiguous US as of March 2022. That’s almost as bad as it ever gets. More than 50% of the country registers as moderate-to-extreme. As a result, the US Bureau of Reclamation is scrambling to retain/add/cheat/steal enough water for America’s two largest reservoirs Lake Powell and Lake Mead to keep hydropower supplying electrical power to 5M and water to 40M. Rationing to some of seven SW states has already started. Is that the eye-opener of all eye-openers? Answer: Yes.
Historic drought has literally changed the landscape in parts of South America: “Until 2020, there was plenty of water, swamps, stagnant lakes and lagoons in Argentina’s Ibera Wetlands, one of the largest such ecosystems in the world. But an historic drought of the Parana River dried much of it out; its waters are in the lowest level since 1944. Since January it has been the stage of raging fires.” (Source: Climate Change Brings Extreme, Early Impact to South America, phys.org, March 1, 2022)
Chile is experiencing such a horrendous record-breaking drought (13 years) that the capital city Santiago, population 6M, is rationing water. The city will experience rotating water cut-offs of up to 24 hours at a time in a four-tier alert system with public service announcements so residents can prepare for no water. “This is the first time in history that Santiago has a water rationing plan due to the severity of climate change, It’s important for citizens to understand that climate change is here to stay. It’s not just global, it’s local,” according to Claudio Orrego, governor of the Santiago metropolitan region. (Source: Chile Announces Unprecedented Plan to Ration Water As Drought Enters 13th Year, The Guardian, April 11, 2022)
In SE Asia the Mekong River serves as the waterway for the livelihood of 65M people. This is the fourth year of drought. According to the Ministry of Water Resources river conditions are the worst in 60 years. For example, in Cambodia water capacity for crop irrigation is at only 20%. Upstream dams in China and Laos also negatively add to the impact of severe drought conditions.
In China the port city of Guangzhou (pop 15M) and Shenzhen (pop 12.5M), which links HK to mainland China, have put residents on notice to cut (reduce) water consumption between January and October of 2022, as the main water source, the East River (down 50%) experiences the most severe drought in decades. (Source: China’s Southern Megacities Warn of Water Shortages During East River Drought, Reuters, December 8, 2021)
In Africa, a brutal drought in Ethiopia and Kenya has caused three million livestock dead and 30% of household herds have died in Somalia. According to the UN, the worsening drought in the Horn of Africa puts 20M people at risk. Rampant migration follows in the footsteps of severe drought, e.g., Central America’s Dry Corridor.
As nation/states fail to adequately address the global warming issue with Plan A, which is attacking the source, or cutting fossil fuel emissions, it becomes increasingly urgent to go to Plan B, which is adapting to the unforgiving climate system exhaust (cough-cough) of a failed Plan A.
In 2021, the Netherlands hosted the first-ever Climate Adaptation Summit (CAS 2021), highlighting adaptation measures as crucial for minimizing extreme weather events and improving water security.
The facts surrounding the current status of CO2 emissions (at all-time highs over the past millennium) and plans for expansion by the fossil fuel industry over the course of this decade, i.e., China & India building new coal plants like crazy and oil companies planning to spend billions for new oil and gas expansion, dictate that adaptation to an unpredictably challenging destructive climate system is an absolute necessity because global warming ain’t gonna get fixed.
It is noteworthy that Dr. James Hansen’s (Columbia University) most recent monthly temperature update states:
“Note monthly temperature anomalies on land now commonly exceed +2°C (+3.6°F), with the Arctic anomaly often exceeding +5°C (+9°F).”
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change forewarned that +2°C is the upper limit where the climate system starts to get real crazy; however, at today’s overall planet temperate of +1.2°C above baseline trouble is already evident, e.g., the worst droughts in centuries found on every continent with some major cities either rationing water or suggesting voluntary cutbacks. And, oh yeah, food prices are just starting to skyrocket.
Frankly, human ingenuity must take over on local and regional bases to work towards “adaptation to a rambunctiously changing climate,” and, of course, lots of luck. Interestingly, some of America’s biggest western cities have learned to adapt to severe drought, as discussed in some detail in the article: “Adapting to Drought” (May 3, 2022).
Based in Los Angeles, 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.
The Japanese government’s decision one year ago to dump radioactive water from Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant storage tanks into the Pacific Ocean, starting in the spring of 2023, is facing increasing pressure to back off, especially in light of the facts that not only is it illegal but also morally reprehensible as well as a despicable disregard for the lifeblood of the ocean.
Meanwhile, in a startling maneuver indicative of desperation to convince citizens of its true worthiness, the Japanese government is using mind control tactics reminiscent of Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” (Chatto & Windus, 1932), which depicts harmful effects that the expansion and development of a capitalist ideology can impose on a society.
To wit: Japanese citizens are outraged over a new government policy of brainwashing children by distributing flyers to primary school students claiming TEPCO’s “diluted, nuclear-contaminated water is safe.”
“The government sent a total of 2.3 million booklets directly to elementary, junior and senior high schools across the nation in December in an effort to prevent reputational damage caused by the planned water discharge. The school staffers say the leaflets are unilaterally imposing the central government’s views on children.” (Source: Booklets Touting Fukushima Plant Water Discharge Angers Schools, The Asahi Shimbun, March 7, 2022)
“A Fukushima resident surnamed Kataoka told the Global Times on Wednesday that the Japanese government’s move was a kind of mind control, and she was strongly opposed to it.” (Source: Japanese Groups Voice Growing Opposition, Organize Rallies Over Govt’s Nuclear-Contaminated Water Dumping Plan Decided One Year Before, Global Times, April 13, 2022)
Japanese citizens are fighting back as four separate civic organizations from Fukushima and Miyagi prefectures submitted a petition signed by 180,000 people to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and to Tokyo Electric Power Company on March 30th 2022 expressing opposition to the government’s plan.
Additionally, Japanese environmental protection groups have organized national rallies in Tokyo and Fukushima, stating they will continue to rally in the streets until the government revokes its decision: “Once the nuclear-contaminated water is discharged into the sea, the result is irreversible. It’s not only Fukushima. The ocean connects the whole world. We hope we don’t discharge toxic substances into the sea,” said protester Ayumu Aoyanagi. “I am angry. They completely ignored public opinion. I hope people understand that the danger may not appear soon but will definitely affect our health in the future,” said another protester named Makiyo Takahashi.” (Source: Fukushima Residents Oppose Government Dumping Radioactive Water Into Ocean, CGTN News, April 14, 2022)
Zhao Lijian of the Chinese Foreign Ministry claims the Japanese government has turned a deaf ear to any and all opposition, failing to provide any convincing evidence of the legitimacy of the discharge program, no reliable data on the contaminated water and effectiveness of purification devices, and no convincing evidence about environmental impact. (Source: Japan Severely Breaches Obligations Under International Law by Persisting in Discharge of Nuclear-contaminated Water Into Ocean, People’s Daily Online, April 15, 2022)
Moreover, “this water adds to the already nuclear polluted ocean. This threatens the lives and livelihoods of islanders heavily reliant on marine resources. These include inshore fisheries as well as pelagic fishes such as tuna. The former provides daily sustenance and food security, and the latter much needed foreign exchange via fishing licenses for distant water fishing nation fleets,” Vijay Naidu, adjunct professor at the School of Law and Social Sciences at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji, told Al Jazeera. (Source: ‘Not a Dumping Ground’: Pacific Condemns Fukushima Water Plan, Al Jazeera, Feb. 14, 2022)
The principal radioactive isotope to be released “tritium is a normal contaminant from the discharges, the cooling water from normal reactor operations, but this is the equivalent of several centuries worth of normal production of tritium that’s in this water, so it is a very large amount,” according to Tilman Ruff, a Nobel laureate and associate professor at the Institute for Global Health at the University of Melbourne in Australia, Ibid.
Japan claims the radioactive water dump will be safe, however: “Obviously, the higher the level of exposure [to radiation], the greater the risk, but there is no level below which there is no effect,” Ruff said. “That is now really fairly conclusively proven, because in the last decade or so there have been impressive very large studies of large numbers of people exposed to low doses of radiation. At levels even a fraction of those that we receive from normal background [radiation] exposure from the rocks, from cosmic radiation. At even those very low levels, harmful effects have been demonstrated,” Ibid.
Chang Yen-chiang, director of the Yellow Sea and Bohai Sea Research Institute of Dalian Maritime University is urging the international community to stop the discharge by first requesting the International Court of Justice to issue an advisory opinion on the illegality of Japan’s dumping plan followed by motions to stop the process by China, South Korea, Russia, North Korea, and Pacific Island nations at the UN General Assembly.
Japan, as a signatory to: (1) the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (2) the Convention on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident (3) the Convention on Nuclear Safety (4) the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management, and (5) the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management has clearly and knowingly breached its obligations under international law.
According to the plan released by TEPCO for the disposal of nuclear-contaminated water generated by Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, the country will soon begin official preparations for the release of the contaminated water and plans to begin long-term discharge of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean in the spring of 2023.
However, according to an article in People’s Daily Online d/d April 15, 2022: “Data from TEPCO showed that the contaminated water from the Fukushima nuclear accident still contains many kinds of radionuclides with a long half-life even after secondary treatment.”
Shaun Burnie, senior nuclear specialist at Greenpeace East Asia claims the toxic water dump risks additional nuclear debris into the Pacific Ocean whereas the discharge is not the only option as “ the Japanese government once admitted that there is enough space near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and areas around Fukushima prefecture to build more storage facilities for the water.” (Global Times)
The Citizens Committee on Nuclear Energy recommends proper storage on land in Japan similar to storage the country uses for its national oil and petroleum reserves. “The argument that they make… is that, if this water was stored not for an indeterminate period, but even for a period of about 50-60 years, then, by then, the tritium will have decayed to a tiny fraction of what it is today and hardly be an issue.” (Al Jazeera)
Even though the US boldly approves of the dumping plan, the Northern Mariana Islands, a US territory with a population of over 50,000 people, has declared Japan’s plan as “unacceptable.” In December 2021, the US territory adopted a joint resolution opposing any nation disposing of nuclear waste in the Pacific Ocean as well as suggesting the only acceptable option is long-term storage and processing using the best technology available.
In all similar circumstances, historical events have a way of swinging back and forth in time and landing smack dab in the middle of new controversies, for example, when it comes to radioactivity in the Pacific, memories are long. More than 300 atmospheric and underwater nuclear tests by the US, UK, and France from the 1940s, especially in the Republic of the Marshall Islands and French Polynesia, left uninhabitable land in many locations as well as long-term health disorders throughout the region. Japan’s dumping plans bring back haunting memories.
“Satyendra Prasad, the Chair of Pacific Islands Forum Ambassadors at the United Nations, reminded the world in September last year of the Pacific’s “ongoing struggle with the legacy of nuclear testing from the trans boundary contamination of homes and habitats to higher numbers of birth defects and cancers.” (Al Jazeera)
Meantime, and especially over the past couple of decades, Japan increasingly and fearlessly adheres to, and puts into actual practice, the overriding theme as expressed in Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World“, which is “the dangers of state control” whilst the father of liberalism John Locke (1632-1704) not surprisingly spins in his grave.
For example, in December 2013 Japan passed the Protection of Specially Designated Secrets Act providing for whistleblowing civil servants to face up to 10 years in prison and the journalists who work with them could face up to five years for leaking state secrets.
Here’s a major twist to that law: The guidelines empower the heads of 19 ministries and agencies to subjectively “designate which documents and subjects comprise state secrets.” In short, subjective judgment by any given state official determines who goes to jail.
“The result is that while civil servants will be aware of a document’s classification, journalists cannot be sure just what comprises a state secret. Whistleblowing civil servants and journalists could face arrest even if they are convinced they are acting in the public’s interest.” (Source: Japan’s State Secrets Law, A Minefield for Journalist, Committee to Protect Journalists-NY, Nov. 4, 2014)
Since Japan appears to be adhering to the precepts of “Brave New World“, it’s interesting to note that thirty years following publication of “Brave New World“, Huxley wrote “Brave New World Revisited“: “If the first half of the twentieth century was the era of the technical engineers, the second half may well be the era of the social engineers— and the twenty-first century, I suppose, will be the era of World Controllers, the scientific caste system and “Brave New World“.” (Aldous Huxley, “Brave New World Revisited“, Harper & Brothers, 1958)
Huxley warned that a “Brave New World” type of order could be the “final” or “ultimate” revolution when people have their liberties taken from them, but “they will enjoy their servitude and so never question it, let alone rebel.”
Really?
Based in Los Angeles, 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.
Photograph Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture – CC BY 2.0
The Collapse of Industrial Farming
By Robert Hunziker
The most upending event of the past 10,000 years is the advent of engineered food as fermentation farms displace factory farms. “We are on the Cusp of the Fastest, Deepest, Most Consequential Disruption of Agriculture in History.” (RethinkX.com)
“Modern foods will bankrupt the cattle industry within a decade.” (RethinkX)
More on that to follow, but first: Industrial farming, alongside global warming, ranks at the top of the list of existential risks this century. And, similar to the dangers attendant to excessive greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, industrial farming is dangerously out of control, but in contrast to global warming, it is not followed at all by corporate media, begging the Orwellian question whether media other than corporate media truly exist?
All of which serves to highlight George Orwell’s concerns as expressed in his famous novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (Secker & Warburg Publishers, 1949) wherein he explained the primary consequences of “media manipulation” described as: (a) “loss of a critical thinking faculty” and (b) “diminished capacity for self-expression.”
More than 70 years post-Orwellian, his words ring true as corporate media skims over the tragic news of a world in such a dangerous state that only the collapse of industrial agriculture itself, along with cutting GHG emissions, can help to stop the pronounced ongoing collapse of ecosystems throughout the world, especially evident at the extreme latitudes, north and south.
According to Forest Trends, as of 2021, clear-cutting of forests for commercial agriculture purposes, principally for beef and soy production, within the past couple of years increased by a rip-snorting +50%, mostly illegal, to 27 million acres a year. (Source: Trees Fell Faster in the Years Since Companies and Governments Promised to Stop Cutting Them Down, Inside Climate News, May 19, 2021).
That huge acceleration of clear-cutting follows in the footsteps of the New York Declaration on Forests signed in 2014 by 200 endorsers to cut deforestation in half by 2020 (ahem!) and stop it altogether by 2030 (lol).
Industrial farming is destroying the planet’s resources with clear-cutting as well as spewing tons upon tons of toxic chemicals that subtly destroy major ecosystems throughout the world, including wetlands, floral meadowlands, and precious farmland as toxic chemicals turn rich black soils into useless dirt.
The Center for Biodiversity and the World Animal Protection-US orgs in February of 2022 released a major report “Collateral Damage” documenting the deadly harm of toxic chemicals used by factory farms. Clearly, humans are poisoning the planet, and in a mind-blowing “tip of the hat” to Orwell’s prognosis about human dullness, it is legal! Yes, poisoning the planet is legal! Which suggest that Orwell’s concern about “loss of a critical thinking faculty” is understated.
That amazing fact is underscored by the frightening knowledge that within only a few decades industrial farming, assuming it can be called “farming,” displaced thousands of years of family farming that husbanded nature, displaced by rapacious corporate models of stern-minded profit-oriented callous mass slaughter to satisfy the gluttonous fast-food craze that’s unique to the decadent 21st century.
This sudden emergence of CAFOs or concentrated animal feed operations is so gruesome and so powerful and so outlandishly disparate from traditional family farming that only a fantasy comparison can approximate its oddity via the passing of a magical wand that morphs Tinker Bell into Hannibal Lecter.
On the other hand, a turning point may be at hand. 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)
According to RethinkX: “By 2035, 60% of the area currently allocated to livestock and food production will be freed for other uses. This is enough land that if it were dedicated to the planting of trees for carbon sequestration, it could completely offset U.S. greenhouse emissions.”
Moreover, it is anticipated that rapid uptake of engineered foods means water consumption for cattle will drop by 50% within a decade. And destruction of rainforests for cattle-raising and soy oil production will plummet.
And most importantly for human health concerns, toxic chemicals will be unnecessary. The current industrial food supply chain, from A to Z, is loaded with chemicals. For starters, pesticides used to grow food and livestock end up in human bodies one way or another, and in high enough concentrations proven to influence cancers, brain, nerve, genetic and hormonal disorders, kidney and liver damage, asthma and allergies. (Source: Julian Cribb: Earth Detox, Cambridge University Press, August 2021)
In addition to pesticides, some 3,000 chemical ingredients added to food are permitted by the FDA to enhance freshness, taste, and texture. Preservatives, for example, which extend shelf life, are chemicals that poison the bacteria and moulds that cause food to rot: “Common chemical preservatives such as sodium nitrate and nitrite, sulphites, sulphur dioxide, sodium benzoate, parabens, formaldehyde and antioxidant preservatives, if over-consumed in the modern processed food diet, may also lead to cancers, heart disease, allergies, digestive, lung, kidney and other diseases and constitute a further reason for avoiding or reducing one’s intake of industrial food.” (Earth Detox, pg 70)
Two hundred million (200,000,000) or more than 50% of Americans have at least one chronic disease. (Rand Corporation, 2017) Prompting the query, what causes chronic disease? Answer: Mainstream medical sites blames tobacco, secondhand smoke, poor nutrition, alcohol and lack of exercise, sinful-related stuff. Yet, there are several books and science papers published that point the finger at toxic chemicals in our environment as the cause of chronic diseases. Here’s one recent publication: Stephanie Seneff, PhD: Toxic Legacy: How the Weedkiller Glyphosate Is Destroying Our Health and the Environment, Chelsea Green Publishing, London, UK, 2021)
“Interestingly enough, Europe only permits the use of 400 out of the 3000 food additives permitted in the US (ed.- the EU has only one-half the US rate of chronic diseases). Essentially, Europe has banned 4/5ths of the chemicals allowed in the US food chain. Europe outlaws any chemicals that do not meet its criteria for ‘non-harm to humans or the environment.” (Earth Detox, pg. 73)
The Center for Biological Diversity in conjunction with World Animal Protection-US report Collateral Damage (February 4, 2022) studied the impact of an estimated 235 million pounds annually of herbicides and insecticides applied to feed crops for factory farms. The chemicals are applied to corn and soybeans for farmed animal feed in the US. Roughly 50% of toxic pesticide use on a global basis is for corn and soy for factory farms… hundreds of millions of pounds of chemicals are applied to corn and soy crops as pesticides in the US.
If only two out of the thousands of toxic chemicals could be eliminated, i.e., glyphosate (herbicide) and atrazine (pesticide); it would be a major health benefit to complex life and ecosystems.
Glyphosate, the king of toxic chemicals, is the most widely used herbicide worldwide. Already 13,000 lawsuits have been filed claiming it causes non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. WHO claims it is “probably carcinogenic to humans.”
Atrazine is one of the most widely used pesticides, especially in the US. To date, thirty-five (35) countries have banned its use, including the EU because of persistent groundwater contamination and dangerous levels of toxicity.
“Atrazine is a potent endocrine disruptor and is linked to a variety of human health issues, including different types of cancer, Parkinson’s disease, and harm to the reproductive system. After just six hours of exposure an increase in cell death and DNA damage were observed. The same level of damage from exposure to Gamma radiation would take a full 15 minutes. Atrazine also alters the levels of dopamine and norepinephrine in the brain and decreases the electrical activity of certain cells in the cerebellum (the region of the brain that controls motor function). As an endocrine disruptor it can interfere with the balance of hormones in the body, significantly impacting overall physiology and development.” (Source: Collateral Damage: How Factory Farming Drives Up the Use of Toxic Agricultural Pesticides by World Animal Protection, New York, NY, February 2022).
It’s not at all surprising that 35 countries, including the EU, banned atrazine. But, it’s enormously popular in the US.
Time after time, the brilliance of Orwell’s mass media prognosis of “loss of a critical thinking faculty” shows up on the shores of the United States.
It’s probably a good idea to reread Nineteen Eighty-Four:
“IT WAS a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind… at present the electric current was cut off during daylight hours. It was part of the economy drive in preparation for Hate Week… On each landing, opposite the lift shaft, the poster with the enormous face gazed from the wall. It was one of those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it ran.” (1984, pg. 1)
Based in Los Angeles, 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.
A long time ago in the Milky Way galaxy on a planet named Earth the trees died. It only happened once in the planet’s history. It was during the Permian-Triassic 252 million years ago.
Henk Visscher, PhD, Department of Earth Sciences, Utrecht University, makes a living studying exposed fossil beds of the transitional period of the Permian to Triassic era, aka: “The Great Dying.” Significantly, layers of fossils prior to the great extinction event contain lots of pollen, typical of a healthy conifer forest. But, in the Permo-Triassic boundary the pollen is replaced by strands of fossilized fungi, representing an exploding population of nature’s scavengers feasting on dead trees.
“Visscher and his colleagues have found elevated levels of fungal remains in Permo-Triassic rocks from all over the world. They call it a ‘fungal spike.’ The same rocks yield few tree pollen grains. Visscher’s conclusion: Nearly all the world’s trees died en masse.” (Source: The Permian Extinction – When Life Nearly Came to an End, National Geographic, June 6, 2019)
A dreaded repeat performance of tree deaths of 252 million years ago may be starting to re-appear. Throughout the world, trees are dying en masse. It’s troubling. Scientists are studying this strange phenomenon in the context of a rugged past event of 252 million years ago.
“The upshot, scientists figured out in just the past decade, is that many trees in most landscapes, from the hot, rainy Amazon to cold, dry Alberta, are operating at the limits of their hydraulic systems, even under normal conditions, with little safety margin. That means a hot drought can push them over the threshold. The 2002 drought in the Southwest did exactly that: Tree-ring records would later show it was the driest and worst year for growth in a millennium. No other year even came close.” (Source: The Future of Forests, National Geographic, April 14, 2022)
“From the Amazon to the Arctic, wildfires are getting bigger, hotter, and more frequent as the climate changes… In many places, forests are no longer regenerating. Some of the world’s most significant stands are instead transitioning to something new. Some will never be the same. Others may not come back at all,” Ibid.
Trees throughout the world are vulnerable to excessive heat. A warmer atmosphere sucks more moisture from plants and soil. During droughts, trees close pores in leaves, called stomata, or shed leaves entirely, which limits CO2 uptake, leaving trees both hungry and parched all at once.
When soil gets dry enough, trees can no longer maintain pressure in the internal conduits that carry water up to their leaves. Air bubbles interrupt the flow, causing fatal embolisms (obstructions).
Even though the planet has 3, 000,000,000,000 (3T) trees and 10,000,000,000 (10B) acres of forests, scientists are increasingly concerned with the quickening pulse of extreme climate events that essentially prevent forest regeneration such as fire, extraordinarily powerful storms, insect infestations, and most notably, severe heat and drought, all unique to today’s climate change environment.
Climate change undercuts trees in various ways, for example, yellow cedars in Alaska are freezing to death because of early snow melt due to global warming. As the trees lose their snow-cover warming blanket, recurring cold snaps kill them by the thousands. At Africa’s Sahel (SW Morocco) heat and drought has killed 20% of the trees. And, according to the most recent IPCC report, 5-out of-8 of the most abundant tree species in America’s West have significantly declined since 2000.
Camille Stevens-Rumann, a forest ecologist at Colorado State University, examined 1,485 sites from 52 fires in Colorado, Idaho, Montana, and Washington. The number of burned sites that didn’t recover jumped from 19% before 2000 to 32% thereafter. “And by ‘not recovering,’ I mean not a single tree—not one,” Ibid.
Craig Allen, a landscape ecologist, has been warning of danger to trees for the past 20 years: “All this awakened Allen to what he now sees as a grave global threat. ‘Seeing the transformation of this landscape that I’d studied my whole adult life … climate change wasn’t theoretical anymore’… He started tracking the mass mortality events elsewhere. Over the next two decades, heat and drought would kill billions of trees directly and indirectly—in Spain, in South Korea, throughout Australia. In central Siberia, Russia lost two million acres of firs. In Texas in 2011, drought killed more than 300 million trees—one out of every 16 in the state,” Ibid.
Tree deaths skyrocketed when the worst drought in 500 years hit central Europe in 2018. Summer temperatures hit nearly 6°F above average. Additionally, from 2018 to 2020 in Germany 750,000 acres of forest died because of excessive heat.
Majestic sequoias in the Far West that have stood the test of time as far back as Julius Caesar’s reign (100-44BC) are under attack. For eons the giants withstood every type of disaster until the Castle fire in August-December 2020 tore through Sequoia National Park, igniting one crown after another. Forest ecologists had never seen anything like it. Up to 14% of large sequoias in the Sierra Nevada were killed or mortally wounded.
Why did the majestic sequoias succumb to a disaster for the first time in centuries? Climate change/global warming was clearly the protagonist. A severe dry spell in the surrounding area had previously killed millions of sugar pines, incense cedars, and white firs in densely packed forests nearby the sequoias where the Castle fire started, which erupted into an inferno like nobody had ever experienced.
A second fire hit a year later in 2021: “The 2021 fires claimed another 3 to 5 percent of large sequoias. Up to 19 percent of these magnificent trees—trees that had weathered everything for a millennium or more—had been lost in just two years,” Ibid.
Regarding land temperature impact on tree death, it should be noted, according to James Hansen’s (Earth Institute, Columbia University) “March Temperature Update” as of April 15, 2022: “Note that monthly temperature anomalies on land now commonly exceed +2°C (+3.6°F), with the Arctic anomaly often exceeding +5°C (+9°F).”
Hansen expects 2022 to be substantially warmer than 2021. March 2021 registered 1.3°C warmer than the average for March 1880-1920… “ due to surging growth rates of GHGs (greenhouse gases), etc.”
In that regard, it’s well known that surging growth rates of CO2 and Ch4 are preventable but politically foreordained.
Alert: If monthly temperature anomalies on land (1/3rd of the planet) “commonly exceed +2°C,” as explained by Dr. Hansen, isn’t that the red flashing light danger zone described in IPCC reports, meaning more deadly climate-related disasters come into play much sooner than predicted in climate models?
Yikes!
Based in Los Angeles, 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.
A revolutionary slogan by climate scientists “1.5C is Dead – Climate Revolution Now!” emblazoned the streets of the world on April 6th spawned by the Sixth Assessment Report, Mitigation of Climate Change, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released April 4th.
Overnight, civil disobedience by climate scientists erupted in 25 countries on every continent enraged that the IPCC report was “watered down” at the behest of governments that are “unwilling to phase out fossil fuels.”
Wednesday, April 6th will go down in history, as Global Warming Bastille Day marked by the world’s largest ever protests by scientists sick and tired of mealy-mouthed responses by governments that cater to the fossil fuel wealth syndrome that intentionally misled the public and pays off politicians to keep pumping oil regardless of massive ecological destruction.
Scientists have had enough. They are fighting mad and striking back by hitting the streets, chaining themselves to government and private industry buildings, gates, bridges, and entryways in bold demonstrations to stop fossil fuel dead in its tracks.
Scientists chained themselves to the front door of the JP Morgan Chase building in downtown LA. The bank is the world’s leading funder of oil and gas projects.
Climate scientists chained themselves to the White House fence demanded that President Biden declare a “climate emergency.”
Scientists splashed red paint on the steps of the Congress of Deputies in Madrid and blocked a bridge near Germany’s parliament building… calling out “political mismanagement” and “lies” and “business as usual” destroying the planet’s ecosystems.
An op-ed in The Guardian declared: “Earth breakdown is much worse than most people realize.”
And, that is a primary issue and major catalyst for rebellion by scientists throughout the world. They see the breakdown; they measure it; they live with data that shows rapid deterioration of the planet’s life-giving ecosystems. Deterioration is pronounced and advanced beyond climate models. The survival of the planet is at stake.
In a letter to President Joe Biden 275 scientists demanded: “Follow the Science, Stop Fossil Fuels.” Food & Water Watch, along with the group of climate scientists, coordinated this effort, including scientists Peter Kalmus (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory), Sandra Steingraber (American biologist), Robert Howarth (Cornell University), Mark Jacobson (Stanford University), and Michael Mann (Penn State).
President Biden was urged to “build a renewable energy economy” by exercising his “executive authority to redirect these massive investments, mobilize the country, and rally the global community around a program of energy security through a rapid transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy.”
“We urge you to lead boldly, take on the fossil fuel titans, and rally the country towards a renewable energy future,”
At Shell’s London headquarters scientists used modified fire extinguishers to spray biodegradable fake oil on the building’s façade.
Microbiologist Abi Perrin, taking part in the London action, said: “I’m here today because I’m so frightened by seeing the stark warnings of the world’s scientists being ignored and suppressed by governments and powerful corporations who are putting economic growth and short-term profit above the survival of life on Earth. I am joining hundreds of scientists across the globe taking similar actions today, in the hope that this will help in some small way to change the course that we are on. Shell has known about the harm their products and activities cause since before I was born, yet throughout my lifetime they have kept expanding their fossil fuel operations, wrecking lives, communities, ecosystems, the world’s climate and our prospects for the future in the process.” (Source: Breaking: Scientists and Academics Throw Fake Oil Over Shell Hq, Extinction Rebellion.uk, April 5, 2022)
Extinction Rebellion is the world leader via civil disobedience holding governments responsible for fossil fuel destruction.
Extinction Rebellion’s key demands are:
1. Government must tell the truth by declaring a climate and ecological emergency, working with other institutions to communicate the urgency for change.
2. Government must act now to halt biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025.
3. Government must create and be led by the decisions of a Citizens’ Assembly on climate and ecological justice.
Net zero by 2025!
Based in Los Angeles, 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.
“Five bouts of mass bleaching since 1998 have turned the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) into a checkerboard of reefs with very different recent histories, ranging from two percent of reefs that have escaped bleaching altogether, to 80 percent that have now bleached severely at least once since 2016.” (Source: T. Hughes, ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies: 98% of the Great Barrier Reef Has Been Affected by Coral Bleaching, World Economic Forum, November 15, 2021)
Recent news of another (the 6th) bleaching event at the Great Barrier Reef is but one more example in a long list of recent climate-related events that depict a scenario that can only be described as triple-alarm climate emergencies, as ecosystems breakdown across the world.
But, those breakdowns are not happening where people live. Therefore, other than scientists, who sees cascading ice sheets, crumbling permafrost, tens of thousands of Alaskan and Siberian thermokarst lakes bubbling methane, Greenland’s Helheim glacier cascading into the sea, or depleting ocean kelp forests amongst horrendous loss of prime fishing stock at crucial northern latitudes?
It was only a couple of months ago that this grisly description was carried by the LA Times: “Forces profound and alarming are reshaping the upper reaches of the North Pacific and Arctic oceans, breaking the food chain that supports billions of creatures and one of the world’s most important fisheries.”(Source: Susanne Rust, Unprecedented Die-offs, Melting Ice: Climate Change is Wreaking Havoc in the Arctic and Beyond, Los Angeles Times, December 17, 2021)
Here’s another recent event that’s nearly impossible to grasp: A study in Canada showed the enormous impact of heat, as an estimated one billion sea creatures off the coast of Vancouver died because of excessive ocean heat. According to Professor Christopher Harley, University of British Columbia: “”I’ve been working in the Pacific Northwest for most of the past 25 years, and I have not seen anything like this here. This is far more extensive than anything I’ve ever seen.” (Source: Heat Wave Killed An Estimated 1 Billion Sea Creatures, And Scientists Fear Even Worse, NPR Environment, July 9, 2021)
And, East Antarctica, the world’s mightiest impregnable ice sheet, only recently spooked scientists with the unexpected collapse of a 1,200 sq km (463 sq mi) ice shelf. Poof, gone!
All of which brings into focus an obvious query: Do deteriorating ecosystems on the frontiers of civilization forewarn of trouble for society at large?
The general public sees the issue in sharp contrast to the true impact of global warming, e.g., a New York Times, The Morning headline d/d April 3rd: “Good Morning, We Have Reason For Hope on Climate Change,” but the text is full of generalities, not at all convincing. It does, however, soothe nerves of passive readers, and it does offer “hope.”
The NYT article also implicitly suggests that doom and gloom articles are counterproductive, blah, blah, blah. Well, yes, of course that is (maybe) true. And, it also sparks fear. Unfortunately, the real world works that way in the presence of existential risk to complex life in the face of universally advertised false hope, which has not even come close to fixing the climate change issue. Fossil fuel consumption has roughly doubled since 1980 and remains at 75% of all energy production, same as 50 years ago. (Source: Our World in Data, Fossil Fuels)
Meanwhile, it is indisputable that major ecosystems are starting to collapse, the Great Barrier Reef, the Arctic, Antarctica, rainforests, vast regions of permafrost, ocean feeding grounds, Brazil’s 56% hydroelectrical power system (reservoirs <25%) importing electrical power from Argentina and Uruguay, massive Greenland glaciers, the diminishing Colorado River hydrologic system, insect populations, and biodiversity writ large. Prominent warnings have already advanced well beyond the necessity of any more too-late warnings of a planet that is clearly struggling.
All of which means it’s a mistake to whitewash reality, especially when the truth, not hope, dictates immediate remediation efforts, assuming that’ll even work. Moreover, when is it too late to do something?
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (“IUCN”) classifies the Great Barrier Reef to be in “critical condition.” Global warming is devastating this UNESCO World Heritage site. The crux of the issue is ocean heat sequences relentlessly pounding the reef before it can catch its breath long enough to recover.
Furthermore, an IPCC report post-Glasgow (Nov. 2021) featured an article entitled: “The Great Barrier Reef is in Crisis.” Hundreds of peer-reviewed scientific papers claimed: “Coral reefs are on the verge of extinction.” That is reality! That’s scary. That demands immediate worldwide attention. Can oceans be cooled down?
Moreover, numerous reports claim, “with extremely high confidence” several natural systems in Australia, especially the Great Barrier Reef “have already undergone irreversible damage,” which is supportive evidence that a worldwide climate emergency is passing us by without so much as a whimper by most of the world’s political leaders in the face of science screaming “danger immediately ahead.”
According to Nature World News d/d March 26th 2022: ”Authorities reported last week that higher-than-average temperatures had caused significant bleaching in portions of the reef in yet another season of heat damage.”
Reef specialist Scott Heron, Ph.D. of James Cook University, which is widely recognized as the top institution in the world for citations in coral reef science: “There are portions of the reef that are in such bad shape that there is no chance of coral bleaching this year because there are so few corals remaining… This decade, we need to take immediate action on climate change,” Ibid.
Nevertheless, most countries, as well as the IPCC, are targeting net zero emissions by 2050 to hopefully stay under 1.5C/2C, but seriously, who really knows for sure? Temperature boundaries of 1.5C/2C post-industrial are highly controversial issues with some scientists claiming we’ve already breached the IPCC’s boundaries. Indeed, want some evidence? The GBR is a prime example of excessive global warming at work, as explained in more detail, as follows.
The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has been conducting monitory flights over the entire length and width of the 2,300-kilometer (1,429 mi.) reef, following in the footsteps of five major bleaching episodes, circa 1998, 2002, 2016, 2017, and 2020, all triggered by rising ocean temperatures and setting all-time temperature records since 1905.
According to Professor Hughes of James Cook University: The current sixth bleaching “that’s underway is not moderate or confined,” Ibid.
Research scientist Neal Cantin of the Australian Institute of Marine Science Sea claims surface temperatures around the Great Barrier Reef have been higher than normal with some temperature anomalies more than 3.5° Celsius (6.3° Fahrenheit) above average. (Source: The Great Barrier Reef is Bleaching — Once Again – and Over a Larger Area, Mongabay, March 25, 2022) Footnote: It should be noted that 3.5°C above baseline on land is a potential killer of terrestrial life.
Richard Leck, the head of oceans and sustainable development at WWF-Australia says: “At this stage, we’re averaging a bleaching event more than once every two years, which is really climate change writ large… To have those events happening so regularly, it really isn’t giving the reef the time it takes to recover,” Ibid.
BBC News d/d March 25th reported on the bleaching event:
– Only two mass bleaching events had ever been recorded until 2016. That says a lot about the acceleration of global warming with massive bleaching events recorded in 1998, 2002, 2016, 2017, 2020, and now 2022, as the sequence between events shortens.
– Scientists say urgent action on climate change is needed if the world’s largest reef system is to survive.
-There are particular concerns that this bleaching event has occurred in the same year as a La Niña weather phenomenon. Typically in Australia, a La Niña brings cooler temperatures.
At some point in time this tragic story will come to an end by either: (a) lights-out for one of the planet’s greatest natural assets or (b) the nations of the world join forces in a unified wartime effort to halt fossil fuel emissions well before 2050… but, will that really happen… and in enough time… and when is it too late?
Based in Los Angeles, 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.
East Antarctica, often times referred to as “the final frontier of global warming,” is making headlines once again.
A few weeks ago East Antarctica’s temperatures soared by 50F to 90F above normal. (Ref: Antarctica Crushes Records, March 23, 2022)
A couple of weeks later East Antarctica’s Conger Ice Shelf (1,200 sq km) completely collapsed and two additional calving events occurred at other glaciers, all in the same week.
This prompts an interesting dilemma. According to David Spratt, research director of the Breakthrough National Centre for Climate Restoration in Melbourne: Early IPCC reports said Antarctica would be stable for a thousand years. Then, in 2007 Richard Alley (Penn State) said it was already melting 100 years ahead of schedule.
Is it ahead of schedule once again?
Indeed, if Antarctica continues beating climate models by first lopping off a few centuries and then lopping off decades, and now who knows what the outcome will be or when it’ll happen.
Map of Antarctica – Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica team – Public Domain
East Antarctica, as distinguished from its far more vulnerable first cousins West Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula, has always been characterized as solid, a rock-solid 1-to-3-mile thick ice sheet the size of the United States that does not budge. Now, it’s budging.
On or about March 15th Conger Ice Shelf, East Antarctica completely collapsed. This collapse followed record temperatures of 40C+ warmer than seasonal norms only a week previous.
According to Helen Amanda Fricker, professor of glaciology at Scripps Polar Center, three calving events occurred in East Antarctica in the month of March: (1) Conger Ice Shelf (2) Glenzer Ice Shelf (3) a smaller event at the enormous Totten glacier. “Much of East Antarctica is restrained by buttressing ice shelves, so we need to keep an eye on all the ice shelves there.” (Source: Satellite Date Shows Entire Conger Ice Shelf Has Collapsed in Antarctica, The Guardian, March 24, 2022)
Moreover, according to Peter Neff, glaciologist and professor at the University of Minnesota, even a small ice shelf collapse (Conger) in East Antarctica was a surprise, in fact: “We still treat East Antarctica like this massive, high, dry, cold and immovable ice cube,” Ibid.
In February 2019, John Englander, oceanographer and world-renown sea level expert, spoke at The Royal Institution, London. He discussed sea level rise. The ice shelves are the buttresses that hold back rapid flow of glacial ice from flowing to the sea.
Englander said: When warming cycles happen, sea level rise usually takes centuries and centuries to increase. For example, 14,000 years ago an increase in temperatures took seas up 65 feet over 400 years. Accordingly, that’s 1.5 feet per decade, which calculation led John Englander to factor into an assumption that today’s sea level rise will be 1-2-3 feet by mid 21st century. In turn, that would be a real shocker, especially to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) with its median expectation of one-half a meter or 1.6 feet by 2100. The IPCC’s absolute “worst-case” guesstimate is 32 inches by 2100, but a footnote hidden in fine print says the IPCC does not factor Antarctica into their calculations. Hmm.
At that speech three years ago Englander gave his best guesstimate: By mid-century, we could get a couple of feet of sea level rise. A big takeaway from Englander’s speech, with emphasis, he said: “Reduce emissions immediately!”
Oops, that suggestion has not panned out. When Englander spoke CO2 in the atmosphere was 407.9 ppm versus 419.28 ppm in February 2022. That rate of increase over the past three years makes the annual rate of increase from 1950 to 2000 look like a cakewalk.
Prof Matt King, who leads the Australian Centre for Excellence in Antarctic Science, said because ice shelves are already floating, the Conger ice shelf’s break-up would not impact sea level much. He said that fortunately, the glacier behind the Conger ice shelf is small, so it’ll have a “tiny impact on sea level in the future”.
“We will see more ice shelves break up in the future with climate warming,” King said. “We will see massive ice shelves – way bigger than this one – break up. And those will hold back a lot of ice – enough to seriously drive up global sea levels… The speed of the breakup of [the Conger] ice shelf reminds us that things can change quickly… Our carbon emissions will have an impact in Antarctica, and Antarctica will come back to bite the rest of the world’s coastlines and it may happen faster than we think,” Ibid.
“Reduce emissions immediately” (John Englander speech at The Royal Institution, London, 2019)
Based in Los Angeles, 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.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in many respects, is a Delphic institution whose reports are a function of political discretion as it provides justification for nation/state policies that are seldom fulfilled, e.g., only a handful of the 193 signatory nations to Paris ’15 have met commitments. This scandalous outright failure at a dicey time for the climate system only serves to hasten loss of stability and integrity of the planet’s most important ecosystems.
That provocative depiction is examined in a recent Nick Breeze ClimateGenn podcast interview: Existential Risk Management with David Spratt, research director of the Breakthrough National Centre for Climate Restoration in Melbourne. Dr. Spratt is highly regarded for solid research, which is evidenced throughout his refreshingly straightforward interview.
Spratt’s interview tackles: (1) failings of the IPCC, (2) tipping points, and (3) a nearly out of control global warming challenge that’s not realistically understood, even as wobbly ecosystems start to falter.
The truth is the IPCC has been politicized to such an extent that its reports unintentionally confuse public opinion whilst misdirecting public policy issues for mitigation. At the center of the issue the IPCC does not expose the full extent of existential risk, which happens to be such an unthinkable event so hard to accept that nobody believes it will ever really truly happen, more on this later.
During the interview a tipping point is discussed in the context of reduction of Arctic summer sea ice to 3/4ths of its volume, as the Arctic’s highly reflective ice melts into a dark background of sea water that easily absorbs almost all of the incoming solar radiation, in turn, absorbing warmth that would otherwise be 80%-90% reflected back to outer space via the long-standing albedo effect of ice. In turn, a warming Arctic causes excessive warmth to hit Greenland, which, according to Dr. Jason Box (professor in glaciology at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland) is already “past the point of system stability,” meaning past a tipping point of no return. Recently Box publicly warned of abrupt climate change forthcoming. Meanwhile, Greenland’s melt releases cold water into the Atlantic, in turn, slowing down the Atlantic Gulf Stream, and, as follows, weakens Atlantic circulation that, in turn, negatively impacts precipitation in the eastern Amazon.
Like a series of dominoes falling one onto another, one initial event (a) loss of Arctic sea ice brings (b) warmer Arctic waters (c) cascading into more Greenland melt-off, causing (d) slower Atlantic circulation, triggering (e) loss of precipitation for the eastern Amazon. The net result because of one non-linear event, i.e., loss of Arctic sea ice triggers four additional major events. Ipso facto, those five events reinforce each other for who knows how long?
According to Spratt: “So, we see that a change in one system, i.e., Arctic ice volume echoes or has domino effects through other systems,” which triggers a tipping point that, in fact, is already at a seminal stage.
Regarding the IPCC’s approach to risk, first it is important to emphasize the fact that big risks must be the key to successful climate change analysis. By definition, big risks are at the top end of a range of possibilities. But, the IPCC does not see risks that way. Their view is more generalized and this has become normalized over the past 20 years, e.g., we have a 50% chance of not exceeding 2°C with our current carbon budget. According to Spratt: That is catastrophically wrong. That type of risk assessment has been normalized now for 20 years in policy-making, and “it is horribly wrong.”
When risks are existential, and they clearly are in this particular instance, everybody knows if it gets to the range of 3C to 4C pre-industrial (and 60% of scientists say we’re already headed for 3C plus) “we’ll destroy human civilization.”
Therefore, when risks are existential, you can’t look at an on-average analysis, rather, you must look at the worst possible outcome as your primary calculation. It’s the only way to approach an existential risk.
In that regard and interestingly enough the foreword of the IPCC report of a few years ago actually said: “Critical instances calculating probabilities don’t matter. What matters is the high-end possibility.”
But nowadays a figure such as “50% probability introduces a fundamental problem with the assessment process. More realistically, the proper way to look at existential risks is by stating x-amount of additional carbon has a 50% chance of reaching 2C but also has a 10% chance of 4C or in other words, a 50% chance of staying below 2C is also a 10% chance of reaching 4C. Would you take an elevator ride with a 10% chance of the cable breaking at the 75th floor?
When it comes to existential risks, the expectation should be: “Why should we accept risks with the climate system that we would not accept with our own lives?” They are really one in the same.
Thus, the core of existential risk management must focus on the high-end, not middling ranges of probability. The focus must be, and this is an absolute: “What is the worst that can happen, and what do we have to do to prevent it?”
That assumption is not part of the latest IPCC report. When it comes to non-linear responses of cascades, the IPCC says: “There is no evidence of such non-linear responses at the global scaling climate projections for the next century. But, according to Spratt: “This is just wrong.”
After all, “everybody knows, for example, that emissions from permafrost are non-trivial at the moment. We know that warming in the last decade has been higher than in previous decades and the system is about to warm at an accelerating rate as major systems are already changing state. And the IPCC says there is no evidence of moving into non-linear climate change. This is absurd!” (Spratt)
Ipso facto, because of a badly misjudged bias, IPCC models can’t deal with non-linear processes. As a result, they’re missing the big picture by a country mile. And, mitigation policies, for what that’s worth, are inadequate.
Yet, according to Dr. Spratt: “The paleoclimate record tells us that, in the long run, each one-degree of warming brings 10-20 meters (32- 66 feet) of sea level rise. Frankly, that would be a legitimate statement for the IPCC, but they do not deal with non-linear events.”
All of which leads to inadvertent problems for policy makers because people judge the IPCC report as pure science. “It is not. The IPCC is a political body. Diplomats of 190 governments run the IPCC. They appoint the lead authors for reports. The IPCC is the intersection of policy and politics.” (Spratt)
Meanwhile, as if misdirection by the IPCC is not enough of a problem, change is happening so much faster than forecasts. For example, early IPCC reports said Antarctica would be stable for a thousand years. But, back in 2007, Richard Alley (Penn State) said it’s already melting 100 years ahead of schedule.
Of special concern in the near future, when the Arctic goes Full Monty, a 100% ice-free summer, “it will drive changes that will be unstoppable.” This existential risk is already capriciously inconstant across the entire northern horizon.
Furthermore, it’s already apparent to many scientists that we’ll be at 1.5C a decade from now, regardless of emissions over the next 10 years. In fact 1.5C around 2030 looks to be locked-in in part because of the aerosol dilemma. If so, we’re only a decade away from Hot House Earth becoming reality. Thenceforth, the climate system will accelerate much faster than ever before.
Fourteen years ago Spratt published a book Climate Code Red, which codified the idea of a climate emergency by conceptually stating that the climate problem could not be solved “with business as usual.” (Footnote: It’s still business as usual, but bigger)
A review of the book states: Climate Code Red: The Case for Emergency Action is a 2008 book which presents scientific evidence that the global warming crisis is worse than official reports and national governments have so far indicated.
Based upon this current interview, Spratt seems to indicate that it is even worse (actually bigger) today than it was in 2008.
To avert what looks to be an inevitable existential event requires an enormous commitment of resources comparable to a wartime economy with single-minded focus on climate policy, and it also requires a major change in the way society works. Those are awfully big requests, so one has to wonder what’s truly feasible.
As things now stand current mitigation stems from the IPCC’s embedded idea that there can be “incremental non-destructive change as a solution… This will not work.” (Spratt)
The harsh truth is global emissions are continuing to go up, as all of the decarbonization efforts like wind, solar, electric cars, and energy efficiency only serve to produce “more energy for growth.” For example, if the global economy grows 2% per year and 2% of the energy system converts to renewables, then the same amount of fossil fuel energy is used every year. That is a very rough facsimile of what has been happening. Fossil fuel use as a percentage of all energy is essentially the same today as 50 years ago.
Moreover, “there is no way that a system with ‘hands-off’ government, other than a few token regulations, and ‘the free market deciding the outcome’ is going to work.” In fact, the evidence is already telling us it does not work. Not even close.
A true fixit requires overwhelmingly powerful political leadership. In that regard, according to Spratt: “What I really fear and my experience is that those in the elite, whether it’s in business or in politics, simply, I think, do not understand the problem as it really exists.”
There’s a profound ignorance because of the IPCC telling a story that incrementalism is a successful approach when it’s clearly not.
A collateral problem is a large segment of the professional climate advocacy NGO community has been “swallowed by the whale,” meaning they buy into the lame Conference of the Parties “COP” meetings and swallow the corporate-origin net zero nonsense by 2050, over and over again, umm, but it’s too little too late, horribly misdirected. Whereas, according to several scientists, 2030 is the deadly deadline, not incremental movement to 2050.
The crux of the matter is that the most prominent existential risk in human history does not conform to scientific models. It’s almost always ahead of the scientific models, sometimes by several decades. Then, why would it wait around for net zero by 2050?
Based in Los Angeles, 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.
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