Trees are not re-growing in burned-out forests. This strange occurrence is becoming more frequent as global warming turns verdant flora into flammable tinder, causing more and bigger wild forest fires.
This article will examine the science behind failure of trees to regrow in burned-out forests. Additionally, and as a collateral issue, this puts one more distorted face on the consequential impact of the multi-billion dollar business called “woody biomass,” which burns trees in place of coal to meet carbon neutral protocols.
As a consequence, between the twin impacts of burned-out forests failing to regrow and woody biomass chopping down mature trees that are strong carbon sinks replaced by frail seedlings, one has to wonder about nature’s “carbon sink” capacity. Is it shrinking just when it’s needed like never before?
Woody biomass is as bad, if not worse, as burning coal. (See – The Woody Biomass Blunder, November 15, 2021)
Regarding the effectiveness of CO2 uptake by commercial tree plantations used to produce wood chips for sale in the international woody biomass market: “Single-tree commercial crop plantations may meet the technical definition of a ‘forest’ – a certain concentration of trees in a given area- but factor in land clearing to plant the crop and frequent harvesting of the trees, and such plantations can actually release more carbon than they sequester,” Simon Lewis, forest ecologist/University College London (Source: Why Planting Tons of Trees Isn’t Enough to Solve Climate Change, Science News, July 9, 2021)
There are several studies and outspoken scientists’ statements about woody biomass emitting more CO2 than burning coal. Yet, in order to meet carbon neutral standards, 60% of EU renewable energy is from wood chips. Somebody at the EU is cuckoo.
Failure of Tree Regrowth
A University of Colorado/Boulder study shows that when forests burn across significant portions of the Rocky Mountains, the forests do not regrow, even after 15 years post-fire, 80% of the surveyed plots contained no new trees. (Source: Lisa Marshall, Forests Scorched by Wildfire Unlikely to Recover, May Convert to Grasslands, CU Boulder Today, August 25, 2020)
The study looked at 22 separate burned-out areas from southern Wyoming thru central/western Colorado to northern New Mexico. The study included regions that had burned as long ago as 1988, including land ravaged by the 2002 Hayman Fire near Colorado Springs; the 1996 Buffalo Creek Fire southwest of Denver; the 2000 Eldorado Springs and Walker Ranch fires near Boulder; and the 2002 Missionary Ridge fire outside of Durango.
“This study and others clearly show that the resilience of our forests to fire has declined significantly under warmer, drier conditions,” coauthor Tom Veblen, professor of geography, CU Boulder, Ibid.
Global warming has contributed to a doubling of the number of acres burned across the country since the 1990s.
Increasing global temperature wipes out seedlings, especially in the US West where summer temperatures have increased so much that young trees do not have a chance to develop thick protective bark, and failure of regrowth in dry conditions finds seedlings shriveling before roots can grow deep enough to reach groundwater.
Anthropogenic global warming is inhibiting and/or destroying one of nature’s biggest, and best, solutions for combating CO2 emissions. And, even worse yet, humans are chopping down trees to burn for energy, thereby releasing years and years of stored CO2 from the trees into the atmosphere.
Global Warming Ravages Forests Throughout the World.
“New studies show drought and heat waves will cause massive die-offs, killing most trees alive today.” (Source: We Need to Hear These Poor Trees Scream: Unchecked Global Warming Means Big Trouble for Forests, Inside Climate News, April 25, 2020)
According to Bill Anderegg, a forest researcher at the University of Utah: “Global warming has pushed many of the world’s forests to a knife edge… in the West, you can’t drive on a mountain highway without seeing how global warming affects forests,” Ibid.
Giant Sequoias, the Grand Daddy of the world’s trees are “dying from the top down.” This has never been documented before. According to Christy Brigham, chief of resource management for national parks: “We’ve never observed this before.” (Source: Craig Welch, The Grand Old Trees of the World are Dying, Leaving Forests Younger and Shorter, National Geographic, May 28, 2020)
According to the National Geographic article: The loss of Giant Sequoias is but one example of a worrisome worldwide trend: “Trees in forests are dying at increasingly high rates, especially the bigger, older trees,” Ibid.
Nate McDowell, an earth scientist at the US Energy Department’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the lead author of a major worldwide study of tree loss, says: “We’re seeing it almost everywhere we look.” (Nate G. McDowell, et al, Pervasive Shifts in Forest Dynamics in a Changing World, Science, Vol. 268, Issue 6494, 29 May 2020)
The numbers are staggering: From 1900 to 2015 the world lost more than a third of its old-growth forests. Ever since, the numbers are accelerating. The causes are mostly anthropogenic, meaning logging and land-clearing, plus fossil fuel emissions that bring forth rising global temperatures significantly magnifying the rate of dying, as droughts extend longer and harsher, resulting in extremely brittle tinder, leading to massive wildfires. The upshot is a world on fire like never before as dead trees burn quickly and easily.
According to Henrik Hartmann of Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, in central Europe: “You don’t have to look for dead trees… They’re everywhere,” Ibid.
Africa and South America are likewise feeling the brunt of massive tree deaths. Global warming has brought drought conditions that are severe, repeating within ever-shorter time sequences that don’t give nature enough time to revive, to regrow, to survive.
Recent Siberian fires have been Biblical in scale and intensity. A June 2020 article in SciTechDaily headlined: “Meteorologists Shocked as Heat and Fire Scorches Siberia.” One half of the massive fires are peatlands, which, once started can burn almost forever if the heat is intense enough, which it was/is, emitting both CO2 and CH4.
The CO2 Cycle at Work
The curse of CO2 blanketing the atmosphere and trapping heat, as the planet gets ever-hotter, causes the atmosphere to suck excessive levels of moisture, which causes trees to shed leaves and/or close pores to hold in as much moisture as possible. This, in turn, curtails CO2 uptake. It’s a vicious cycle that impedes the carbon uptake cycle that’s key to maintaining an ecological balance for the planet.
In the final analysis, “Forests are our last, best natural defense against global warming. Without the world’s trees at peak physical condition, the rest of us don’t stand a chance.” (Eric Holthaus, Up in Smoke, Grist, March 8, 2018)
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.
Major portions of the Amazon rainforest have shifted from a carbon sink to a carbon source. This shift has severe planet-wide negative implications.
Studies of the Amazon Rainforest over the past decade have shown telltale signals of an impending shift from a carbon sink of heat-trapping gases to a source of greenhouse gases. It’s a dangerous shift that will destabilize the atmosphere of the entire planet. Alas, the dreaded shift has been confirmed via a laborious ten-year airborne detailed study.
The study shows the eastern Amazon rainforest has become a significant source of carbon emissions, competing with cars, trains, planes, and power plants. This travesty is officially confirmed via hundreds of aircraft vertical profiling measurements of the air above the rainforest over a period of nearly one decade. (Source: Amazonia As A Carbon Source Linked to Deforestation and Climate Change, Nature, July 14, 2021)
The implications of the world’s largest rainforest competing with human-generated greenhouse gases is alarming and foreboding of danger ahead, especially in consideration of current circumstances which guarantee further deterioration of the rainforest, thus putting at risk the world’s climate system.
Recent deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest is beyond the pale, up 22% in one year at the highest level in nearly two decades. This according to Brazil’s National Space Research Institute, INPE. This is the third year in a row of increases under the Bolsonaro government.
In a remarkable coincidence of timing, in October of this year, on the doorstep of COP26/Glasgow, INPE said deforestation registered the worst month of October on record.
Within two weeks, Brazil was a signatory to an international pledge at COP26 to end deforestation by 2030. The world waits and watches to see if that promise is kept. Bolsonaro’s strong anti-environmental stance will be put to the test.
Marcio Astrini, head of the Climate Observatory that brings together environmental groups operating in Brazil, said: “The latest figures were ‘the result of a persistent, planned and continuous effort to destroy environmental protection policies’ under the Bolsonaro administration.” (Source: Brazil Amazon Deforestation Up 22% in a Year, 15-yr Record, Phys.org, November 19, 2021)
The aforementioned airborne study published in Nature found “a massive continental-size swath of tropical forest releasing more carbon dioxide than it accumulates, thanks to deforestation and fires,” Ibid.
It is the first-ever study to actually measure carbon dioxide in the air above the forest and not dependent upon estimates by models that rely upon imprecise measurements. The airborne measurements where taken in a descending column starting at 14,500 feet down to just under 1,000 feet. These measurements were reproduced every two weeks for a period of nine years to assure accuracy.
The analyses point to a convergence of factors behind the shift from carbon sink to carbon emitter, i.e., global warming, deforestation, and fire all happening in the eastern Amazon where the forest no longer takes up CO2. As a consequence, the temperatures across the southeastern Amazon have risen dramatically in comparison to the western part of the rainforest.
Luciana Gatti, senior researcher Brazilian National Institute for Space Research, the lead author of the study, stated: “The southeast is 28 percent deforested and has 24 percent precipitation loss, and the temperatures in August and September have changed 3.1 degrees. This is unbelievable in tropical latitude to have this kind of change in temperature. Is this a rainforest?”
Gatti is concerned that western Amazon will soon look like eastern because of pressure from logging, agriculture and mining, extending deeper into the forest.
Of utmost importance to life on the planet, the Amazon rainforest serves as the generator of “flying rivers” for the planet. The millions of trees work together like a “biotic pump” that releases water vapor into the air and circulates water and weather patterns throughout the globe.
Dr.Antonio Nobre (retired senior research scientist INPE) in an interview with National Public Radio described the invisible flying rivers of the rainforests: “Trees are like geysers acting as conduits that pump water vapor up into the sky. Transpiration is evaporation, but it’s evaporation of water that went through the tree,’ he says, ‘so this huge flow of vapor into the atmosphere is like an irrigation [system] upside down.’ That creates these immense, invisible flying rivers. ‘Rivers of rainfall,’ Nobre says. He points out that a calculation for the entire Amazon was done. ‘Twenty (20) billion tons of water evaporate per day’ in the region. To put that number into perspective, it is more water than what the Amazon River discharges into the Atlantic Ocean in one day.” (Source: Flying Rivers of the Amazon Rainforest – A Critical Rain Generator for the Planet, Pachamama Alliance, October 4, 2016)
As the “collapse phase” of the Amazon rainforest is underway an emerging worldview acknowledges the interconnectedness of all living things, as one of the most important roles for humans to act as caretaker and protector of natural systems. This new worldview is spreading like wildfire among the young, and it signals hope for humanity, assuming it can breakthrough the veneer of neoliberal capitalism’s dicta of growth at any costs, trampling ecosystems along the way to riches for the few tacitly supported by right-wing charlatans that easily overpower very weak traditionalist national parties that are filled with pushovers.
This new emerging worldview is concentrated among the youngest, for example: (1) SustainUS, dismantling the political elite’s narrative and demanding “urgent climate action” (2) Youth Lawsuits in defense of climate to hold governments accountable, e.g., 21 young plaintiffs suing the US government over fossil fuel support (3) Uplift tackling “energy sacrifice zones” or millions of acres of federal land in the Southwest abused and polluted for energy extraction (4) University Divestment Campaigns with 133 schools divested from fossil fuels, including Stanford, Oxford, Cambridge, and Yale (5) Sunrise combining protest organizing and electoral organizing together into one strategy, for example, support of the Green New Deal and in support of 100% US renewable energy by 2030.
The insultingly anemic response by nation/states to warnings by scientists at COP26 is indicative of a world order out of touch with an upside down broken climate system that is in a perennial state of upheaval.
Only the youth can change this distortion of reality because only the youth recognize adult stupidity for what it truly is, a reality.
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: Emertz76 is licensed by CC BY 2.0
Code Red on FacingFuture.TV
by Robert Hunziker
FacingFuture.TV recently hosted a preview of the upcoming IPCC 2021 UN climate report, which report guides the gathering of dignitaries from around the world meeting in Glasgow this November to discuss, analyze, and decide how to deal with global warming/climate change.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrivG4h7B8M
According to the Code Red interview, the IPCC is taking off its ultra conservative face mask of prior years to reveal a surly cantankerous grim sneer on a darkened background. In short, climate change is much worse than the IPCC has previously been willing to admit.
The FacingFuture.TV interview features Mark Andersen, CEO of Strategic News Service, Brian Wright a natural medicine expert, and Peter Carter an IPCC expert reviewer. The threesome expressed dismay over the failure of the general public to “get the climate change message” clearly enough to force policymakers to take some kind of massive urgent all-hands-on-deck immediate without hesitation corrective measures to head off an undeviating course of surefire destruction.
The following snippets from that interview underscore a level of frustration and a sense of urgency as a clarion call for anybody and everybody to demand an immediate halt to fossil fuels.
What’s new with the IPCC?
For starters, according to Dr. Carter, the new report is a “definitive report.” Its conclusions are definite. In other words, the IPCC is taking the issue much more seriously than ever before. This is the first report to state that global climate change is “unequivocally caused by human activities.”
Moreover, previous IPCC reports inadvertently gave the impression that society has plenty of time until 2050 to make the necessary changes, which has unintentionally served to bolster the interests of the fossil fuel industry and extend forecasts for future production by the International Energy Agency.
In strong opposition, this new report forcefully and effectively states that unless there are immediate rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions that limit warming to close to 1.5° C or even 2° C, the problem will extend “beyond reach” and beyond any chance for some level of control. The three key words are: 1) immediate (2) rapid (3) large-scale.
The three participants discussed climate mega events that, by any and all standards, should be turning heads amongst the general public and certainly amongst policymakers as mega events openly display powerful destructiveness of a crazed climate system that’s been thrown off kilter by human activity.
Mega events are world-changing events that literally alter the dynamics of the climate system from friendly and supportive of life to difficult and horribly challenging for life. Alas, the worse has already started, for example, carbon sinks are starting to fail, meaning, nature is starting to emit greenhouse gases in competition with cars, planes, trains, and factories. What could possibly be more troubling?
According to Dr. Carter, one mega event that sends a clear message of unbridled double-trouble dead ahead: “We’ve lost the Amazon Rainforest. It’s a very hard thing to say… The Amazon has tipped. It is no longer a carbon sink buffering and soaking up some of our CO2 emissions. It has now started to emit CO2 emissions, and that is very, very clear from the satellite images… The Amazon is pouring out CO2.”
Equally troubling, “The other mega event is the Arctic has also switched… first recognized by the NOAA in 2016, and in 2019 published via a report that the Arctic has definitely tipped and is now a source of greenhouse gas emissions.”
Additionally, “Permafrost is emitting all three of the main greenhouse gases. It’s emitting methane, much more carbon dioxide than anybody anticipated, just discovered by research five years ago, but it’s also emitting the third and extremely powerful greenhouse gas, which is nitrous oxide … an absolute definite mega event.”
Moreover, “A huge change in the amount of methane being emitted from the Arctic,” is now prevalent: “There is a vast amount of methane this year for the first time being emitted and it’s coming from a huge area of Siberia where the deepest permafrost is located. We’re talking about a thousand miles of permafrost.”
1,000 miles of permafrost emitting greenhouse gases could easily be a stopping point for this quickie review of the interviews, especially as Biblical scale fires have raged in Siberia for all to see on TV. The Barents Observer recently reported more than 40% of Northern Russian buildings starting to collapse, including risks to hydro dams and a nuclear power plant. How much worse does it have to get to spell out the message that the planet is experiencing severe extreme levels of duress?
Yet, there is more.
Craters formed by methane bombs are erupting as permafrost melts, when methane vaporizes underneath causing enormous explosions leaving craters 100 feet across and 100 feet deep. Seventeen of these methane bomb explosions have been recorded in only one region of Siberia, indicating that methane under the permafrost tundra is reaching a critical stage and exploding.
Ipso facto, the planet is dispelling/forcing gas so powerfully that craters form, as if asteroids hit, like the surface of the moon.
Moreover, not only is permafrost blowing up in plain sight, the heating of the oceans is way ahead of the heating of the atmosphere. This is but one more example of a major carbon sink starting to lose its mojo by absorbing way too much CO2 and having absorbed way too much heat.
Indeed, the entire planet is bordering on a scale of trouble never experienced by humankind as major carbon sinks start to fail, one after another. There are no backups, and once carbon sinks completely fail, climate change will be wide open for rapid-fire expansion, but when? Answer: Nobody knows for sure but the early signals are not good.
According to the interview, the IPCC in the past has inferred that the carbon sinks that keep the planet in balance will be just fine. And scientific assessments of the carbon sinks, until only recently, said the carbon sinks would be fine. But no, all of that has changed in the new IPCC “Working Group I Report” major carbon sinks are going to fail, land first and then the ocean is going to fail. For innocent bystanders, that information is almost impossible to process, as believable.
This review of the FacingFuture.TV interview could easily stop right here, even though there is much more, but in point of fact, the big dance is over if the planet’s major carbon sinks fail. Thereafter, there’s not much to discuss.
For whatever reasons, which are likely obvious and right under our collective noses, with dispatch, the IPCC has taken off the gloves and decided it’s time to fight. Hopefully, policymakers wake up to the fact that time for dilly-dallying is up.
Stop talking, do something momentously big.
Still, here’s more crucial data from that interview: “There’s been a big shocking recent paper from NASA and NOAA on energy, in which they’ve done something pretty brilliant. They’ve combined, and reviewed, the satellite data on land energy and they’ve used the NOAA buoys (Argo floats) which are distributed all around the world’s oceans, and they’ve checked energy from the heat point of view, which is very reliable… what they found was that the energy imbalances doubled in just the past 14 years.”
If the energy imbalance for the planet doubled in only 14 years, which nature by itself should take centuries (100s) or more likely thousands (1000s) of years and not a measly 14 years, then, it’s almost impossible to know what else to say about the dire stage of climate change humanity is about to face.
The wake up call implied in the FacingFuture.TV interview is overwhelming and way beyond further attempts to try to explain more of the details in this lonely article.
Bottom line, it’s no surprise that the IPCC has finally decided to come out of its protective conservative shell because the data is one shocking event after another after another, almost impossible to describe without, by default, coming across as excessively pessimistic and fatalistic and difficult to read as well as almost impossible to accept. Therein lies the problem of conveying the message.
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.
[This article was first published in CounterPunch on October 12, 2021.]
Photograph Source: Анастасия Игоревна Петухова is licensed by CC BY-SA 4.0
Siberia’s Hot Streak
by Robert Hunziker
[This article was first published in CounterPunch on October 4, 2021.]
Global warming in Siberia is on a hot streak! It was +6°C last year. In like manner, if the entire planet hit +6°C above pre-industrial, it would be lights out, life snuffed out, sayonara.
Meanwhile, the Siberian hot streak theoretically threatens the entire planet with methane-induced runaway global warming, the dreaded monster of the North that takes no prisoners. As it’s happening now, in real time today, Siberia is demonstrating the impact of deadly serious climate reactions to too much heat, too soon. This fiasco cannot be dismissed or ignored. It should be at the top of the agenda for COP26 in Glasgow this coming November.
Moreover, it should also be at the top of the agenda for every leader of every country that attends COP26, or does not attend. The underlying message is straightforward and simple: Clean up the fossil fuel death warrant or risk a red-hot planet with concomitant premature deaths of complex life at lower latitudes by the bucketful. And, that’s just for starters.
After all, already at only 1.2°C above baseline for the planet, where we are today, the Wet Bulb Temperature effect has been detected at the UAE and in Pakistan, accordingly, at 95°F and 90% humidity a person seated under a shade tree with a bottle of water will die in approximately 6 hours, as organs shut down because the body cannot shed heat at that combination of heat/humidity.
Now, Siberia is presenting the world with a new problem. There’s a new methane kid on the block. Inordinate levels of methane in Siberia were traced to hydrocarbon reservoir rocks, not wetlands, not permafrost, not microbial methane. This ancient methane is stored in carbonates. This is not good news. It is horrible news. (Source: Nikolaus Froitzheim, et al, Methane Release from Carbonate Rock Formations in the Siberian Permafrost Area During and After the 2020 Heat Wave, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, August 10, 2021)
The aforementioned study of a previously unexplored region in Siberia discovered large quantities of methane released from exposed limestone in the Yenisey-Khatanga Basin, which is a few hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle, one of the coldest regions of the planet, until recently, hmm.
A headline in Smithsonian Magazine tells the story: “Permafrost Thaw in Siberia Creates a Ticking ‘Methane Bomb’ of Greenhouse Gases, Scientists Warn,” Smithsonian Magazine, August 5, 2021.
According to the lead author of the methane study, Nikolaus
Froitzheim, a geoscientist at the University of Bonn: “Interpreting this data correctly ‘may make the difference between catastrophe and apocalypse’ as the climate crisis worsens,” Ibid.
Those two alternatives as mentioned by Dr. Froitzheim do not leave much room for error.
Scientists were surprised by the discovery, as stated by Dr. Froitzheim: “We would have expected elevated methane in areas in wetlands… But these were not over wetlands but on limestone outcrops. There is very little soil in these. It was really a surprising signal from hard rock, not wetlands,” Ibid.
According to the Smithsonian article, methane in the Far North is very rambunctious, to say the least, and very dangerous for numerous reasons that could impact the entire planet. In fact, along similar lines, the Climate Crisis Advisory Group/UK is calling for a “Global State of Emergency.” Sir David King chairs the Climate Crisis Advisory Group with an advisory team at Cambridge University.
A Moscow Times article “Rapid Arctic Warming Is Accelerating Permafrost Collapse in Siberia, New Report Warns,” (Sept. 7, 2021) goes on to explain that Arctic temperatures are now 3.5°C above pre-industrial while the planet in general is 1.2°C above that baseline. Furthermore, “Scientists have been shocked that the warm weather conducive to permafrost thawing is occurring roughly 70 years ahead of model projections.”
Meaning, certain aspects of climate change are already at the year 2090 when compared to climate models. Does this mean that climate science and policymakers for major countries are behind the eight ball, by a lot, really by a lot? Answer: Yes, it does!
Of particular interest and of more than passing concern, the Moscow Times article claims the nuclear facility Bilibino Nuclear Power Plant, as well as numerous hydro dams around Magadan (far northeastern Russia) are threatened with collapse because of cascading permafrost. It should be noted that Russia is home to 10% of the world’s hydro resources, mostly in Siberia.
Furthermore, according to a terrifying article in The Barents Observer: “The Looming Arctic Collapse: More Than 40% of Northern Russian Buildings are Starting to Crumble” d/d June 28, 2021, up to 30% of Russia’s oil and gas production facilities are not operable now because of the collapse of infrastructure (thank god for small favors). That same article quotes Dmitry Drozdev, Head of the Russian Cryosphere Institute: “This process is irreversible, and it is impossible to stop it.”
Does anybody anywhere on the planet doubt the importance of COP26 getting it right?
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.
[This article was first published in CounterPunch on September 17, 2021.]
The UK (in partnership with Italy) will host the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties, COP26 in Glasgow on October 31- November 12, 2021.
COP26 will be one of the most significant meetings in modern human history, comparable to the meeting of the Big Three at the Tehran Conference November 28, 1943, when the Normandy invasion was agreed, codenamed Operation Overlord and launched in June 1944. Thenceforth, tyranny was stopped, an easily identified worldwide threat symbolized by a toothbrush mustache. Today’s tyranny is faceless but recklessly beyond the scope of that era because it’s already everywhere all at once! And, ten-times-plus as powerful as all of the munitions of WWII.
What’s at risk at COP26?
Chatham House, The Royal Institute of International Affairs answers that all-important query in a summary report intended for heads of governments, entitled: Climate Change Risk Assessment 2021.
The report introduces the subject with three key statements:
1) The World is dangerously off track to meet the Paris Agreement goals.
2) The risks are compounding.
3) Without immediate action the impacts will be devastating in the coming decades.
The report highlights current emissions status with resulting temperature pathways. Currently, Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) indicate 1% reduction of emissions by 2030 as compared to 2010 levels. To that end, and somewhat shockingly, if emissions are not drastically curtailed by 2030, the report details a series of serious impacts to humanity locked in by 2040-50, which is the time frame for item #3 to kick in, which states: “Impacts will be devastating.”
But, hark: Governments at COP26 will have an opportunity to accelerate emissions reductions by “ambitious revisions of their NDCs.” Whereas, if emissions follow the current NDCs, the chance of keeping temperatures below 2°C above pre-industrial levels (the upper limit imposed by Paris ’15) is less than 5%.
Not only that, but any relapse or stasis in emissions reduction policies could lead to a worst case 7°C, which the paper labels a 10% chance at the moment.
The paper lambastes the current fad of “net zero pledges” which “lack policy detail and delivery mechanisms.” Meanwhile, the deficit between the NDC targets and the carbon budget widens by the year. In essence, empty pledges don’t cut it, period!
Failure to slash emissions by 2030 will have several serious negative impacts by 2040:
1. 3.9B people will be hit by major heatwaves at various intervals of time.
2. 400 million people will be exposed to temperatures that exceed “the workability threshold.” Too hot to work!
3. Of more immediate and extremely shocking concern, if drastic reductions do not occur by 2030, the paper suggests “the number of people on the planet exposed to heat stress exceeding the survivability threshold is likely to surpass 10 million a year.” This can only refer to the infamous Wet Bulb Temperature, meaning: A threshold is reached when the air temperature climbs above 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) and the humidity is above 90 percent. The human body has limits. If “temperature plus humidity” is high enough, or +95/90, even a healthy person seated in the shade with plentiful water to drink will suffer severely or likely die. Climate models only a few years ago predicted widespread wet-bulb thresholds to hit late this century; however, global warming is not waiting around that long. Indeed, the Wet Bulb Temperature death count of 10 million per year nearly scales alongside WWII deaths of 75 million, both military and civilian, over six years or 12.5M per year.
4. Population demands will necessitate 50% more food by 2050, but without huge emissions reductions starting now, yields will decline by 2040 as croplands hit by severe drought rises to 32%/year. Fifty percent more food demand in the face of 32% rise in drought impact does not add up very well.
5. Wheat and rice account for 37% of calorific intake, but without drastic cuts, >35% of global cropland for these critical crops will be hit by damaging hot spells.
6. By 2040, without the big cuts in emissions, 700 million people per year will be exposed to droughts lasting at least 6 months duration at a time. “No region will be spared.”
Accordingly “Many of the impacts described are likely to be locked in by 2040, and become so severe they go beyond the limits of what many countries can adapt to… Climate change risks are increasing over time, and what might be a small risk in the near term could embody overwhelming impacts in the medium to long term.” (Pg. 5)
Chapter 4 of the paper covers Cascading Systemic Risks, which is an eye-opener. Systemic risks materialize as a chain, or cascade, impacting a whole system, inclusive of people, infrastructure, economy, societal systems and ecosystems. 70 experts analyzed cascading risks, as follows: “The cascading risks over which the participating experts expressed greatest concern were the interconnections between shifting weather patterns, resulting in changes to ecosystems, and the rise of pests and diseases, which, combined with heatwaves and drought, will likely drive unprecedented crop failure, food insecurity and migration of people. Subsequently, these impacts will likely result in increased infectious diseases (greater prevalence of current infectious diseases, as well as novel variants), and a negative feedback loop compounding and amplifying each of these impacts.” (Pg. 38)
“Climate change contributes to the creation of conditions that are more susceptible to wildfires, principally via hotter and drier conditions. In the period 2015–18, measured against 2001–14, 77 per cent of countries saw an increase in daily population exposure to wildfires, with India and China witnessing 21 million and 12 million exposures respectively. California experienced a fivefold increase in annual burned area between 1972 and 2018. There, average daytime temperatures of warm-season days have increased by around 1.4°C since the early 1970s, increasing the conditions for fires, and consistent with trends simulated by climate models.” (Pg. 39)
And, the biggest shocking statistic of all pertains to the high risk red code danger region of the planet that is ripe for massive methane emissions: “In Siberia, a prolonged heatwave in the first half of 2020 caused wide-scale wildfires, loss of permafrost and an invasion of pests. It is estimated that climate change has already made such events more than 600 times more likely in this region.” (Pg. 40)
“600 times more likely” in the planet’s most methane-enriched permafrost region is reason enough to cut CO2 missions to the bone, no questions asked.
Several climate change issues dangerously reflect on fragility of the food system and a pronounced lack of adaptation measures as well as natural systems and ecosystems “at the edge of capacity.” Lack of social safety and social cohesion is found everywhere, all of which can erupt as a result of an unforgiving climate system that is overly stressed and broken.
Cascades will likely lead to breakdown of governance due to limited food supplies and lack of income bringing on increasingly violent extremists groups, paramilitary intervention, organized violence, and conflict between people and states, all of which has already commenced.
Already, migration pressures are a leading edge of climate-related breakdowns in society. Each year in 2008-20 an average of 21.8 million people have been displaced by weather-related disasters of extreme heat, floods, storms, and wildfires. In the most recent year, 30 million people in 143 countries worldwide were displaced by such climate disasters.
Without doubt, the eyes of the world will be focused on COP26 to judge commitments by governments.
There is no time left for failure because failure breeds even worse failure.
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: kimadababe is licensed by CC BY 2.0
Brazil’s Fierce Drought
by Robert Hunziker
[This article was first published in CounterPunch on September 3, 2021.]
The Amazon rainforest is arguably the world’s premier asset. Indeed, it’s the world’s most crucial asset in a myriad of ways, nothing on Earth compares. Yet, it is infernally stressed because of inordinate drought. The bulk of the Amazon rainforest is located in Brazil, where, according to the title of an article in NASA, Earth Observatory, the country headline says it all: “Brazil Battered by Drought.”
Moreover, the planet is becoming a drought-besieged planet (see- Drought Clobbers the World, August 27, 2021). As for the Amazon, according to NASA, it has been battered by serious bouts of drought every 5 years 1998, 2005, 2010, 2015, 2020-21. As such, the normally resilient forest does not have a chance to catch breath and repair damage.
Sassan Saatchi, NASA JPL claims; “The old paradigm was that whatever carbon dioxide we put up in (human-caused) emissions, the Amazon would help absorb a major part of it… The ecosystem has become so vulnerable to these warming and episodic drought events that it can switch from sink to source depending on the severity and the extent. This is our new paradigm.” (Source: NASA Finds Amazon Drought Leaves Long Legacy of Damage, Capitals Coalition)
The Amazon rainforest is 60% of the world’s rainforests; the rainfall and rivers cover 70% of South America’s GDP; its skyborne river of moisture sends rainfall to the Western US and as far as Iowa cornfields and Central America; its trees store 86B tons of carbon; 30% of world species, medical discoveries galore, and automatically one of the biggest consumers of the industrial world’s CO2. Its health is crucial to the functionality of the entire planet. As it goes, so goes the world.
All of its great attributes, and yet, President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil last week said the country’s hydroelectric dam reservoirs are: “At the limit of the limit.” (Source: Diane Jeantet, Associated Press, Brazil Water survey Heightens Alarm Over Extreme Drought, Midland Daily News, Aug. 27, 2021)
Reservoirs in the Paraná River, which provide power for Sao Paulo and several states in Brazil “have never before been so depleted, the grid operator said this month,” Ibid.
The Paraná River basin is home to several hydroelectric dams and reservoirs. Water levels on the river are more than 30 feet below average at the Brazil – Paraguay border. This threatens to disrupt cargo ship traffic. Brazil’s National Weather and Basic Sanitation Agency has declared a “critical situation” for the river basin.
For the first time in 100 years, because of the long drought, the National Meteorological System (Inmet) issued an emergency alert for Brazil at the end of May 2021.
The Paraná River runs from Brazil to Argentina. It is the second-longest, 4,800 km or approx. 3,000 miles, river in Brazil, just behind the Amazon. It supplies electricity and water to 40 million people. At the current hydro flow rate, blackouts are likely this year, especially during peak hours.
Additionally, Brazil’s Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetlands, not only suffers from global warming’s knack for spiking severe drought, additionally, more than 25% of Brazil’s Pantanal forest went up in flames last year in the worst annual fire devastation since records started. As it happens, developers set fires to clear land to grow crops, raise cattle and mine. People are responsible for 95% of the fires. It’s important to emphasize that fires in rainforests are not a regular part of the natural environment.
As it happens, Brazil is not alone as hemispheric drought is now occurring in parallel, north, and south.
Both northern and southern hemispheric droughts are running in parallel, sending a strong message that something’s horribly wrong. It should not be this pervasive. Brazil’s depleting reservoirs provide electricity and water to 40 million people. In tandem, the depleting Colorado River provides electricity and water to 40 million people. Both systems, at the same time, will likely be subject to water rationing within months, not years, which is currently under consideration by authorities in both hemispheres.
The worldwide drought is universally connected and thus compounded, maybe feeding on its own energy, enhanced by massive human-generated emissions of CO2 (carbon dioxide) and CH4 (methane) blanketing the atmosphere.
Additionally, in Brazil and only recently, scientists have discovered a very disturbing consequence of drought: Brazil’s share of the Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetland, has seen its water-cover area drop to one-quarter (25%) of its area of only 30 years ago. However, that analysis does not include 2021, which is shaping up as Brazil’s worst drought in over 90 years.
Pantanal wetlands are enormous, sprawling across three countries. The loss of so much water cover is a real shocker to the scientists that conducted the study. According to Mažeika Patricio Sulliván, an ecology professor at Ohio State University, the human footprint of deforestation, fires, and plowing under wetlands is, in part, to blame as well as greenhouse gas emissions, prompting global warming: “We’re altering the magnitude of those natural processes… This is not just happening in Brazil. It’s happening all over the world,” Ibid.
Increasingly, scientists send the same message… “It’s happening all over the world.”
Nearly 90% of South America’s wetlands have vanished since 1900. Wetlands are the kidneys of the planet, essential for wildlife and retaining water to be released into rivers and aquifers all of which also serve to prevent destructive flash floods, think Germany’s and China’s loss of wetland regions, thereafter submerged in flash floods.
According to Cassio Bernardino, a project manager for WWF-Brazil: “The prospects are not good; we’re losing natural capital, we’re losing water that feeds industries, energy generation and agribusiness… society as a whole is losing this very precious resource, and losing it at a frighteningly fast rate,” Ibid.
By now, with a Brazilian quasi-dystopian experience front and center for all of the world to see, plus the affront by society’s lack of concern for life-sourcing ecosystems, a provocative question arises: Where is all of this headed?
The current trajectory looks dark and bleak.
What can be done?
A good starting point would be for the world’s leaders to agree to tackle the source of the problem, fossil fuels, by first admitting there is a problem, which is the problem. They really have not admitted it forcibly enough to make a big enough difference. Will they?
And, so it stands.
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.
Drought – photo by Modern Event Preparedness is licensed under CC BY 2.0
Drought Clobbers the World
by Robert Hunziker
[This article was first published in CounterPunch on August 27, 2021.]
According to SPEI Global Drought Monitor, no continent is spared the ravages of severe drought, except for Antarctica. This is happening at a global temperature of 1.2°C above baseline, not 1.5°C above baseline which climate scientists agree is locked in. This article explores the countrywide impact of 1.2°C above baseline for the most vulnerable as well as the most privileged. The journey starts in Glasgow.
The world’s political leaders need to pay special attention to the upcoming UN Climate Change Conference scheduled for October 31st-12th in Glasgow as scientists of the world meet to present the latest info on climate change/global warming.
Those world leaders need to hone in on the most far-reaching, most effective, most promising ideas to fix the climate, tame global warming, and stop fossil fuels by doing whatever it takes to halt carbon emissions (Biden’s plan won’t do it).
Climatically, how much longer can the planet hang in there?
The world is coming apart at the seams as a result of greenhouse gas emissions from factories, utilities, cars, planes, trains, agriculture, and a horrifying meltdown of permafrost in the farthest northern latitudes, spiked by Biblical fires, and soon the rainforests will kick in as tipping points trigger, thus reversing the world’s greatest carbon sinks to carbon emission sources in competition with cars, trains, and planes. The entire planet is trapped in a drought that’s so severe that it’s difficult to quantify. It’s that pervasive.
By ignoring science for far too long, leaders of the world have failed their own people. To that end, if the world’s leaders cannot figure out what’s happening to the climate system as fire, drought, and floods strike like never before (explained in more detail herein) then they should be tossed out of office. Weak leaders beget feeble solutions.
After all, there is little room for error for society at large. Climate change has backed them into a corner from which they can barely escape, maybe not at all. Soon, there will be no choice other than outright revolution, forcing the world’s leaders out, similar to the French Revolution of the late 18th century when aristocracy and royalty, the one percent (1%) of the era, holding onto their heads for dear life, fled Paris by the thousands, many fleeing to England (See: Ninety-Three, by Victor Hugo, 1874 publication detailing The Great Terror)
Throughout history, when the masses are harmed or abused beyond some undefined incongruous limit, but enough to seek recompense, they follow the money, similar to The Revolutions of 1848 and actually witnessed in person by aristocrats in the streets, holding their breath whilst horrified by the Storming of the Bastille, July 14, 1789.
As it happens, ubiquitous drought conditions know no boundaries. A Middle East water crisis is threatening millions of people to the precipice of famine. According to a recent AP article, Aid Groups: Millions in Syria, Iraq Losing Access to Water d/d August 23, 2021, it is a dire situation that, by default, could lead to desperate open warfare and massive human tragedy.
In the face of extreme heat, millions of people in Syria and Iraq and Lebanon are at risk of losing access to essentials for life: (1) water (2) electricity (3) food. Similar to America’s West, water resources are at record lows due to little rainfall and drought conditions caused by global warming now widely recognized as an anthropogenic affair, meaning “human-caused” for the benefit of those who’ve missed class.
More than 12 million people in those countries are at risk, today, right now. And, making matters much worse, two dams in northern Syria that supply power to 3 million people face “imminent closure” because of low water levels (a new phenomena starting to appear throughout the world). Moreover, drought conditions are spreading water-borne diseases throughout displacement settlements. Alas, the Middle East crisis stands above all crises.
What will the people do? Will they fight for survival? Indeed, the situation is fraught with danger. It’s a time bomb that’s already ticking.
In Lebanon, 4 million people face severe water shortage. Not only that but making matters equally bad, in addition to severe drought, the Litani River is overloaded with sewage and waste and polluted nearly beyond recognition. It is the country’s longest river and major source for water supply, irrigation, and hydropower.
The planet is aching, crying out for relief. It’s truly a worldwide crisis. Global warming is strutting its stuff whilst greenhouse gases increase beyond all-time record levels, never decreasing, heating up the planet more and more to the breaking point at the global temperature of 1.2°C above baseline, not 1.5°C above, not 2.0°C above.
What of 1.5°C (IPCC’s top end preference) or 2.0°C above baseline as discussed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, levels that should not be exceeded? Yet, uh-oh, the planet is already in trouble at 1.2°C above baseline. Indeed, it’s an open secret that the climate system is struggling; it’s in trouble.
“The climate in trouble” resonates far and wide, e.g., Fridays for Future, started in 2018 by Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, which is a very popular org for young activists, is openly critical of the outright stupidity and blatant ignorance of adults. “How Dare You!” blurted Greta Thunberg age 16 at the UN Climate Summit in NY in 2019, as she addressed an imperial body of climate intellects.
Droughts take no prisoners, as the entire Mediterranean region has been hit hard. Turkey faces its most severe drought in a decade. Istanbul is dangerously close to losing its water supply. Dr. Akgun Ilhan, a Turkish water management expert told Euronews: “The natural water cycle is already interrupted by climate change,” but Dr. İlhan suggests it’s also affected by urban surfaces that are sealed with asphalt and concrete (the human footprint) “leaving very little green spaces where water can meet soil and fill groundwater resources.”
Worldwide, wetlands are down 87% over the past 200+ years, only 13% remains as they’re plowed under or covered over with no green spaces for water to meet soil or fill groundwater resources. It is significant that wetlands are the primary source for replenishment of aquifers.
Alas, with 87% of wetland hydrologic systems gone, massive destructive floods precede ironic losses of aquifer resources. With wetlands gone, water goes to where the people live (think Germany or China) and not through nature’s wetlands for distribution via the natural hydrology network. Meantime, according to NASA, one-third of the world’s largest aquifers are “stressed” because of the loss of wetland feeder systems. This is an invisible monumental festering problem.
In the United States, nearly one-half of the country is currently afflicted by drought. Worse yet, the West is experiencing ultra dire conditions, the worst in 1,200 years, with several small outlying communities suffering complete (100%) loss of water. Arizona is already calculating what industries will be forced to cut water in the near future as the Colorado River is already overly stressed and overly depleted, unable to meet heavy demand.
Brazil’s drought is the worst ever recorded. Hydroelectric plants can’t fully operate because of low reservoir levels. Chile has endured a mega drought for years. According to a recent Reuters report: 400,000 people who live in rural areas of Chile today receive water via tanker trucks. Chile’s spectacular “Mediterranean climate” in the central region, home to vineyards and farms, has taken a big hit. Scientists doubt it’ll ever recover its spectacular climate zone.
Even Israel, which invested $500 million in the world’s largest desalination plant, supplying 20% of its water needs, is warning citizens that the drought/water crisis is so severe that it will “struggle” to provide all residents with enough water to meet basic needs by next summer.
In Russia, some agricultural regions are at risk of losing up to one-half of their harvest because of punishing drought. Russia’s famous Black Earth Region, nicknamed as such because of its world famous high soil moisture content is now a bleak greyish color. Meanwhile, drought in Madagascar has pushed the country to the edge of famine.
A recent major research report claims that since 2014 Europe has experienced the most extreme series of droughts and heat waves in more than 2,000 years. (Source: Recent European Drought Extremes Beyond Common Era Background Variability, Nature Geoscience, March 15, 2021)
According to BBC News, in Taiwan, considered one of the “rainiest places in the world,” many reservoirs are at less than 20% of capacity and some below 10%. At the primary water source for Taiwan’s $100B semiconductor industry, the water at Baoshan No. 2 Reservoir is at 7%. This has serious international business ramifications.
The list of drought conditions hitting every continent, except Antarctica, is overwhelming. Indeed, the worldwide drought should be categorized as a triple-extra-alarm emergency with all hands on deck. Will it be?
Will world leaders convene to stop fossil fuel destruction of the planet?
Or, will a neglected broken climate system force people to fight for survival, and what does that imply?
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.
U.S House Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) recently introduced a bill in Congress to overhaul GDP, the nation’s most watched economic indicator. On July 30th she introduced the Genuine Progress Indicator (“GPI”) Act. It would be a significant change for the trajectory of the socio-economic system.
GPI is a new way to calculate GDP, but passage of the act in Congress is dependent upon whether it can displace the all-important “only size matters” syndrome that underlies and determines GDP. In contrast, GPI offers considerable substance and a new way to measure economic performance that’s in concert with the planet and with its inhabitants.
Hopefully, GPI gets a decent hearing in Congress because major turning points in socio-economic and political affairs can make a difference for generations to come.
A prime example of a positive turning point is the Battle of Saratoga in the 1777 victory by the colonists over the British, which was the world’s greatest army at the time. It was a crucial turning point in the American Revolution, convincing France to enter the conflict on behalf of the colonists. That turning point brought forth a new nation.
In contrast, an example of a negative turning point is the Supreme Court 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision upholding Louisiana’s statute mandating segregation in all public facilities, thus legally embedding bigotry for nearly 60 years. That turning point still stings.
Today, we may be witnessing one more major turning point via Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN). Her proposal has the potential to change the socio-economic trajectory of America and the world in a multitude of ways by leveling the playing field for income distribution, infrastructure development, fair labor practices and ecosystem sustainability, none of which GDP recognizes.
GDP only measures the “size of the economy” whereas GPI measures the true breadth of economic benefits and losses, such as: (1) unpaid labor (2) sustainable job skills (3) infrastructure and (4) ecosystems services, as well as accounting for the costs of growth and its collateral issues: (a) resource depletion (b) greenhouse gases (c) income inequality, and (d) domestic abuse. GDP ignores all of the aforementioned.
GPI may be the only way to unify attention for badly needed mitigation efforts of life-sourcing ecosystems. Without them, the planet will die.
Meanwhile, as for GDP, certain questions must be addressed: Growth for whom and at what costs? GDP does not husband life-sustaining resources, but it does consume those same resources, which is an overt expression of a civilization that has lost its way on a trip down the proverbial rabbit hole.
Omar’s proposed bill says: “To direct the Secretary of Commerce to establish an alternative metric for measuring the net benefits of economic activity, and for other purposes… the ‘genuine progress indicator’ to measure the economic well-being of households, calculated through adjustments to gross domestic product that account for positive and negative economic, environmental, and social factors that contribute to economic activity….” That is brilliant!
The “costs” listed within GPI actually define the impending extinction risks for the world at large, for example, costs that are missing from GDP but included within GPI: (1) water, air, and noise pollution at the household and national level (2) loss of farmland and productive soils, including soil quality degradation (3) loss of natural wetlands, primary forest area and other at-risk ecosystems (4) high amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions (5) depletion of the ozone layer (6) depletion of nonrenewable sources of energy.
Unfortunately, it’s not likely that GPI will get out of committee in the House of Representatives for several obvious reasons: If the costs listed in GPI were adapted to GDP, actual reported GDP would be all minuses, like -5% to -25%, not +2% to +6%.
Oops! How would the Dow Jones Industrial Average react? Most likely, it would go haywire, directionless, out of control, similar to many ecosystems of the planet that have gone haywire, like the Amazon Rainforest (alarmingly becoming a carbon emitter instead of a carbon sink) or the Great Barrier Reef (>50% of corals bleached in only 5 years) or Siberian permafrost (biggest fires ever recorded) or the Arctic (tragic loss of world’s biggest reflector of solar radiation) or Greenland (big super meltdown underway) or Antarctica (glacial ice flow accelerating way beyond expectations) or the 2/3rds loss of wild vertebrates in less than 50 years.
So, yes Representative Omar’s GPI bill is an excellent idea, but it will likely fail because only size matters in America, and America’s GDP proves it by ignoring reality: (1) pollution costs ignored (2) loss of crucial farmland (3) toxic poisoning (pesticides) of soil (3) mono-culture artificially fertilized crop soil degradation (4) paved wetlands destroy the “kidneys of the planet” (5) excessive greenhouse gases (the US emits 28% of world emissions with only 5% of world population) (6) subsidizing depletion of nonrenewable sources of energy.
It’s little wonder that the planet is regurgitating a sickness that is endemic to anthropogenic influence throughout the biosphere with raging fires, destructive flooding, and killer heat waves.
Alas, the focus on GDP will never heal a broken planet.
GDP does not calculate its own costs of infinite growth. It cannot because the calculation would be negative every year. And, in an act of absolute absurdity, GDP is measured quarterly, as are corporate profits. So, every three-month performance is meaningful, which is insane, childish, and flat-out stupid. This “hurry up and report the quarter” dicta resembles a shell game. In contrast, ecosystems require a lot of time, much longer than three months. Nature doesn’t compute by the quarter. Conversely, GDP is in such a hurry.
Ilhan’s proposal for GPI is geared to a society that values sustainability of resources and concern for the health of the biosphere and for its inhabitants. But, sad to say, it doesn’t realistically fit into today’s world of neoliberal capitalism. There’s no open slot for anything other than profits. We all pay a price for those profits.
Moreover, it is doubtful that an accurate calculation of depletion and destruction of ecosystems is possible at today’s rapid rate. Who could possibly keep up with it?
Still, it’s brilliant to get the concept into the public domain, and one can only hope.
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.
[This article was first published in CounterPunch on May 14, 2021.]
Seaspiracy is a powerful new documentary about the hazardous, unruly world of industrial fishing and stomach-churning abuse, overuse, disregard for life, as shown on Netflix, released by Disrupt Studios March 24th 2021.
The opening scene of the film sets the tone with a long-shot of an isolated fishing trawler at sea as the voice-over of a former fishing vessel crew member, who escaped forced slavery after 10 years non-stop at sea, exclaimed: “When ships are in the middle of the ocean. When problems occur. They can throw you overboard into the sea. It is dangerous for you to make this documentary. There are many risks.” A second escapee intones: “If you’re scared of dying, go home.”
The War Zone
War flattens terrain and kills. Based upon Seaspiracy’s story, industrial commercial fishing fits this description to a tee.
Above all else, the film depicts a war zone, bloody and creepy with myriad red-ish/orange-ish streaked rusty hulls of cadaverous trawlers prowling, dropping gigantic nets, denuding entire seafloors, nothing escapes this creepy crawl in a dark otherworldliness of villainous shadowy Mafioso-type slave-infested fishing vessels that drop 10-mile nets or long-line fishing with enough hook-lines to wrap 500 times around the planet, on a daily basis. Nothing survives this war zone.
According to Seaspiracy, fisheries crime is the same as transnational organized crime. The syndicates that operate behind the scenes of illegal fishing are the same as those behind drug trafficking and human trafficking.
Fishery workers at sea are involved in the most dangerous jobs on Earth, 24,000 deaths per year. Slavery is commonplace, as for example, according to Seaspiracy; there are 51,000 fishing boats in Thailand waters under the Thai flag. Those boats are uneconomic without free cheap labor. Seaspiracy traveled to Bangkok to interview escaped fishing boat slaves: Some spent 10 years non-stop at sea. Nobody could get off the vessel with its hired guards, similar to the infamous overseers of the Deep South. One interviewee claimed the ship’s captain used an iron bar as a weapon to control workers. Dead bodies were simply dropped overboard.
This film captures horrific scenes of massive splashing bloody deaths behind industrialized commercial fishing, which is depicted as the preeminent issue of whether fish stock survive on planet Earth, 2.7 trillion caught per year, five million killed every minute. Global fish populations have plummeted, e.g., halibut -99%, cod -86% Bluefin tuna -97% haddock -99%. These are extinction-type numbers, as industrial fishing knows no limits. If current trends stay on track, by 2048, the oceans will be empty! Thereafter, the seas will emit strange sour odors as pitch-blackness gradually discolors, displaces its rich vibrancy of life.
The oceans are home to 80% of all life on Earth, rapidly dwindling by the day as 4,600,000 commercial fishing vessels work away, many ethical, honest hard-working, but far-far-far too many violating international rules & regs, crime on the high seas, murdering difficile workers, as well as death of law enforcement officers, but mostly, in the big picture, slaughter of marine life by the tons, literally wiping out some species as Seaspiracy searched for impossible answers to a most difficult question: “What is sustainable fishing”?
At its heart, Seaspiracy depicts the fishing war zone as epitomized by the callous slaughter of sharks. Sharks kill 10 people per year. The fishing industry kills 11,000-to-30, 000 sharks per hour. Yes, per hour. Alarmingly, one-half of the kill is “by-catch” thrown overboard as waste by commercial fishing fleets, 50,000,000 sharks caught annually in nets, side by side with your favorite seafood, tossed overboard as waste or “by-catch.”
Not only that, but shark slaughter Phase 2 is “shark-finning, a Mafioso directed enterprise of shark fins shipped to Asia, predominately China, for shark-fin soup, a status symbol that has no nutritional value and no special flavor, but can cost up to $100/bowl. HK is known as Shark Fin City, where Seaspiracy’s video cameras were decidedly pushed back by more than idle threats.
Sharks are known as “apex predators” at the very top of the food chain. Loss of sharks topples the entire marine food chain from the top down. Sharks keep the ocean healthy and maintain healthy fish stocks. Without sharks the oceans turn into swamps. They are as important as dolphins and whales for survival of the oceans.
According to Seaspiracy calculations, shark species are crashing, thresher shark -80%, bull shark -86%, hammerhead shark -86%, overall, the total shark population is down by 80-99%. These are disturbing extinction-type numbers, comparable to the planet’s worst extinction event, the Permian-Triassic of 250 million years ago that wiped-out 95% of marine life. The planet is thus fast approaching an endpoint of ‘extinction of the seas.’ Obviously, a bigger question is how long does humanity hang in there?
Inordinate shark deaths bring in their wake death of almost all other ocean species. For example, the abundance of seabirds has declined 70%. Why? Marine predators such as sharks drive fish near the surface for feeding purposes where seabirds dive and grab dinner. No predators, no near surface fish for seabirds to catch.
As exposed in the film, several issues threaten total decimation or unmitigated deadening of the oceans. As a matter of fact, people comfortably seated at home see TV news items of whales washing up on beaches or turtles or birds strangled in netting or stomachs filled with plastic. Fishing nets are the single biggest cause of unintentional marine death because of industrialized fishing, as trawlers lose miles of netting. Forty-six percent (46%) of the notorious Great Garbage Patch in the Pacific Ocean consists of lost commercial fishing nets.
As explained in Seaspiracy, whales and dolphins drown when caught in fishnets. Yet, they are integral to the survival of the ocean. When they surface to breathe, their excretion fertilizes tiny marine plants called phytoplankton which, on an annualized basis, absorbs 4x the amount of carbon dioxide as rainforests, keeping the oceans alive and serving as one of the planet’s major sources of oxygen. Alas, according to Seaspiracy, “Our oceans have turned into a toxic plastic soup.”
Along the way, Seaspiracy discovered double-trouble for whales, as Japan resumed commercial whale hunting, heading out to Antarctica despite the worldwide ban since 1986. Not only Japan, several countries have been killing whales under the radar. The International Whaling Commission banned commercial whaling in 1986 because of “extreme depletion of most of the whale stocks.” Nevertheless, Japan and Iceland hunt under the guise of “scientific whaling.”
Seaspiracy discovered Japan’s national fixation on whales and dolphins extends to mass slaughter in the south of the country at Taiji, where dolphins and small whales are rounded up for an annual kill-off. Japan’s government attempts to cover up this slaughter or war on dolphins. Upon arrival at Taiji, Seaspiracy encountered pushback by police monitoring strangers with cameras.
Taiji’s annual dolphin slaughter: Fishermen bang poles against the hulls of their boats to herd the dolphins into a cove where they are slaughtered, every day during the duration of this bloody celebration. It’s done under the guise of “pest control.” Dolphins, which are very smart mammals, are considered “competition” for the fishing industry. For years now, Japan has pointed the finger at the dolphins as “the culprits behind over-fishing.” Yes, believe it or not, it is true.
Seaspiracy hooked up with one of the few NGOs in the world that attempts to police the international illegal fishing trade named Sea Shepard, a nonprofit marine conservation group that works with governments to track down and arrest illegal fishing vessels, for example, in Liberia. According to Stefano Tricanico of Sea Shepard: “We have mostly international fleets coming from countries where they’ve already depleted their own local stocks, and they’re pushing further and further away to try and make up for that. And using more and more sophisticated technology to increase catch numbers. They are illegal, and they catch huge amounts.”
The Seaspiracy crew witnessed Sea Shepard and the Liberian Coast Guard track down illegal vessels, which are virtual floating slaughterhouses, blood everywhere in the water. In Liberian waters, they boarded a Chinese trawler with enormous quantities of illegally caught fish stored away in its hold. The vessel was detained and fined.
Sea Shepherd travels the world policing violators of international rules. By and large, over 100 fishing regulations are not enforced. Shocking discoveries ensued as Seaspiracy discovered, for example, 10,000 dolphins are killed every year as “by-catch” just offshore France. Come to find out, the greatest threat to whales and dolphins is commercial fishing. Over 300,000 whales and dolphins are killed annually as “by-catch” and tossed aside into the sea.
Even though many fisheries claim “dolphin-free tuna,” the authorities caught 2 tuna boats that caught killed 45 dolphins, tossed away, per 8 tunas kept and then claimed “dolphin-free tuna.” The vessel was working for “Dolphin Safe canned tuna.” In turn, The Earth Island Institute is behind the Dolphin-safe labels. When Seaspiracy met with and interviewed Earth Island personnel, to their dismay, nobody really goes to sea to witness whether dolphin-safe is a reality. Earth Island admitted this and admitted that when they do send observers, they can be “bribed” into agreeing to label the catch as “dolphin-free.”
Earth Island, a non-for-profit observer of sea catch on behalf of the general public is paid to license their dolphin-safe label by the fishing industry. Along the way, they generally take the vessel captain’s world for it that the catch is dolphin-free, meaning “no dolphins killed during the catch.” This is a bold-faced lie, hoodwinking consumers around the world.
Based upon interviews of people in the know, the internationally recognized dolphin-free label is a fabrication, no guarantees according to a spokesperson at Earth Island.
Meanwhile, Pacific Bluefin tuna, with less than 3% remaining in the wild as a result of overfishing puts the $42 billion tuna industry at risk of imminent collapse, as a result of its own overfishing, fishing-out the most glorious fish of the sea, the queen of the sea, a powerful swimmer that crosses the Pacific Ocean in 55 days. Because of the plunging decline of the species, The Monterey Bay Aquarium (Ca) recommends that consumers say “no thanks” to restaurants that dare serve Pacific Bluefin tuna.
According to an investigation by Seaspiracy, the Marine Stewardship Council (“MSC”), a nonprofit whose label is found on cans of fish on grocery store shelves, certifies fisheries that unfortunately produce astonishing levels of “by-catch.” MSC refused an interview to discuss “sustainable fishing.” Unilever (owner of a seafood retailer) is a founder of MSC, which is the world’s largest promoter of “sustainable fishing.” In fact, 80% of MSC yearly income is from licensing its imprimatur on seafood as “sustainable catch.” But, as Seaspiracy questioned, how can commercial fishing that includes 40% “by-catch” carry sustainable labeling?
Is there such a thing as sustainable fishing?
Seaspiracy talked to Captain Paul Watson, former National Director of the Sierra Club who quit because “they didn’t want to come out against fishing and hunting because they thought they would lose membership support.” According to Watson, “Well, first of all, there’s no such thing. It’s impossible. There’s no such thing as a sustainable fishery. There’s simply not enough fish to justify that. It’s not sustainable, it’s just a marketing phrase, that’s all.”
Oceana is the world’s largest marine conservation group. Oceana advocates sustainable fishing. But they could not define “sustainable” when questioned by Seaspiracy about the meaning behind the phrase. Yet, they’re one of the world’s biggest advocates: “Eat sustainable fish.”
Beyond the issue of whether “sustainable fishing” is even a reality, another very serious issue is the impact of commercial bottom trawling, as vessels cast 10-mile nets scooping up everything in sight. This form of extracting fish, also deforests the oceans. Seaspiracy interviewed Richard Oppenlander who informed them “bottom trawling by big fishing boats wipes out 3.9 billion acres of underwater life forms every year. Equivalent to wiping out the land area of Greenland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, the UK, Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Turkey, Iran, Thailand and Australia combined, every year.” Marine plants per acre store 20 times more carbon than forests on land. Most of the planet’s CO2 is stored with help of marine vegetation, algae, and coral.
Fishing vessels are death machines that mop up the basis of the whole marine food chain. Which also removes a source of nutrients for coral reefs, which feed off fish excrement. As it happens, commercial fishing has become a major threat for coral reefs around the world. For example, 90% of the large fish which prospered in the Caribbean coral reefs throughout the past 1,000 years are now gone.
Seaspiracy, in search of a sense of relief, made the decision to look at fish farming with its eco satisfying reputation. After all, 50% of the world’s seafood now comes from fish farms. Scotland is one of world’s leading producers of farm salmon. Seaspiracy discovered issues. Fish farming requires enormous quantities of fish oil and fishmeal that comes from wild fish. So, in essence, fish farming lives off the catch of wild fish. Seaspiracy met with Dan Staniford, a whistleblower that exposed the problem of severe sea lice infestations in the farms. The crew filmed salmon being eaten alive by sea lice parasites, which, according to Staniford, is common in fish farms worldwide. Additionally, and kind of icky to consider, each fish farm in Scotland produces organic waste equal to a town of 10-20,000 people. Thus, salmon restrained in confined fish farms swim in their own feces.
According to Dan Staniford, 50% of salmon in fish farms die from anemia, lice infestation, chlamydia, heart disease, “Salmon farming is a waste of resources.” As explained by Staniford, farm salmon without colorants added to the feed would be completely gray. The pinkish coloration is artificial.
After discovering so many serious issues with the commercial industry, Seaspiracy decided to checkout marine protected areas. An expert on the subject informed them that yes, there are ocean-protected areas. Presently, 5% of the oceans are marine protected areas, but that is misleading. Over 90% of those protected areas still allow fishing on a sustainable basis. In reality, less than 1% of the oceans are being regulated via marine protected areas.
Seaspiracy interviewed Dr. Sylvia Earl, founder of Mission Blue and founder of Deep Ocean Exploration and Research. According to Dr. Earl, based upon current commercial fishing activities, “by the middle of this century, commercial fishing will cease to exist because, there won’t be enough fish to catch.”
In support of Dr. Earl’s statement, in the middle of the North Sea in the mid 19th century, a typical fishing boat (one vessel) would catch one to two tons of halibut per day. Today, the entire fishing fleet at the same location catches two tons of halibut per year.
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.
Stuart Scott (72) founder/executive producer of Facing Future TV and the United Planet Faith & Science Initiative passed away at his home in Honolulu on July 15th.
Stuart’s early recognition of human impact on the planet’s ecosystems resulted in a personal mission dedicated to education of the public about the detrimental consequences of climate change/global warming.
Following an extensive training course with Al Gore’s group Climate Reality in 2008, he left his regular employment to devote the remainder of his life to exposing the climate crisis to the public. Additionally, he advocated ecological economics by founding The Circle of Elders of Ecological Economics in 2021 as an antidote to the illusion of endless growth on a finite planet,
Indeed, educating the public about the climate crisis and offering a solution via ecological economics are his everlasting legacies, which live on in his name by way of several venues he established, but most importantly in the hearts of countless people throughout the world who were touched by his work.
Stuart’s reach was global, spreading the word about a dangerously changing climate system with over 100 presentations at notable climate conferences as well as innumerable recorded conversations with senior scientists and environmental advocates made available to the public.
Stuart and Greta at a Fridays For Future march in Stockholm Sweden
His introduction of Greta Thunberg at the age of 15 to the United Nations Conference on Climate Change COP24 (Conference of the Parties) in Poland was the start of her remarkable trajectory for a global movement called Fridays for Future. He also influenced a reluctant James Hansen, the dean of climate science, to accompany him to the Paris ’15 climate summit.
Recently, Stuart took the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to task for its appalling failure to properly handle the serious threat of inadequately stored nuclear waste, a project that he intended to carry forward with additional exposure of this covert lethal affair.
Throughout his efforts for climate justice, Stuart has been a vocal advocate of uniting faith and science. He met Pope Francis and Cardinal Turkson, encouraging them to recognize the role of the Church in protecting God’s creation by inspiring congregations to act on climate change. He suggested that Pope Francis attend COP26 in Glasgow in November 2021, which the Pope has agreed to do.
Religious leaders including the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu as well as the UN World Council of Religious Leaders, the World Council of Churches, and the Central Council of the Baha’i Faith have endorsed Stuart’s tireless efforts. Secular organizations Greenpeace, McKibben’s 350.org and The Center for Biological Diversity have also endorsed Scott’s Interfaith Declaration.
Stuart attended 10 of the last 13 Conference of the Parties (COP). He conducted and broadcast interviews and panel discussions under the banner of Climate Matters.TV and ScientistsWarning.org, which he founded in order to spread the word of the emerging climate emergency.
Stuart advised us to be fearless in contacting anyone who might further the effort to awaken people to the recognition that growth economics, based on greed and consumption, is destroying our planet. Instead, he advocated a no-growth, cyclical economy based on ecological economics.
Stuart’s passion for this work extended to his dying day, including his last conversation with Noam Chomsky, recorded June 29th, which you can view on FacingFuture.TV. There you will also find his many conversations with ecologists, nuclear engineers, economists, and environmental scientists. More of his work, action ideas, and commentary are on this website.
Stuart’s bold commitment to a sustainable planet and equitable allocation of resources has inspired people throughout the world. He leaves his dedication to preserving the planet to the experienced hands of his colleagues at FacingFuture.
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