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Permafrost Showdown

Image by Alex Krivec is licensed by Unsplash.
Image by Alex Krivec is licensed by Unsplash.

Permafrost Showdown

By Robert Hunziker

“Deep below the glistening surface of a frozen Arctic lake, something is bubbling—something that could cause global warming to accelerate beyond all previous projections… Now the freezer door is opening, releasing the carbon into Arctic lake bottoms. Microbes digest it, convert it to methane, and the lakes essentially burp out methane.’ Scientists estimate that permafrost holds up to 950 billion tons of carbon. As it thaws, 50 billion tons of methane could enter the atmosphere from Siberian lakes alone. That’s ten times more methane than the atmosphere holds right now,” (Katey Walter Anthony, biogeochemist, National Geographic Explorer Since 2011)

Rapid warming of Arctic permafrost has brought a significant threat to all life forms. Consequently, The Royal Society (est. 1660) felt compelled to support publication of a new video that exposes this threat: What Happens When the Permafrost Thaws? BBC in partnership with The Royal Society by Daniel Nils Roberts, British-Norwegian director, April 15, 2024.

“Thermokarst lakes (formed when permafrost melts) are projected to release approximately 40% of ancient permafrost soil carbon emissions this century.” (Source: K.M. Walter Anthony, et al, Decadal-scale Hotspot Methane Ebullition Withing Lakes Following Abrupt Permafrost Thaw, Environmental Research Letters, Vol. 16, No. 3, 2021)

“The Tibetan Plateau is the largest alpine permafrost region in the world, accounting for approximately 75% of the total alpine permafrost area in the Northern Hemisphere. Similar to high-latitude permafrost regions, this region has experienced fast climate warming and extensive permafrost thaw, which has triggered the widespread expansion of thermokarst lakes and other types of abrupt permafrost thaw. The number of thermokarst lakes in this permafrost region is estimated to be 161,300.” (Source: Guibiao Yang, et al, Characteristics of Methane Emissions from Alpine Thermokarst Lakes on the Tibetan Plateau, Nature Communications 14, Article No. 3121, 2023)

Ecosystems throughout the planet are rapidly transforming because of human-generated global warming. After all, what does the formation of 161,300 thermokarst lakes in only the Alpine permafrost region alone say about the impact of global warming?

Scientists are expressing renewed concerns about monster climate events lurking beneath the frozen ground of permafrost, which is 15% of the exposed land surface of the Northern Hemisphere (MIT Climate Portal). And monsters lurk above solid grounding in Antarctic glacial formations, starting to fracture as fissures widen like ogres of the deep.

From the Arctic to Antarctica the planet is sagging, dripping, slouching, changing the face of 10,000 years of nature coexisting with humanity side-by-side until only recently as it transforms into an adversarial relationship. Permafrost ranks alongside the Arctic, Antarctica, Greenland, The Great Barrier Reef, and the world’s three largest rainforests as the most important determinates of this changing future. Within permafrost’s confines exist thousands of years of latent ingredients that have the potential to set the world on fire. Its impact could be transcendent.

“Most of Earth’s near-surface permafrost could be gone by 2100, an international team of scientists has concluded after comparing current climate trends to the planet’s climate 3 million years ago… The team found that the amount of near-surface permafrost could drop by 93% compared to the preindustrial period of 1850 to 1900. That’s under the most extreme warming scenario in the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.” (Source: Study: Near Surface Permafrost Will Be Nearly Gone by 2100, Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Sept. 15, 2023)

What Happens When the Permafrost Thaws (the film): “Permafrost is of huge importance to the entire planet… including one-half of Canada and two-thirds of Russia… and the Tibetan Plateau… permafrost is rock, sediment or ice that remains at or below zero degrees Celsius for two or more consecutive years… depending upon where it is found, permafrost can be millions of years old.”

Interviews in the What Happens film, living in permafrost regions, like Svalbard, Norway, when discussing noticeable climate change: “This kind of weather, it’s not supposed to be like this in October, it’s supposed to be minus 15°, clear, dry climate, and it’s not. It’s a rainstorm.”

As a result of abnormal climate behavior, especially where permafrost hangs out, the “active layer” of permafrost is getting deeper and deeper throughout the world. This is bad news. This creates more and more exposure to thousands of years of accumulation of “who knows what?” It’s happening at a fast enough rate now that it could expose 10,000,000 woolly mammoths (a very rough estimate by somebody?) as well as ancient viruses, and who knows what else?

Moreover, aside from 10,000,000 woolly mammoth skeletons with some of them kinda well-preserved skin, fur, etc., a unique study claims up to 20,000 toxic contamination sites could be exposed: “Here we identify about 4500 industrial sites where potentially hazardous substances are actively handled or stored in the permafrost-dominated regions of the Arctic. Furthermore, we estimate that between 13,000 and 20,000 contaminated sites are related to these industrial sites.”  (Source: Moritz Langer, et al, Thawing Permafrost Poses Environmental Threat to Thousands of Sites with Legacy Industrial Contamination, Nature Communications, March 28, 2023)

“But there’s something else that concerns scientists much more. The scariest thing that is happening with permafrost is what it is doing to the climate itself… permafrost acts as a storage… it locks up the carbon from dead vegetation quite effectively, and it’s accumulated over many thousands of years.” (What Happens).

Now, the freezer door is open. Nobody knows for sure what’ll come through. But the biggest concern is permafrost competing with human-driven carbon emissions like CO2. This could drive global warming to unspeakable levels.

“There’s estimated to be four times the amount of carbon in permafrost than all the human-generated CO2 emissions in modern history. The release into the atmosphere of even a fraction of this as carbon dioxide and methane will have a profound impact on the climate.” (What Happens)

“What can be done” is an open question that’s semi-addressed in the film What Happens: We can make more informed decisions and build communities that are resilient to changes, highlighted by the ways that humans are entangled with nature. In other words, adaptation is the most realistic solution, other than stopping fossil fuels, which is not happening.

Meanwhile, the backup position to frustration over ongoing CO2 emissions that are continuing to ratchet up, now at all-time highs, scientists are increasingly calling for “adaptation to climate change” instead of pounding the table for a halt to emissions. For example, a recent report by the prestigious Columbia Climate School makes the case: “Experts are warning that policymakers should consider adaptation to sea-level rise a primary concern.” But, how to adapt to permafrost thaw is an altogether different matter… the most challenging of all.

In truth, climate change is far ahead of schedule, as scientific models of yesteryear look like distant history. It’s likely that history will designate the 21st century “The Age of Adaptation” by default as countries react, after the fact, to collapsing ecosystems, which guarantees a future full of surprises beyond wildest imagination.

There are scientists who believe permafrost thawing will accelerate global warming beyond the comfort zone of life in several regions of the planet, in fact, it’s already very close to a large scale event in Pakistan, India’s Indus River Valley, eastern China, and sub-Saharan Africa.

Still, regardless of circumstances, finding a way forward to the future is in the lifeblood of humanity. In that regard, there is some good news (kinda good): According to the International Energy Agency (IEA) renewables will meet 35% of “global power generation” by 2025, thus a significant rise in CO2 emissions from global power activity is unlikely over the next few years. However global power generation is not the full enchilada of world energy: Along those lines, coal consumption is expected to drop 13.5% by 2030 but natural gas and oil will both rise as renewables, alongside fossil fuels, experience strong growth to meet increasing levels of demand. According to the IEA, fossil fuels will still account for 70% of world energy, down from today’s 82%, by 2030. This is progress but is it too slow, not enough soon enough? Moreover, and as endorsed by several oil CEOs, the IEA expects oil supply to remain robust into 2050. Hmm -global warming is all about excessive levels of fossil fuel CO2 emissions. Those emissions are not going away anytime soon, which will please the permafrost thawing gods.

As for US influence to lessen the impact of permafrost thawing, although not expressly stated as such in the legislative bill, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) provides $370 billion in clean energy investments. But can Biden’s IRA survive political wars? Is IRA bulletproof? More importantly, is it enough soon enough?

According to Barron’s d/d April 1, 2024: Trump Is Taking Aim at Biden’s Climate Law: He calls it a waste of money, and instead, has promised oil and gas CEOs favorable treatment, including scrapping Biden’s IRA, if elected, assuming they pony-up $1 billion for his campaign. Is this a bribe? It’s MAGA’s BMGW “Buy More Global Warming” to subsidize thawing of permafrost.

THE END

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This article was originally published on May 17, 2024 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

Note: This article will also be posted on the Facing Future Now! Facebook group. If you would like to comment on this article, please go to the Facebook group and post your comments there under the article posting.

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Surprising Rising Seas “Must Reads”

Photo by Ashif Ahmmed Himel on Unsplash
Photo by Ashif Ahmmed Himel on Unsplash

Surprising Rising Seas “Must Reads”

By Robert Hunziker

Sea levels are surging along the US coastline, exceeding 30-year expectations. Scientists are confused, concerned, searching for answers.

In that regard, an excellent new series by The Washington Post d/d April 29th, 2024 “Must Reads” is an eye-opening view into the impact of global warming in real time with real people and real images. For example, it’s a quick fix for anybody who doubts human-caused climate change influence on sea level rise. It’s real; it’s happening now; it should be required reading for America’s Congressional climate deniers.

And required reading for 50 million Americans who do not believe in climate change/global warming, according to a new University of Michigan study. Meanwhile a diametrically opposing viewpoint: “Planet is headed for at least 2.5C of heating with disastrous results for humanity, poll of hundreds of scientists finds.” (Source: World’s Top Climate Scientists Expect Global Heating to Blast Past 1.5C Target, The Guardian, May 8, 2024)

As a prelude to the 2024 elections, it should be noted: “When former President Donald Trump exited the Oval Office in January 2021, he left behind a record of environmental roll backs unrivaled in U.S. History.” Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 playbook will do more: MAGA Republicans Have a 920-Page Plan to Make Climate Change Worse, Heatmap News, February 15, 2024.

Here’s the opening tickler for the thought-provoking “Must Reads” series: “This past week, The Post published the first two pieces in a new series showcasing an alarming phenomenon confronting tens of millions of Americans from Texas to North Carolina: The ocean is rising across the South faster than almost anywhere. In some communities, roads increasingly are falling below the highest tides, leaving drivers stuck in repeated delays or forcing them to slog through salt water to reach homes, schools, work, and places of worship. Researchers and public officials fear that in certain places, rising waters could periodically cut off residents from essential services such as medical aid.”

A 2023 Scientific American article: U.S. Seas Are Rising at Triple the Global Average conforms to the inescapable conclusion of a need for sirens and flashing red lights to signal the dangers imbedded in Must Reads: “Sea levels have surged along the coastlines of the southeastern United States, new research finds — hitting some of their highest rates in more than a century… the effect on communities near the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean already are being observed.”

Alarmingly, sea-level rise of the Southeast and the Gulf already exceed scientific models projected for the next 30 years, prompting a mad scramble by scientists looking for answers to why sea levels are 30 years ahead of schedule. Nobody is braced for this happening so fast.

“The recent Journal of Climate study suggested that the increase may be driven by changes in a warm-water current passing through the Gulf of Mexico. And these changes may in turn be fueled by a recent slowdown in a major Atlantic Ocean current, driven by human-caused climate change,” Ibid.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration -NOAA– high-tide flooding along the Gulf and East coasts has increased considerably: High-tide flooding days are up 400% in the Southeast and 1,100% in the Gulf since 2000. It’s no wonder that property insurance premiums are spiking, and shorelines are slipping. It’s real; it’s happening now.

Solutions: Adapt to Sea Levels and Mitigate CO2 to Avoid Worst-Case

What to do: According to Sönke Dangendorf, an expert in coastal engineering at Tulane University and lead author of the new study: “We need to prepare for that: we need to adapt,” Ibid.

A new study authored by Lily Roberts at State of the Planet, Columbia Climate School Increase in West Antarctica Ice Sheet Melting Inevitable in 21st Century d/d January 26, 2024, emphasizes the necessity for adaptation measures to combat sea-level rise: “The new findings paint a grave picture for the state of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. We may now have limited capacity to stop ice-shelf collapse in the region and prevent meters of global sea-level rise. Experts are warning that policymakers should consider adaptation to sea-level rise a primary concern, as the window to safeguard the ice sheet from irreversible damage has probably now passed…. This new research paints a more realistic picture for the fate of Antarctic ice shelves and highlights the necessity for continued mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions in order to avoid the worst-case ocean warming scenario, as well as the urgent need for prioritization of adaptation to global sea-level rise.”

Adapting to rising sea levels entails moving physical structures away from coastal areas exposed to loss of shorelines and building massive sea walls, begging the all-important question of whether it’s already too late to stop, full stop, greenhouse gas CO2 emissions produced by oil and gas companies, which, in turn, causes global warming and sea level rise. What to do and how soon to do it is a nagging issue that requires immediate attention at the highest levels. Unless, of course, people simply don’t give a damn and let the chips fall where they may, aka: “avoidance coping.”

Furthermore, compounding the issue for the US, it’s not only the Southeastern and Gulf coasts, but also happening in Maine: “What were once distant projections on TV and in newspapers have now made it to the doorsteps of thousands of coastal residents in Maine: sea levels are rising at an alarming rate, with some areas in the state experiencing water levels eight inches higher than what they were in 1950. Estimates show that sea-level rise will only continue to accelerate in coming decades.” (Source: Manomet Awarded New Funding To Study Sea Level Rise Impacts On Maine’s Coastal Communities, The Manomet Team, January 25, 2023)

Humanity is smack dab in the early stages of a man-made climate crisis that’s just now starting to strut its stuff in open public The question remains whether a self-induced climate crisis can be self-reduced, but in all honesty and by all appearances, world leadership prefers to continue playing Russian roulette with a single round of fossil fuels. CO2 emissions are 76% of greenhouse gases that cause overheating of the planet, and CO2’s primary source is oil and gas production, which clearly presents the dilemma of all dilemmas.

What to do? And when is it too late? And is it possible to live without oil and gas production?

Humanity did live without oil and gas production for thousands of years pre-Colonel Drake’s heralded discovery of oil in Pennsylvania in 1859 (world population 1.2 billion at the time) that set the stage for a new oil economy. Going forward, can an overcrowding 8.1 billion world civilization exist without oil and gas production, and more importantly, can 8.1B survive with it?

It’s notable that climate scientists say halting CO2 emissions will slow the rate of increase of planetary heat. Thus, things can be done to alleviate the impact of global warming so that it’s not as horribly bad as it is without any mitigation whatsoever. Less horrible is good.

Meanwhile… HOUSTON — “Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser said Monday that the energy transition is failing, and policymakers should abandon the ‘fantasy’ of phasing out oil and gas, as demand for fossil fuels is expected to continue to grow in the coming years.” (Source: Saudi Aramco CEO Says Energy Transition is Failing, World Should Abandon ‘Fantasy’ of Phasing Out Oil, CNBC News, March 18, 2024).

Really? Seriously? Amin who?

Because international oil and gas interests plan on increasing production, by a lot, which is accepted by world leaders with open arms, there’s no stopping a sure-fire rapid rate of sea level never witnessed before. The Global Oil and Gas Tracker claims: Fourfold Increase in New Oil and Gas Fields to Push Climate Further From 1.5°C Pathway.

Assuming all-above plays out as described, meaning oil & gas producers pump full-blast like psychopaths with a death wish, the only option left is building massive sea walls, re-introducing medieval fortifications throughout the world, a throwback to the 5th-14th centuries when horse-drawn four-wheeled carts and walking were the modes of transportation, thereby establishing Net Zero once and for all.

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This article was originally published on May 10, 2024 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

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The Heat’s On – Big Time!

Photo by Matt Palmer is licensed by Unsplash.
Photo by Matt Palmer is licensed by Unsplash.

The Heat’s On – Big Time!

By Robert Hunziker

“Nearly nineteen thousand (19,000) weather stations have notched record high temperatures since Jan. 1.” (Source: Earth’s Record Hot Streak Might be a Sign of a New Climate Era, The Washington Post, April 19, 2024)

A blistering start to the 2024 year is breaking all-time global temperature records of 2023 and bringing to the forefront a looming threat of Wet Bulb temperature concerns.

Even though summer ‘24 has not officially begun for the Northern Hemisphere (solstice June 20th), according to DW News (German public broadcast network) d/d April 25th, 2024, Extreme Heat in Southeast Asia Leads to School Closures: “Hundreds of millions of people across South and Southeast Asia are facing soaring temperatures and drought as a heatwave grips the region. Dozens have been killed by heatstroke in Thailand alone. Authorities in the capital Bangkok are warning their citizens of the ‘extremely dangerous’ conditions. Schools have been closed in the Philippines and Bangladesh for tens of millions of children and the daytime temperature in Myanmar has reached nearly 46 degrees Celsius. The UN has warned that deaths due to heatstroke were widely underreported, calling heat a ‘silent killer.”

Throughout several regions: “Soaring heat and drought have been felt in recent weeks from India, which is carrying out the world’s largest election in temperatures that have risen above 40C, to the coffee plantations of Vietnam… Earlier this month, the United Nations Children’s Fund warned that more than 243 million children across East Asia and the Pacific are at risk of heat-related illnesses and death, as the region braces for an unusually hot summer… The prolonged heat wave already forced the Philippines to close some schools earlier this month, prompting a return to remote learning that became the norm during Covid, while the government urged people to save electricity as power plants were forced to shut down. (Source: Southeast Asia Heat Wave Shuts down Schools, Stokes Power Demand, Bloomberg News, April 28, 2024)

Japan Launches New Alert System as Heat Stroke Deaths Rise, JapanToday, April 25, 2024: “When the alert is issued, municipalities will open designated facilities such as libraries and community centers to residents as ‘cooling shelters.’ The system will be in effect through Oct 23 this year…The nation’s average temperature in the summer of 2023 was the highest since the Japan Meteorological agency began recording comparable data in 1898.

The Wet Bulb Temperature Peril

The Wet Bulb temperature effect is a killer that is unfortunately gaining new respect. “New research suggests that with Wet Bulb temperature above 31.5C the body can no longer cool itself and without air conditioning death follows.” (Source: Policy Watch: Countries Slow to Wake up to the Mounting Deaths from Heat Stress, Reuters, March 18, 2024)

In that regard, Wet Bulb temperature (which was formerly calcuated to be 35C or approximately 95°F/100% humidity) based upon new research can now occur at 31.5C in a range of temperature/humidity configurations: 87°F/100% humidity to 100°F/60% humidity. This means the Wet Bulb temperature barrier is lower and more of a threat than previously thought.

For an interesting, yet gruesome, aside about the risks of human death caused by Wet Bulb temperatures, Andrew Forrest, founder of Australian mining giant Fortescue, attended COP28 in Dubai last year to press politicians to take the Wet Bulb threat seriously: “If our bodies can’t release the heat, then our bodies turn into ovens and they start to cook – our blood, our organs, and, of course, the proteins which our lives depend on. They basically can never come back, it’s like cooking an egg,” he told The Ethical Corporation. “That is what is going to make increasingly large parts of the world beyond the limits of human survival,” Ibid.

Human migration, an ongoing worldwide phenomenon, is but one symptom of this devastating risk to human life.

According to EU Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), March 2024 was the 10th straight month of record global heat at 1.68°C hotter than an average March between years 1850-1900, which is a reference period for pre-industrial.

For perspective of too much heat, if monthly all-time record heat is continued year-by-year the final result is Venus, aka: “Earth’s Twin” or “Earth’s Sister Planet.” According to NASA, Venus formed in the same inner part of the solar system as Earth out of the same materials and similar in size but, over time, with a different atmosphere. Venus has a thick carbon dioxide -CO2- atmosphere that has a powerful greenhouse effect resulting in scorching temperatures over 900°F or hot enough to melt lead.

Here on Earth, with one eye on Venus, climate scientists have warned about global warming for decades; however, those warnings have been low and not taken seriously enough. But with fossil fuel CO2 emissions now at full blast, in fact quadrupling, as oil and gas companies crank up production, given enough time, the entire planet turns into a gigantic heat ball right before everybody’s eyes. Hello Venus.

At the Paris 2015 climate conference, delegates from around the world agreed that measures had to be taken to hold global average temperatures under 1.5°C above pre-industrial or suffer challenging consequences. At the time, nobody thought the 1.5C limit would be hit as early as 2024 and before global implementation of effective mitigation measures to reduce CO2 emissions, which measures, by the way, are a big farce, as CO2 emissions steadfastly increase by the year, and now accelerating, in the face of every mitigation measure adopted to date. Moreover, the often-discussed hopeful lifeline Carbon Capture & Sequestration unfortunately is not a viable solution. Al Gore calls it “a fraud” and for good reason.

Meanwhile, the outlook for global warming is bleak. (It should be noted that the IPCC calculates the 1.5C barrier on a decadal basis, but so what, it’s a big problem right now.)

In January 2024 AP News carried the following article: Earth Shattered Global Heat Record in ’23 and it’s Flirting with Warming Limit, European Agency Says: “On average, global temperatures in 2023 were 1.48 degrees Celsius (2.66 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than pre-industrial times. If annual averages reach above 1.5 degrees Celsius, the effects of global warming could become irreversible, climate scientists say.”

Humanity has pushed the planet to a limit that climate scientists warned about for decades, e.g., Dr. James Hansen, former head of NASA Space Studies, in 1988 warned the US Senate that human influence was changing the chemistry of the atmosphere that would bring global warming. He was spot on. (Global Warming Has Begun, Expert Tells Senate, The New York Times, June 24, 1988)

Now, 36 years later, there are politicians at the highest levels of government in Washington, D.C. who still deny the reality of human-caused global warming. Canada’s National Observer has taken notice: Climate Denial in American Politics d/d March 28, 2024:” Climate denial is a sinister movement that denies the science of climate change that has infiltrated deep within American politics and is still thriving today. The widespread oppression of science in America is a rarity in modern history — with the exceptions of Germany and Russia during the 1930s — and has never been seen before in a democracy to this extent.”

Sinister! Germany 1930s! Some words stick with you.

“The environment and energy portfolios of Trump’s administration appeared to be puppets under the control of the “oiligarchs” — the powerful among the energy-industrial complex. As an American election looms later this year, the thought of another Trump presidency sends shivers down the spines of many in the scientific community… This alternate reality is built on alternate facts and alternate science (i.e., fake). We have been too tolerant for too long of this deviant behaviour by elected officials; the time to vote these politicians out of office is long overdue,” Ibid.

According to CO2.Earth: “A reminder that our world is pushing the planet’s thermostat beyond safe levels at 350 ppm CO2, and that more people are needed to combine our ingenuity and resources to keep the present overshoot brief”:

April 26, 2024 428.59 ppm

April 26, 2023 424.34 ppm

April 26, 1974 333.20 ppm

Good luck with that because the last time CO2 was at a safe level was 50 years ago. The only way to return to 350 is to cut CO2 emissions, but CO2 emissions have never been so robust.

When it comes to knowledge about climate change, Americans are embarrassingly ignorant: “If you live in the U.S. and happen to get most of your news from national broadcast channels ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox… During the record-smashing year of 2023, these four TV stations spent less than 1% of their news time addressing climate change.” (Source: Here’s What Record-Breaking Temperatures Looked Like Around the Globe, Yale Climate Connections, April 29, 2024)

One year ago, the favorite web site for the White House and lawmakers, The Hill article said: “When it comes to the ‘wet bulb temperature’ nearly all of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas are under ‘extreme threat.” (Source: ‘Extreme Threat’: Large Swathe of Southern US at Dangerous ‘Wet Bulb Temperature’, The Hill, June 29, 2023)

How are the congressional delegations and state politicos from Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas doing with the climate change/global warming issue?

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This article was originally published on May 3, 2024 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

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Ocean Heat Pummels the Great Barrier Reef, Again

Photo by Yanguang Lan is licensed by Unsplash.
Photo by Yanguang Lan is licensed by Unsplash.

Ocean Heat Pummels the Great Barrier Reef, Again

By Robert Hunziker

It’s never been so bad.

The Great Barrier Reef, which is one of nature’s most iconic mosaics of biodiversity, is on the ropes because of extreme global warming. Coral bleaching at the World Heritage-listed reef is “experiencing its worst mass bleaching event on record.” (Source: Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is ‘Transforming’ from Repeated Coral Bleaching, Nature, April 19, 2024)

Subtitle to the article: “The coral reef is currently experiencing its worst mass bleaching event on record — warming waters brought on by climate change are to blame.”

This is deadly serious business and could spin out of control unless, and until, according to marine biologist Terry Hughes, James Cook University, Australia (world class marine research): “The solution to the Great Barrier Reef’s bleaching problem is clear. Reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Full stop.”

The good news/bad news is coral can recover from bleaching if the stress causing the bleaching diminishes; however, the entire globe is fast approaching non-stop repeating frequency of unchecked severity, meaning coral mortality is at stake like never before; consequences would be devastating. Coral mortality is on the line. Then, there is no recovery.

Coral reefs are called “the rainforests of the sea” and host 25% of all ocean species. Hard Coral, the building blocks of reefs, can live for more than 4,000 years.

Greenhouse gas emissions that ultimately cause bleaching are on track to quadruple via oil and gas production. According to Global Energy Monitor, oil and gas companies plan on quadrupling output by 2030. And according to Carbon Tracker (CT), every oil and gas company has flunked the CT grading system by not coming close to aligning with the central goals of a severely compromised Paris 2015 climate agreement that insists upon nation/states cutting greenhouse gas emissions, like CO2, sharply by 2030 to achieve Net Zero emissions by 2050, which is as dead as a doornail ever since fossil fuel companies took control of the International Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, thus orchestrating a grand PR scheme “we’re onside with climate science” which is really truly a grand deception, e.g., the leader of Saudi Aramco at a recent oil conference in Texas said the world should “abandon the fantasy of phasing out oil and gas.”

Meanwhile, unprecedented bleaching is very similar to ongoing degradation of the Amazon Rainforest that’s caused by drought sequences occurring too severely, too often, another casualty of global warming. According to NASA: “The rainforest doesn’t react like it used to. It does not have enough time between droughts to heal itself and regrow. Throughout all recorded history, this has never been witnessed.” (Source: Amazon Rainforest is Drying Out. How Much More Abuse Can It Take? DownToEarth).

Humanity is in the midst of massive pre-disaster warnings of ecosystem crashing events on a global scale never witnessed before (check-out geophysicist Bill McGuire’s warning at the end, herein), but it happens where nobody lives and thus does not impact society enough, not yet, to take charge to do something constructive. Thus, the bane of modern-day society’s artificial environments, i.e., concrete, glass, asphalt, steel, fabricated wood, aluminum, chemical textiles, all not connected to nature. People do not connect with impending danger found throughout the planet in nature’s wilderness. They do not live where nature carries a burden that highlights human ignorance.

According to geophysicist Bill McGuire, it’s time to face up to the harsh reality that the global warming curse is attacking/degrading the planet’s most sacred, most iconic natural ecosystems. Portions of the Amazon Rainforest are now emitting CO2 in competition with fossil fuels at the same time as severe bleaching mortality, like the Grim Reaper, stares down at the Great Barrier Reef.

The extraordinary bleaching event is global; it’s not only the Great Barrier Reef; it’s everywhere on the planet and deeply concerning, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA: “From February 2023 to April 2024, significant coral bleaching has been documented in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres of each major ocean basin,” according to Derek Manzello, Ph.D., NOAA CRW coordinator. (Source: NOAA Confirms 4th Global Coral Bleaching Event, NOAA.gov, April 15, 2024.

Coral bleaching, when stressed, expels colorful resident zooxanthellae. According to a report released on 17 April by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, the Australian government’s reef management agency, the reef is experiencing its worst mass bleaching event on record. The Reef Snapshot claims three-quarters of the entire reef is showing signs of bleaching and nearly 40 percent is showing high or extreme bleaching. The report is based on aerial surveys of 1,080 of the Great Barrier Reef’s estimated 3,000 individual reefs.

“We’ve never seen this level of heat stress across all three regions of the Great Barrier Reef,” according to Brisbane-based marine biologist Lissa Schindler, the Australian Marine Conservation Society, Ibid.

The Great Barrier Reef is experiencing its 5th mass bleaching event in only 8 years. It’s now increasing in frequency. Over the past 6 years, bleaching has occurred every other year, 2020, 2022, 2024 with regularity. According to Terry Hughes of James Cook University, there’s not enough time for the reef to recover. This is getting deadly serious at the same time as fossil fuel companies crank up CO2 emissions by a factor of four.

All of this is happening as global sea surface temperatures, the main protagonist, broke records in 2023: “There have been very high temperatures driven by climate change all across the world, and there has been coral bleaching in many other countries,” according to environmental scientist Roger Beeden, chief scientist for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.

Several respondents to articles like this have commented that oil is woven into the fabric of neoliberal capitalism so tightly that it’s hard to shake loose but not impossible.

But how much longer can rainforests and coral reefs hold on?

Of more than passing interests: According to a recent Futurism article: Scientist Terrified by How the Climate is Falling Apart d/d March 9, 2024: “We’re staring down the barrel of an impending climate crisis, and according to University College London geophysical and climate hazards professor Bill McGuire: ‘We should be absolutely terrified of what’s still to come.”

In short, world leadership doesn’t know which way to turn next, like a deer in the headlights, meaning it’s incumbent upon climate scientists to tell it like it is to arouse the public: “Scientists are forced to ‘rouse the public’ to try and force through the enormous changes required to curb global heating… While those of us working in the climate science field know the true picture, and understand the implications for our world, most others do not. And this is a problem — a big one. That kind of gap in our knowledge could prove fatal, allowing narratives of climate denial to flourish.” (McGuire)

According to McGuire, “fear is very much part of the equation, instead of relying on sanitized versions of the truth, informing the public of the cold hard facts could be transformative.”
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This article was originally published on April 26, 2024 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

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Herbert Marcuse – New Left Revival?

Photo of Herbert Marcuse, provided by the Marcuse family and licensed by CC BY-SA 3.0 DEED
Photo of Herbert Marcuse, provided by the Marcuse family and licensed by CC BY-SA 3.0 DEED

Herbert Marcuse – New Left Revival?

By Robert Hunziker

World events serve as a stage of constant search for how best to construct and maintain society, which is an underlying theme of some decades ago found in the works of Herbert Marcuse, 1898–1979, German-American philosopher of prominent fame during the 1960s considered an intellectual giant of his time.

Charles Reitz, widely recognized as a scholar of Herbert Marcuse, has brought to life his ideology for a prosperous healthy society, proposing that “nature is an ally” in his book The Revolutionary Ecological Legacy of Herbert Marcuse, 284 pgs. Daraja Press, 2023.

Today, it can be argued that a byzantine world of discordant parties, i.e., (1) global ultra-high-end capitalism (2) neofascism (3) racism (4) anti-establishmentarianism (5) flagging democracy are converging altogether at an explosive point in time in a new chapter of human history, and hopefully, as an aside, everlasting fusion technology (that really works) to take the heat off global warming but still decades in the making.

The Revolutionary Ecological Legacy of Herbert Marcuse by Charles Reitz (Fair Use)
The Revolutionary Ecological Legacy of Herbert Marcuse by Charles Reitz (Fair Use)

The works of Herbert Marcuse in the spirit of a hearty revival of the New Left are timely and may be necessary in today’s world to re-establish some semblance of sanity by offering balance to a geopolitical order that seems utterly confused and directionless and at each other’s throats.

Author of Eros and Civilization (1955) and One-Dimensional Man (1964) Marcuse was thrust onto the big stage as the preeminent theorist of the New Left, arguably more relevant today than during the 1960s. His widely read One-Dimensional Man exposes the inherent weaknesses in capitalism and communism found in a stifling conformity of life (somewhat in the spirit of Aldus Huxley’s Brave New World) via modern modes of domination and social control but hopeful of human freedom and happiness by way of liberation, as expressed in Eros and Civilization.

“The distinguishing feature of advanced industrial society is its effective suffocation of those needs which demand liberation.” (One-Dimensional Man, pg. 7)

Charles Reitz’s comprehensive study of Marcuse: “These works challenged corporate capitalism’s illusions of democracy characterized by consumerism, cultural anaesthetization, intellectual compliance, environmental degradation, and war as untenable forms of wasted abundance and political freedom.”

Accordingly, “If the New Left emphasizes the struggle for the restoration of nature, for public parks and beaches, for spaces of tranquility and beauty; if it demands a new sexual morality, the liberation of women, then it fights against material conditions imposed by the capitalist system and reproducing this system. (Marcuse 1972, 17) Marcuse’s political-philosophical vision continues to offer intelligent strategic perspectives on current concerns—especially issues of neofascist white supremacy, hate speech, hate crimes, police brutality, environmental destruction, and education as monocultural social manipulation. These troubles are profound, yet they can be countered through a Marcusean strategy of revolutionary ecological liberation and women’s emancipation— radical socialism as I will attempt to show in my concluding chapter 10 below. Marcuse’s posthumously published Paris Lectures at Vincennes University, 1974 underscored his belief that the women’s movement was one of the most important political forces for system change.” (The Revolutionary Ecological Legacy of Herbert Marcuse, pg. 145)

Marcuse’s work lays the groundwork for the 99% to be awakened, politically prepared, and strengthened, calling for a new ecosocialist world system Charles Reitz refers to as “EarthCommonWealth” with emphasis on equality and liberation of labor in a world of nature’s restoration. He interconnects the basic elements of a good life by removing the rotting influence of capitalistic excesses that stealthily brainwash the subconscious, by-the-hour, day-in, day-out via television, social networking galore, city bus posters, blaring radio ads, freeway billboards, insolent mobile phone ads, subway wall glitterati of comparables for purchase, on credit, over time.

As explained by Reitz, EarthCommonWealth is a revolutionary alternative to the “misuse of limited natural resources for profit.” Accordingly, this misuse is at the heart of a disruptive world climate system and disadvantaged lifestyle for labor throughout the world.

In the context of Marcuse’s criticisms of contemporary society, Reitz zeroes in on America: “Racial animosity, anti-immigrant scapegoating, and a resurgent nationalism/ patriotism are being orchestrated today in the troubled system of American/ global capitalism. These are neo-populist/neo-fascist instrumentalities of social control and economic stabilization… All this is said without mentioning the name of Donald Trump, though it has clear relevance to recent political developments in terms of a resurgence of reactionary rhetoric and racist tendencies on the right.”

“One-dimensional thought is systematically promoted by the makers of politics and their purveyors of mass information. Their universe of discourse is populated by self-validating hypotheses, which, incessantly and monopolistically repeated, become hypnotic definitions or dictations.” (One-Dimensional Man, pg. 14)

Underlying America’s extreme racial animosity used as a political weapon, radicalization of education provides a contemptuous convenience that “Marcuse anticipated back in the 1960s of counterrevolutionary tendencies now raging in higher education to reduce the liberal arts in American general education to the conservatively filtered monocultural residue of an elitist, Anglocentric curriculum.”

Reitz defines democracy’s experiment with capitalism, especially in the eyes of younger generations, portending a different future that older generations should contemplate: “Given today’s workforce discontent and destabilization, it is no wonder that an openness to socialist alternatives is taking hold among younger people. An opinion piece in The New York Times, (Goldberg 2017) carried the heading “No Wonder Millennials Hate Capitalism.” Millennials are the “older cousins” of Generation Z (Volpe 2). The piece concludes that the “rotten morality” behind today’s intensifying inequalities is more apparent than ever, hence radicalizing young people. This reflects the steady growth among the youth of what Marcuse called the “New Sensibility”—new needs, generated under capitalism, but which capitalism cannot fulfill, for gender equality, ecological economics, and anti-racism.”

“New needs unfulfilled by the current system” are fully exposed for all to see by America’s broken-down dysfunctional politics of infighting as a normal course of governing, failing to address “new needs.” How is it possible to take this seriously?

“Today the 1% is armed with its own theory; the 99% is not. A fundamentally different outlook is necessary. The main problem, as I see it, is to develop an incisive vision for humanity as sensuous living labor. I have developed in this volume a labor theory of ethics, an ethical realism grounded on the mutual respect, cooperation, and reciprocity of commonwealth labor… EarthCommonWealth envisions the displacement and transcendence of capitalist oligarchy as such, not simply its most ugly and destructive components. This is a green economic alternative because its ecological vision sees all living things and their non-living earthly surroundings as a global community capable of a dignified, deliberate coexistence,” pg. 257.

The Revolutionary Ecological Legacy of Herbert Marcuse by Charles Reitz with an afterword by Nnimmo Bassey is an antidote, a breath of fresh air, to society’s state of confusion and misdirection, and above all else, a sense of relief knowing there is another way that is much better.

This short review does not come close to doing justice to Reitz’s remarkable work that shines a beam of enlightenment, with impressive detail and brilliant source material, on a better course for the world’s 99%. It should be in the library of every serious advocate for a better ecologically safe existence, a much better existence.

The Revolutionary Ecological Legacy of Herbert Marcuse needs to be studied, reread, and then reread and studied again, and then shared. It’s worth it!
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This article was originally published on April 19, 2024 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

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The Death of Paris ’15

Photo by Mika Baumeister is licensed by Unsplash.
Photo by Mika Baumeister is licensed by Unsplash.

The Death of Paris ’15

By Robert Hunziker

The Paris climate agreement of 2015 set the standards for how nation/states must approach the net zero target year 2050 by reducing greenhouse gas emissions in stages, starting with major reductions by 2030.

Paris ’15 is dead.

According to a new report by Global Energy Monitor of San Francisco, at least 20B barrels of oil equivalent has been discovered since the International Energy Agency statement of fact in 2021 that no new oil, gas, or coal development should proceed if the world is to reach net zero by 2050.

Nevertheless, as of today, fossil fuel producers worldwide plan on quadrupling output from newly approved projects by 2030, diametrically opposite what was agreed upon at Paris ’15. Effectively, the much-heralded savior Paris Climate Agreement of 2015 is torn to shreds.

Disregard for the agreement is even worse than first blush would indicate, to wit: “Last year, at least 20 oil and gas fields were readied and approved for extraction following discovery, sanctioning the removal of 8bn barrels of oil equivalent. By the end of this decade, the report found, the fossil-fuel industry aims to sanction nearly four times this amount – 31bn barrels of oil equivalent – across 64 additional new oil and gas fields.” (Source: Surge of New US-Led Oil and Gas Activity Threatens to Wreck Paris Climate Goals, The Guardian, March 2024)

Fossil fuel exploration and production is on a roll, on a high, indomitably conquering every warning by climate scientists of past decades. The big oil companies, in concert with the major developed nations, are flipping the bird at Paris ’15. It’s a worthless scrap of paper. They’re drilling and increasing production 4-fold, period!

The United States leads the way. It has produced more crude oil than any country has in history for the past six years running. Nobody is outproducing America. Making matters even more poignantly difficult to swallow and pouring salt into the wound, the leader of Saudi Aramco at a recent conference in Texas said the world should “abandon the fantasy of phasing out oil and gas.”

Meanwhile, it was recently reported that the senior producers are “way off track” on emissions goals that, from the start, were faux commitments with a wink and a grin. According to Carbon Tracker, production plans for the 25 largest oil and gas companies do not come close to aligning with the central goal of Paris ’15, which is now lifeless.

Carbon Tracker’s Paris Alignment Scorecard reads like a lunatic gang of young druggies flunking out of high school. Letter grades run from A to H with each oil company failing. The highest ranking was a lowly D. And every company plans on expansion of oil and gas production, near term. Making matters even worse, according to Carbon Tracker, oil and gas companies are reneging on prior climate commitments. No big surprise there.

All of this is now coming out into the open in the aftermath of COP28 (UN climate change conference) held in Dubai last year, an event designed and led by fossil fuel interests. How could the UN and associated scientists be so fooled, publicly ridiculed, allowing the fossil fuel industry to hijack their most important UN climate change conference?

Now that the oil and gas industry has hijacked UN climate change conferences, it should come as no surprise that COP29 in 2024 will be held in the Azerbaijani capital city Baku. Azerbaijan has been an oil producer for over 100 years as one of the world’s top producers with fossil fuels responsible for over 90% of the country’s exports, providing two-thirds of its state budget.

According to analysts at Rystad Energy, sourced by Global Witness, Azerbaijan plans to increase fossil fuel production by one-third over the next 10 years. (The Guardian) Meanwhile, in somewhat of a mixed message, the country claims to be an alternative energy leader in the world and plans on going to 30% renewables by 2030, which is standard PR by oil companies nowadays.

One wonders what this means for activists and climate scientists and UN climate conferences. Will the fossil fuel industry continue to dominate UN climate conferences? But, even more significantly, what does this mean for planetary global warming?

A recent article in Space.com deals with the issue: How The Runaway Greenhouse Gas Effect Can Destroy a Planet’s Habitability — Including Earth’s, Space, com, December 19, 2023.

Here’s the storyline: “Using advanced computer simulations, scientists have shown how easily a runaway greenhouse effect can rapidly transform a habitable planet into a hellish world inhospitable to life.”

Here’s the hard part: “The team of astronomers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and CNRS laboratories of Paris and Bordeaux saw that after initial stages of a planet’s climate transformation, the planet’s atmosphere, structure, and cloud coverage get significantly altered, such that a difficult-to-halt runaway effect starts to commence. Alarmingly, this process could be initiated here on Earth with just a slight change in solar luminosity or by a global average temperature rise of just a few tens of degrees. Even those minor changes could lead to our planet becoming totally inhospitable.”

The brutal result is what’s called “a hellscape.” But no timeline is mentioned. It is just one of those things that might happen sometime in the future, hopefully, nobody lives to see it, or conversely, nobody lives.

One thing is probably clear, by continuing to pump fossil fuels, enriching the atmosphere with one of the most powerful greenhouse gases, CO2 constituting 76% of all greenhouse gases, the odds and timing of the runaway greenhouse gas effect get closer by the day, and now, thanks to a new “let’s drill the hell out of it” attitude, faster than anybody realizes.

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This article was originally published on April 15, 2024 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

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Unchartered Territory Dead Ahead

Image by NOAA.
Image by NOAA.

Uncharted Territory Dead Ahead

By Robert Hunziker

When America’s leading authority on the climate system Gavin Schmidt of NASA throws his hands up in the air, exclaiming, we’ve got a knowledge gap for the first time since satellites started tuning into the planet’s climate system, what does this imply about future conditions for the planet?

Gavin Schmidt, Director, Goddard Institute for Space Studies: “In general, the 2023 temperature anomaly has come out of the blue, revealing an unprecedented knowledge gap perhaps for the first time since about 40 years ago, when satellite data began offering modellers an unparalleled, real-time view of Earth’s climate system.” (Source: Gavin Schmidt, Climate Models Can’t Explain 2023’s Huge Heat Anomaly – We Could be in Uncharted Territory, Nature, March 19, 2024)

This admission by the nation’s top climate scientist, stating we may be in uncharted territory, is beyond disturbing, especially within the context of a chaotic climate system that, by all appearances, has gone haywire. Hopefully, it is only “an anomaly,” as stated by Dr. Schmidt because if it is the opposite, or a “new normal,” then big trouble is already at the doorstep. After all, 2023 was way beyond normal with an extraordinarily negative upward trajectory, but if it is now the new normal, what’s next?

Already, current temperature trends are knocking the socks off previously much lower trends, in fact, setting new records one after another in rapid-fire succession; it’s obvious that something is seriously out of kilter, March 2024 is the ninth consecutive month of record-setting heat, each month hotter, and according to NOAA scientists, ocean temperatures for 2023 were “off the charts.” Who’s guessing where this is headed?

Radio Ecoshock by Alex Smith, broadcasting on 105 radio stations, is one of the best sources (a gem) when searching for answers as to what’s going on with the planet. A recent Radio Ecoshock headline addresses this burning issue head on: “Why So Hot So Fast?” Gavin Schmidt is interviewed d/d April 3, 2024. Radio Ecoshock’s opening statement: “Climate models can’t explain 2023’s huge heat anomaly – ‘we could be in uncharted territory.’ Meanwhile, so much ice is melting at the Poles, Earth’s rotation is changing.”

That’s a mouthful that should rattle the cage of anybody who’s even the least bit concerned about the future of life support on Earth. Uncharted territory is not a welcomed concept in the context of a climate system that’s already off its rocker.

The evidence of ongoing climate chaos is found as animals of all stripes head for the hills or overpower foreign frontiers for survival. Animals, wild ones as well as tame humans (?) catch the scent early when things change and migrate northward. This is a prime example of what’s behind America’s sticky migration issue. Central American environs are a hot house where crops don’t grow so well any longer. According to the World Meteorological Organization, 2022 relative to 1991-2020 in central and eastern Mexico and the Yucatán Peninsula and Guatemala and El Salvador registered +1°C to +3°C throughout the region. Whereas Paris ’15 set a key threshold holding temps to less than +1.5°C (but compared to 1850, not 1991) or trouble ensues. Well, the consequences of excessiveness are only too evident. One solution for too much heat – Migrate north. According to the US Institute of Peace: Climate change has disrupted up to 70% of crops in some regions of Central America. Solution – Move north. Germanwatch’s Global Climate Risk Index claims Honduras is the single most impacted country by climate change in the world over the past decade.

According to the Council on Foreign Relations: “Climate migration occurs when people leave their homes due to extreme weather events, including floods, heat waves, droughts, and wildfires, as well as slower-moving climate challenges such as rising seas and intensifying water stress. This form of migration is increasing because the world has not been able to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and halt global average temperature rise, which leads to more climate disasters.” (Source: Climate Change Is Fueling Migration. Do Climate Migrants Have Legal Protections, Council on Foreign Relations d/d December 19, 2022.

According to Schmidt’s Nature article: “For the past nine months, mean land and sea surface temperatures have overshot previous records each month by up to 0.2 °C — a huge margin at the planetary scale. A general warming trend is expected because of rising greenhouse-gas emissions, but this sudden heat spike greatly exceeds predictions made by statistical climate models that rely on past observations. Many reasons for this discrepancy have been proposed, but yet, no combination of them has been able to reconcile our theories with what has happened.”

What then is the outlook according to NASA?

“If the anomaly does not stabilize by August — a reasonable expectation based on previous El Niño events — then the world will be in uncharted territory. It could imply that a warming planet is already fundamentally altering how the climate system operates, much sooner than scientists had anticipated.” (Schmidt)

To say a warming planet is already fundamentally altering how the climate system operates is tantamount to saying that the climate system’s aberrant behavior is on automatic pilot.

Isn’t this what everybody has been dreading for decades?

According to Schmidt, the answer to that disturbing prospect will be obvious by August 2024. That’s only 4 months away.

Meanwhile, migrants are already at the doorstep, even as the climate system may only be 120 days away from entering uncharted territory, which can only mean things will get a lot worse. Assuming we officially enter uncharted territory, where will the massive overbearing onslaught of the hungry, the thirsty, the lost souls, these itinerants go?

The Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

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This article was originally published on April 12, 2024 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

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WMO Bright Red Alert

Image by NOAA
Image by NOAA

WMO Bright Red Alert?

By Robert Hunziker

The World Meteorological Organization (Geneva, Switzerland) State of Climate 2023 Report by Celste Saulo, secretary general, was issued on March 19th, 2024.

“As secretary general of the World Meteorological Organization, I am now sounding the Red Alert about the state of the climate.”

The WMO has issued an annual State of the Climate Report for more than 30 years. Accordingly, Dr. Celste Saulo’s release of the Flagship Report: “The year 2023 set new records for every single climate indicator. This annual report shows that the climate crisis is the defining challenge that humanity faces, closely intertwined with the inequality crisis as witnessed by growing food insecurity, population displacement, and biodiversity loss.”

According to WMO Secretary-General Saulo (Ph.D. Atmospheric Sciences, University of Buenos Aires): “Scientific knowledge of climate change has existed for more than five decades, and yet we’ve missed an entire generation of opportunity. We must base today’s decisions upon future generations rather than short-term economic interests.”

Economic interests might consider taking a back seat by adjusting, considerably lower, its “infinite growth as soon as possible” footprint so the planet can catch its breath. Short-term economic interests as a feature of the neoliberal brand of capitalism are antithetical to the staid principles of climate science. They simply don’t mix.

The inherent antagonism between neoliberalism’s free market dictates of “follow the money” versus the planet’s complex ecosystems that don’t need money is addressed in Global Social Challenges d/d May 4, 2021, The University of Manchester: “It seems then, that in order to prevent total ecological breakdown, we need to radically change our relationship with the way we produce and use resources. Any system that provides profit as an incentive, seems to always lead to exploitation of the earths finite resources. The idea of unlimited growth continuing indefinitely is the key culprit in climate breakdown.”

What’s more important for life: Profits or Mother Nature?

Accordingly, economic interests risk sudden failure, blindsided without the support of planetary ecosystems, i.e., planetary infrastructure which is increasingly under attack like never before. Throughout the biosphere, ecosystems struggle, rainforests emitting CO2, ice caps melting, Greenland a basket case, permafrost methane bubbling to surface, glaciers clobbered, and severe drought repeatedly hitting nations of the world, everywhere worldwide, Europe much harder, especially Spain subject to risk of 75% desertification with temperatures running in-excess of +2°C pre-industrial throughout the EU.

Some highlights of WMO’s State of the Climate:

Climate change is an existential threat to vulnerable populations everywhere: “The cost of climate action may seem high, but the costs of climate inaction are much higher.”

Glaciers, as of 2023, had the largest loss on record. Yet, glaciers are the “water towers of the world, and we’re losing them fast. They are freshwater reservoirs.”

A separate report by the Swiss Academy of Sciences, coincided with WMO’s Red Alert: “Swiss glaciers are melting at a rapidly increasing rate. The acceleration is dramatic, with as much ice being lost in only two years as was the case between 1960 and 1990. The two extreme consecutive years have led to glacier tongues collapsing and the disappearance of many smaller glaciers. For example, measurements of the St. Annafirn glacier in the canton of Uri had to be suspended as a result.”

On a positive note, according to the secretary-general: “A glimmer of hope… in 2023 clean renewable energy increased nearly 50% over 2022.” Africa has huge renewable potential that is only using 1% of renewable investments. “We must focus on renewables for Africa.”

Omar Badur, WMO Head of Climate Monitoring

A key climate Indicator: Global temperatures 2023 were the warmest on record at 1.45°C above 1850-1900 average. Past 9 years, warmest 9 years on record. This trend appears endless.

Sea ice loss in Antarctica was one of the major climate features reported in 2023. As a result, 2023 saw the highest rise in sea level ever. The rate doubled. In previous decades it was 2.13 mm per year. The recent decade recorded 4.17 mm/yr., nearly double.

The most extreme climate events for the year related to heat and extreme precipitation:

Extreme heat during the summer occurred (1) Japan had the hottest summer on record (2) Australia the hottest July-Sept on record (3) unprecedented wildfires in Canada (4) SE Asia extreme heat April/May (5) All-Europe extreme heat in summer (6) SE United States exceptionally hot summer (7) Mid-South America March, September extreme heat waves. All of which led to excessive mortality and massive forest fires.

WMO’s discussion of extreme precipitation and deficit precipitation references the impact on agricultural food security and flooding. Most of South America, Central America, and North America experienced extreme dry episodes. North Africa experienced a long drought with some dam reservoirs at nearly zero percent of capacity. Water deficits are defining significant parts of the African continent.

Meanwhile, pervasive flooding was seen throughout, especially in China and New Zealand, the worst flooding in recorded history. For example, in August 2023 more than 1,000,000 were forced to flee homes in China’s northeastern Hebei province, thereafter over one month to recede.

A major concern, maybe most significant of all, and most hidden from sight, major changes in the oceans, over time, become irreversible. According to WMO’s report, 80-90% of the oceans recorded marine heatwaves in 2023. Like drought on land, excessive heatwaves lead to desertification of the oceans. However, in contrast, changes in the ocean are not as fast as atmospheric changes, and as such. once a change is established in the oceans, it’s irreversible. This is an extremely worrying trend as 80-90% experienced heatwaves.

Confirming WMO’s observations, according to the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the U.S. National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, 2o23 ocean temperatures were, in the words of researchers: “Off the charts.” (Source: Astounding Ocean Temperatures in 2023 Intensified Extreme Weather, Data Shows, The Guardian, Jan. 11, 2024)

According to Secretary General Celste: “We are having temperatures that are way above what we used to have, and our populations are not prepared to cope with that. Their infrastructure is not prepared. Their homes are not prepared. That’s why we spoke about a Red Alert.”

Future UN climate conferences should consider focusing on adaptation measures for countries infrastructure to withstand the onslaught of drought, wildfires, floods, and sea level rise. After all, insurance companies are raising rates and, in some areas, dropping coverage altogether to adapt to climate change’s impact on bottom line profits, but in the harshest fashion, leaving the public to fend for itself, hopefully finding state-sponsored support.

In contrast to insurance companies, which are running for the hills as global warming slashes profits, after 30 consecutive years of UN climate meetings, every issue brought before the plenary body of experts ends up worse until the following annual meeting, when it is again discussed one more time as an existential threat that gets progressively worse by the next annual session, on and on it goes. Yet, nothing about adaptation.

In fact, the UNEP Adaptation Gap Report 2023 found the world underfinanced, underprepared, with inadequate investment and thus exposed to “slow progress on climate adaptation.”

Adaptation to the forces of climate change at UN climate conferences, as a major focus, would likely be a welcomed relief and a more appropriate topic than whining about excessive fossil fuel CO2 emissions now that climate change/global warming is starting to look more and more like an out-of-control freight train barreling down the mountainside.

In line with publication of WMO’s 2023 flagship report, January 2024 was the hottest January on record.

Moreover, as reported by NOAA, February 2024 was the hottest February on record. February is the ninth consecutive month of record heat.

Now that the climate system is setting new hottest temperature records month-by-month, it goes without saying, it’s a deadly dangerous affair.

How long can this trend last?

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This article was originally published on April 5, 2024 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

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Carbon Capture, too Little too Late?

Photo by Jas Min is licensed by Unsplash
Photo by Jas Min is licensed by Unsplash

Carbon Capture, too Little too Late?

By Robert Hunziker

Will carbon capture technology bail society out of the latest version of greenhouse gas emissions, CO2 suddenly doubling its rate of increase when compared to the past decade, in breathtaking fashion, thus overheating the ocean and the Arctic and Antarctica and hammering Greenland?

The relationship between greenhouse gas emissions and carbon capture technology is best seen as a metaphor of athletes in the Olympic games: Team Emissions is setting world records in the 100-meter dash; Team Carbon Capture is still training for the 10,000-meter marathon.

Direct Air Capture (DAC) and Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) fall far short of meeting timelines as global emissions are outrunning all timelines, increasing two-fold within only one year, see: CO2 Bursting into the Atmosphere (3-22-2024). CO2 is on a rampage like never before and heating things up, Brazil’s heat index hit 144°F recently.

According to MIT, to stay “even-with-the-board on CO2 annually,” nearly 20 billion tons needs to be captured each year. It’s overwhelming. Meanwhile, Earth soaks up half of the 37 billion metric tons of CO2 emissions per annum. With all of that, it still leaves too much CO2 already in the atmosphere to take the heat off global warming.

Since 1850, approximately 1,000 gigatons of human-generated CO2 is hanging out in the atmosphere, which is 1,000 billion metric tons out of a total of 2,400 billion metric tons emitted (the planet absorbing more than one-half). A large amount needs to be removed to lower atmospheric CO2 ideally to at least 350 ppm from 426 ppm. All-in, CO2 removal is a multi-billion-ton job. It’s generational work kinda like building Notre Dame Cathedral, started in 1163, finished in 1345.

Total CO2 captured by current Direct Air Capture (DAC): “To date, 130 DAC plants are under development worldwide, with 27 commissioned and 18 completed (according to the International Energy Agency.) All of these are small-scale facilities with a current collective CO2 removal capacity of about 11,000 metric tons annually” (Source: U.S. Unveils Plans for Large Facilities to Capture Carbon Directly from Air, Science, August 11, 2023).

“Every second about 1,079 metric tons of CO2 are released worldwide due to burning fossil fuels.” (NASA) Meaning, current capacity removes 11 seconds worth per year.

The IRA Biden plan aims to create four DAC hubs over the next 10 years, each capable of removing and storing at least 1 million tons of CO2 each year. As part of the program’s rollout, DOE officials also announced funding for an additional 19 conceptual and engineering studies of potential future DAC plants. (Source: U.S. Unveils Plans for Large Facilities to Capture Carbon Directly from Air, Science, August 11, 2023).’

In strong opposition to DAC, Mark Jacobson, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University says DAC is a waste of funds. His book “100% Clean, Renewable Energy and Storage for Everything describes a 100% renewable energy economy. Nevertheless, there’s still a problem of too much CO2 already in the atmosphere, which is already upending the climate system; 100% renewables will not remove it. There are no easy answers.

Meanwhile, the oil and gas industry claims it can continue to produce as much oil and gas as it wants to because Carbon Capture and Sequester -CCS- will effectively neutralize CO2 emissions. No, it will not.

According to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis: “Even if realized at its full potential, CCS will only account for about 2.4% of the world’s carbon mitigation by 2030, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).”

The real issue is not whether carbon can be captured; it can be captured; however, in the big picture, the real world, carbon emissions are hardened over centuries; carbon capture is a fledgling, mostly in a testing phase.

According to the International Energy Agency, 40 commercial facilities are already in operation applying Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS). Since January 2022 developers have announced plans for 50 more operations capturing around 125 Mt CO2 per year. “Nevertheless, even at such a level, CCUS deployment would remain substantially below (about 1/3rd) the 1.2 Gt CO2 per year that is required in the Net Zero Emissions by 2050 (NZE) scenario.” (Source: Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage, IEA50)

To seriously make a big dent in atmospheric carbon dioxide or CO2, which is 76% of all greenhouse gas emissions, technology is going to have to accelerate considerably, in fact, beyond considerably.

On a hopeful note, some R&D looks promising, even though still likely falling into the too little, too late category. For example, Klaus Lackner, founding director, Center for Negative Emissions has designed a prototype Mechanical Tree, on display at the Our Future Planet exhibition at the Science Museum, London from May 2021 until September 2022. The tree is constructed of sorbent tiles which cyclically extend into the air and then retract for regeneration, passively soaking up CO2 from the air using Passive Direct Air Capture (PDAC), supposedly 1,000 times more efficient than natural trees that use photosynthesis. The captured CO2 can be sequestered in underground geological formations or sold for industrial use.

MIT on carbon removal: “… a nearly impossible task, says Charles Harvey, an MIT professor of civil and environmental engineering who has studied both natural and technological ways to take CO2 out of the atmosphere. Removing CO2 is one of the hardest and most expensive ways we could address climate change—far more difficult than simply emitting less carbon in the first place.” (Source: How Much Carbon Dioxide Would We Have to Remove from The Air to Counteract Climate Change? Climate Portal, MIT October 26, 2023)

“In fact, says Harvey, the energy demands of direct air capture are so great that ‘canceling out’ humanity’s emissions this way would take more energy than we’re getting from burning fossil fuels in the first place,” Ibid.

“Today’s approaches can capture only a tiny fraction of what’s needed: around 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide annually, according to one recent study.” (Smith, S.M, et al, The State of Carbon Dioxide Removal, 1st Edition, 2023)

“To ‘turn back the clock’ on climate change, we would need to capture today’s emissions plus this enormous backlog. To reach 350 parts per million, the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide in 1988, humans would need to remove more than 500 billion tons. To get the atmosphere back to where it was before humans began to burn fossil fuels en masse would mean catching and storing more than 900 billion tons.” (MIT Climate Portal)

Based upon a reasonably comprehensive study, it appears that carbon capture technology is/will be too little too late. Global warming is not waiting around.

Nevertheless, R&D is in a fluid state, hopefully (fingers crossed) it meets the challenge (big question mark) because global warming has morphed into global heat way ahead of schedule, and climate change has become a regular on nightly national news programs, featuring (1) entire boreal forests burning like a furnace (2) floods demolishing thousands of homes in China and Pakistan, killing thousands (3) droughts impeding commercial barge traffic on Europe’s famous rivers (4) as nuclear power plants (France) power-down because of low river water flow (5) and thirsty Europeans standing in line for bottled water in France and Italy in the summer of ’22.

Meanwhile, March 2024 news items of interest: 7,200 miles away from Europe, similar issues: Persistent Drought is Drying Out Chile’s Drinking Water, Reuters News, March 20, 2024. And on another continent, Johannesburg (pop. 5.6M) CBS News headlines March 21, 2024: South Africa Water Crisis Sees Taps Run Dry across Johannesburg.

That’s just for starters as UN analysts claim 75% of Spain is subject to desertification.

Climate change is literally changing the face of the world.

And that’s not even mentioning one of the biggest concerns of the Northern Hemisphere. Greenland’s northern-most glaciers are very tipsy way too early. The icy island is on the ropes; surprisingly, it rained at Greenland’s summit (10,500 feet) for the first time ever as the entire ice infrastructure goes off-the-charts with a summertime melt rate of 30,000,000 tons per hour or 720,000,000 tons per day, 20-25% more than previously thought, according to recent studies.

And don’t even think about West Antarctica or Brazil’s Amazon rainforest. According to NASA: “The rainforest doesn’t react like it used to. It does not have enough time between droughts to heal itself and regrow. Throughout all recorded history, this has never been witnessed.”

What to do?

Everybody’s hopeful that human ingenuity, i.e., technology, will bail us out. Will it?

Meantime: “Every major global climate record was broken last year and 2024 could be worse.” (Celeste Saulo, secretary-general, World Meteorological Organization)
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This article was originally published on March 29, 2024 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

Note: This article will also be posted on the Facing Future Now! Facebook group. If you would like to comment on this article, please go to the Facebook group and post your comments there under the article posting.

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Climate Agreements Suck

Photo by Agustín Lautaro is licensed by Unsplash
Photo by Agustín Lautaro is licensed by Unsplash

Climate Agreements Suck

By Robert Hunziker

Climate agreements suck. There are no real enforcement provisions. Many signatories cheat. Some don’t report at all. Moreover, reported data is highly suspect. It’s a worldwide scandal recently exposed by YaleEnvironment360.

Evidence of cheating is found in the atmosphere: Global CO2 is on a rampage, skyrocketing upwards like never before, double-to-triple rates of only one year ago, see: CO2 Bursting into the Atmosphere, March 22nd. This is not supposed to be happening. It is twisting the planet’s climate system into a pretzel that doesn’t know which way to turn next. There are plenty of reasons to believe it is going to get much, much worse. The planet’s climate system is already so far whacked-out that it’s breathing fire.

For example, the European Space Agency’s Copernicus Sentinel-3A satellite registered a 705% increase in fire activity in Canada in 2023 versus the prior six-years.

Meanwhile, greenhouse gas emissions are skyrocketing in the aftermath of the much-touted climate agreement Paris ‘15 when 196 countries agreed to cut to net zero. Oops, wrong, many signatories are “net nothing.”

There is compelling evidence that signatory nations to Paris ’15 don’t give a damn about the agreement or care about Hot House Earth as they cavalierly undercount, when they do report, or they simply refuse to report. As a result, UN climate goals go straight into the trash, worthless.

In March 1994 the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) organized an objective to stabilize atmospheric greenhouse gas emissions to prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system. That’s when “humans” were “officially recognized” as an active participant in climate change. It’s been downhill ever since. In fact, it’s been an ongoing disaster. The evidence is found in greenhouse gas emissions increasing every year since UNFCCC formalized. And now, as of 2024, emissions are bordering on torrential increases.

Worse yet, UNFCCC and Paris ’15 lures the world community into a false sense of hope, false pretense that everything is under control, we’ve got the nations of the world agreeing to combat global warming, not to worry. The illusion works because very little outrage about the illusion has been touted in public. In the real world, UNFCCC and the Paris climate agreement of 2015 are phony symbols of success. Get over it.

YaleEnvironment360 recently, March 21, 2024, published an exposé about the scandalous behavior of signatories to climate agreements: Nations Are Undercounting Emissions, Putting UN Goals at Risk researched and written by Fred Pearce, one of the best most respected environmental journalists.

The article opens by stating the heart of the problem as “lax rules” allow for national inventories reporting to the UN “grossly underestimating many countries’ greenhouse gas emissions.”

In fact, according to the article “most countries published data to UNFCCC’s website is typically out of date, inconsistent, and inc0mplete.” According to Glen Peters, Centre for International Climate Research (Norway): “I would not put much value, if any, on the submissions.”

For example, China’s coal reporting is likely so seriously underreported that its underreporting equals total emissions of many major industrial countries. And in the US, a recent article in Nature, US Oil and Gas System Emissions from Nearly One Million Aerial Site Measurements d/d March 13, 2024, exposed methane emissions three times more than the government reported.

One of the world’s major oil & gas producers, Qatar stopped reporting emissions in 2007. No surprise there as it’s the world’s highest per-capita CO2 emissions abuser. Meanwhile, they revel in billions of dollars the world pays to dishevel the planet’s climate system. Even worse yet, it’s believed their undeclared emissions have doubled since 2007. Is something radically amiss here?

The Philippines last sent its inventory in 2013. Guyana in 2012.

According to Pearce’s article: “The world is flying blind, unable either to verify national compliance with emissions targets or figure out how much atmospheric ‘room’ countries have left for emissions before exceeding agreed warming thresholds.”

The standards for reporting are replete with uncertainties. Even with activity data that’s filed there’s no way to know how much fossil fuel is burned in most countries or how much methane leaks. And uncertainties are prevalent in how activities are converted into emissions estimates. Off the shelf formulae often fails to reflect real conditions. In short, it’s almost as if a gigantic Ponzi scheme oversees UN reporting standards.

The deception is found everywhere, e.g., in Canada, aircraft measurements of CO2 over the enormous tar sands project revealed emissions 64% higher than reported. Moreover, satellite data analyzed by the International Energy Agency on a global basis discovered methane emissions 70% higher worldwide over oil and gas fields than officially reported.

The overall scandal even extends to what should be “positive reports.” According to Clemens Schwingshackl of Ludwig-Maximilian’s University/Munich: “Governments collectively claim their forests are soaking up 6 billion tons more Co2 each year than scientists can account for.”

Everybody everywhere is fudging, cheating, obscuring, pretending, and/or avoiding reality. Yet over 100 heads of state, presidents, prime ministers, environmental ministers, secretaries of state, etc. show up for the annual COPs (UN Conference of the Parties) for photo-ops. And that’s pretty much the extent of the substance.

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This article was originally published on March 25, 2024 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

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