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Fukushima Toxic Dumping

Photo of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station
Photo of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power  by IAEA Imagebank; licensed by CC BY-SA 2.0

Fukushima Toxic Dumping

By Robert Hunziker

Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant is the world’s leading epicenter of toxic radioactive water released into the ocean. Yet, these activities are no longer closely monitored by mainstream media. As it happens, Tokyo Electric Power Company is the electric utility that manages the decommissioning of the collapsed nuclear reactors. This controversial ongoing release of radioactive water is mostly unopposed by the nations of the world. No problem, dump it!

But there is another side to this story.

“This is a time bomb.” (Robert Richmond, Ph.D. Kewalo Marine Laboratory)

A nationwide symposium on Zoom entitled: Radioactive Contamination of US Food and Water and What Congress Can Do About It, July 15, 2024, discussed several aspects of Fukushima’s dumping scheme. The details are disturbing and maybe horrifying.

Tokyo Electric Power Company (“TEPCO”) with the blessing of the government of Japan commenced dumping treated radioactive water into the ocean August 24th, 2023. Since 2011, TEPCO has been wrestling with one of the most recognizable industrial accidents in human history, three nuclear power plants still in a difficult to define meltdown thirteen (13) years after the initial meltdown.

It’s important to note that subsequent to the meltdown in March 2021 five ex-Japan prime ministers called for an end to nuclear power. In sharp contrast to those five former PM’s opposition, as of August 2022, current PM Fumio Kishida (2021 -) went all-in for nuclear power reactors, build, build, build.

Beginning in 2023 TEPCO commenced dumping treated radioactive water used to cool sizzling hot highly radioactive corium within the core of the crumpled reactors into the Pacific Ocean. Essentially, TEPCO unofficially christened the ocean “an open sewer.” It’s free! Yes, it’s free but not free for abuse. And why would anyone authorize broken-down crippled nuclear power plants to release toxic radioactive wastewater into the ocean?

According to TEPCO and several experts quoted in a BBC article, the low level of tritium radiation released is acceptable risk. One expert said he’d drink it. Well, can somebody please arrange for him to receive a supply of TEPCO’s radioactive wastewater to drink for one year. That’d be comparable to the ocean’s experience of one year. According to Emily Hammond, Ph. D., an expert in energy and environmental law with George Washington University: “The challenge with radionuclides (such as tritium) is that they present a question that science cannot fully answer; that is, at very low levels of exposure, what can be counted as ‘safe’? (Source: The Science Behind the Fukushima Waste Water Release, BBC, August 25, 2023)

But seriously, are there really, truly tolerable levels? According to the National Academy of Sciences, there are no safe doses of radiation. “Decades of research show clearly that any dose of radiation increases an individual’s risk for the development of cancer.”

TEPCO’s dumping is a testament to human frailty, not strength, endangering its own, and it’s difficult to stomach. There’s nothing positive about it, not one positive. Instead, it’s a boldfaced insult and slap in the face. Intuitively, logically, ethically, it’s impossible to justify turning the world’s oceans into open sewers. Oh, please!

The International Atomic Energy Administration (IAEA) greeted the TEPCO/Japan government dumping scheme with open arms, as did the G7. But, in the process, IAEA violated its own stated principles, see: TEPCO’s ALPS-Treated Radioactive Water Dumping Plan Violated Essential Provisions of IAEA’s General Safety Guide N0. 8.

Indeed, IAEA’s endorsement begs a critical question of whom the public can trust when the IAEA overstates well-known facts about the dangers of tritium while violating its own policies for nuclear safety.

The July 15th symposium discusses the risks of Fukushima that are generally ignored by society at large. Some highlights of that exposé follow:

Arjun Makhijani, Ph.D. Institute for Energy and Environmental Research. Focus on tritium, Exploring Tritium Dangers to Protect Future Generations and Ecosystems, Congressional Briefing, 2024-07-15:

Tritium found in Fukushima’s wastewater, when exposed in humans is detrimental to the basic core of a person’s internal energy system, aka: the mitochondrial DNA, a bodily function that allows people to walk to talk to blink to process food, etc. This significant aspect of human DNA is very susceptible to damage by tritium. And the risk is identical for plants and animals.

A little tritium goes a long way. One teaspoon of tritiated water can contaminate 100 billion gallons of water (equivalent to 150,000 Olympic pools), a calculation that is based upon US drinking water standards. “Tritium turns water radioactive, so our most crucial ‘stuff of life’ becomes radioactive.” How many teaspoons will Fukushima produce?

The risks of internal exposure to tritium: “There’s clear evidence of neurological damage, according to the International Commission on Radiological Protection.”

Congress needs to address tighter regulations of tritium exposure for both humans and ecosystems.

Robert Richmond, research professor Kewalo Marine Laboratory, University of Hawaii, Achieving Healthier Oceans and People, Dumping of Nuclear Waste Undercuts Progress: A marine biologist viewpoint.

Already, the state of the ocean is in serious decline because of anthropogenic stressors. We need to reduce stressors, not add radionuclides to a very fragile marine ecosystem. Radionuclide effects are transboundary and transgenerational issues in addition to the complication of PFAS or “forever chemicals” starting to show up in alarming quantities. Compounding these dangers, the Fukushima discharge program will take 30+ years.

Fukushima’s discharge, according to Richmond: “This is a time bomb… Once the radionuclides are detected in fish, it will be too late to act. There’s no way to put the genie back in the bottle.”

The way the plumes of radionuclides are modeled for Fukushima dumping, they’ll reside in major Pacific fishing grounds in 7-12 years at concerning levels of impact. Tritium is not evenly distributed throughout the ocean. Statements that tritium will be widely dispersed/diluted do not hold up at all. Tritium ends up in fish that people eat, bio-accumulating within human bodies that have no defenses against organically bound tritium.

(Footnote: As tritium moves up the food chain it bioconcentrates and biomagnifies. Pro-nuclear advocates claim tritium passes thru the body within days, no harm done. This is not true. It bioaccumulates in living organisms. Numerous studies have proven this, e.g., Benedict C. Jaeschke, et al, Bioaccumulation of Tritiated Water and Trophic Transfer, etc. National Library of Medicine, January 2013.)

Additionally, “the Fukushima discharges violate numerous international protocols and established principles (1) the Precautionary Principle, and IAEA GSG-8 (2) ALARA principle – nobody should be exposed to radiation unless it is as treatment for cancer (3) UNCLOS (4) London Convention and Protocol (5) the newly passed High Seas Treaty (6) PIF 2050 Blue Continent Strategy (7) the spirit of the UN Ocean Decade.” Fukushima dumping violates all seven of these internationally recognized principles against dumping toxic substances into the world’s oceans.

Why is Fukushima given a pass on seven (7) internationally recognized violations?

Accordingly, new approaches and alternatives and regulations for toxic ocean dumping must be researched and established. Congress needs to address this as soon as possible.

James Gormley – Editor-in-Chief, Better Nutrition magazine, award-winning journalist, pioneer of science-centered coverage and a member of the US trade delegations in Paris and Rome for FAO/WHO Codex Alimentarius.

A multinational approach is required for assessment and radioactivity mitigation. We need a “whole-of-government approach” in the US inclusive of EPA, NOA, DOE, FDA, and Fish and Wildlife Service all-in tackling issues such as Fukushima’s radioactive ocean dumping. Congress needs to bring all federal assets together in unison to tackle this understudied and largely ignored risk to marine and human health.

Kimberly Roberson – Founder and executive director Fukushima Fallout Awareness Network (“FFAN”) est. June 2011.

A citizen’s petition regarding the risks associated with Fukushima was filed with the FDA on behalf of FFAN in 2013. Even though the FDA is required to respond to a citizen’s petition, to date, 11 years later, the only response has been a letter stating: “More time was needed.”

Meanwhile, according to Roberson: “TEPCO struggles to get Fukushima under control, and there is no end in sight. They say it will take 30 or 40 years, but nobody really knows for sure. In August of 2023, TEPCO began systematically dumping radioactive wastewater into the Pacific, but it is only partially filtered. TEPCO filled over 1,000 tanks with wastewater, and more water is added every day, and there are hundreds of thousands of gallons contained in each tank… tritium is difficult to filter, and TEPCO is not currently attempting to filter it. Cesium is the radionuclide at the center of the FDA petition… where one radionuclide is detected, others are found as well.” (Footnote: High levels of radioactive cesium cause nausea, vomiting, bleeding, coma, and death.)

At present the US has the highest levels allowable for manmade radiation from nuclear accidents at 1200 Bq/kg for all citizens. By comparison, Japan’s allowable level for adults is 100 Bg/kg and 50 Bg/kg for children.

“Food that is too radioactive for Japan can legally be exported to the US…. It has been reported that food, including seafood, that Japan would ordinarily export to countries that have instituted food bans of Japan’s radioactive food products is now being sold and served to US military service members and their families in Japan. The National Academy for Sciences biologic effect of ionizing radiation states there is a linear relationship between ionizing radiation and the development of solid cancers.” (Roberson)

(Footnote: Because ionizing radiation has enough energy to break an electron away from an atom, it certainly has enough umph to change the chemical composition of any material it connects with. A human body is defenseless.)

The FDA should monitor for cesium in foodstuff, as stated in the FFAN petition. Additionally, food imported from Japan should adhere, at the least, to Japan’s own standards of 100 Bg/kg for adults and 50 Bg/kg for young children before export to the United States.

The International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War in Germany suggest 8 Bg/kg for children and 16 Bg/kg for adults as safe tolerable levels.

Congress should start the process to establish adequate testing and establish a viable limit.and verification that food imported from Japan does not exceed Japan’s own restrictions. Other nations have banned Japan’s exports.

The public has a right to information. FFAN is asking Congress to direct the FDA to do its job. It’s in the public interest to know what people are putting in their mouths. If imported foodstuff exceeds Bg/kg limits set by the exporter in Japan, the public should be informed that they are purchasing food from Japan that exceeds Japan’s allowable levels of radioactivity for its own people.

“The myth is being perpetuated that discharges are necessary for decommissioning. But the Japanese government itself admits there is sufficient water storage space in Fukushima Daiichi. Long-term storage would expose the current government decommissioning roadmap as flawed, but that is exactly what needs to happen. The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear station is still in crisis, posing unique and severe hazards, and there is no credible plan for its decommissioning,” Shaun Burnie, Senior Nuclear Specialist at Greenpeace East Asia.

As for Fukushima discharges, Greenpeace claims that the radiological risks have not been fully assessed, and the biological impacts of tritium, carbon-14, strontium-90 and iodine-129 – to be released with the water – “have been ignored”. (Source: Fukushima: Why is Japan Releasing water and is it Safe? Reuters, Aug. 24, 2023) That statement should be a gamechanger, but most likely it won’t.
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This article was originally published on July 19, 2024 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

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Antarctic Ice Melt – New Sobering Studies

Image by Torsten Dederichs is licensed by Unsplash.
Image by Torsten Dederichs is licensed by Unsplash.

Antarctic Ice Melt – New Sobering Studies

By Robert Hunziker

It was only two years ago that studies of the infamous Thwaites Glacier, aka: the Doomsday Glacier located in West Antarctica, found rapid melting. At the time, scientists said it was “hanging on by its fingernails.” (Source: ‘Doomsday Glacier’ Which Could Raise Sea Level by Several Feet, is ‘Hanging by its Fingernails,’ Scientists Say, CNN, September 6, 2022)

Since that warning was issued the planet has vastly exceeded global warming expectations. A new study raises the bet on sea level rise, maybe by a lot. The study warns that the Antarctic ice sheet is melting in a “new, worrying way” that scientific models of sea level rise have failed to account for. (Source: Alexander T. Bradley, et al, Tipping Point in Ice-Sheet Grounding-Zone Melting Due to Ocean Water Intrusion, Nature Geoscience, 2024)

British Antarctic Survey scientists discovered warm ocean water seeping beneath the ice sheet down to the grounding line, which is where the ice rises from the seabed and starts to float. Moreover, adding another dimension, new studies show that small increases in ocean temperatures can have big impact on melting. These new facts raise very serious concerns about all projections of sea level rise.

Moreover, ocean temperatures have been setting new records. “The ocean has now broken temperature records every day for more than a year.” (Source: The Ocean Has Shattered Records for More Than a Year, The New York Times, April 10, 2024)

Making matters more edgy yet, a 2,000-foot-long ice core removed from West Antarctica looks like a game-changer. And it’s not pretty. (Source: Mackenzie M. Grieman, et al, Abrupt Holocene Ice Loss Due to Thinning and Underground in the Weddell Sea Embayment, Nature Geoscience, Feb. 8, 2024)

The 2,000-foot-long ice core is the first paleoclimatic proof that the Antarctic ice sheet can melt very fast in a relatively short period of time.

Under circumstances somewhat like today, but 8,000 years ago, part of the ice sheet melted by 450 meters (1,476 feet, or higher than the Empire State Bldg.) over a period of only 200 years, which was at the end of the last ice age. According to Eric Wolff, glaciologist at University of Cambridge/UK: “We’ve been able to say exactly when it retreated, but we’ve also been able to say how fast it retreated.” (Source: Scientists Discover an Alarming Change in Antarctica’s Past That Could Spell Devasting Future Sea Level Rise, CNN, February 8, 2024)

According to the scientists, in today’s world: “If it does start to retreat, it really will do it very fast.” And of course, the concern is not only 1,476 feet of ice melt over 200 years, but also, and more importantly, what will be the sea level impact of the initial several feet over upcoming decades, assuming a repeat of what occurred 8,000 years ago, which, so far, knock on wood, does not look to have started, yet. But West Antarctica is not going to make a pre-announcement that it’s ready to commence a cascading meltdown!

According to Ted Scambos, glaciologist, Univeristy of Colorado, Boulder: “The amount of ice stored in Antarctica can change very quickly— at a pace that would be hard to deal with for many coastal cities,” Ibid.

The Grieman, et al detailed study of the 8,000-year-old ice core revealed the biggest surprise in recent memory: Antarctic ice meltdowns can happen much faster than current sea level studies assume. According to Wolff: “We actually spent a lot of time checking that we hadn’t made a mistake with the analysis,” Ibid.

Wolff warns that it is crucial to take all measures possible to tackle climate change to avoid “these tipping points.” We do not want the same 1,476-foot ice meltdown to start again at such an alarming rate. The point is: It already happened under similar circumstances as today so it’s an understatement that nation/states should react as soon as possible and take all measures possible to mitigate climate change/global warming.

The most recent National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration report highlights concerns: The month of May had a record-high monthly global ocean surface temperature for the 14th consecutive month. The ocean-only temperature for May in the Southern Hemisphere ranked the highest on record.

“Over the past 50 years, the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula has been one of the most rapidly warming parts of the planet. And it has been established that Antarctic Circumpolar Current is warming more rapidly than the global ocean as a whole.” (Source: Impacts of Climate Change, Discovery Antarctica)

Assuming nation/states fail to take enough measures soon enough to mitigate global warming, which increasingly looks likely, a significant issue arises: When should sea walls be built and how high will be high enough?
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This article was originally published on June 28, 2024 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

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At the Edge of Apocalypse

Photo by Roxanne Desgagnés on Unsplash
Photo by Roxanne Desgagnés is licensed by Unsplash

At the Edge of Apocalypse

By Robert Hunziker

Biblical flooding, scorching heat, collapsing grid system, animals crumbling, waters rising, crops wilting, economy on the brink, and millions displaced.

Welcome to the future of climate change… Pakistan.

If one could classify a global warming beta test as a success towards an ultimate goal of apocalypse, unfortunately, it has turned Pakistan into a country populated by millions of displaced people in the early chapters of a horror story with no ending in sight because it is likely to get worse. Pakistan has been thrashed back and forth from one year (2022) of biblical flooding to years of record-setting heat. Normality has fled, chased out by an ogre of darkened apocalypse in the making.

Wherefore, Inside Climate News d/d June 8, 2024 has a remarkable series entitled Living on Earth, which recently interviewed Rafay Alam, who is an environmental lawyer and a member of Pakistan’s Climate Change Council. The title of the interview: As Temperatures in Pakistan Top 120 Degrees, There’s Nowhere to Run. That interview is the basis for this article about a country of 240 million people at the brink of apocalypse.

Based upon Pakistan’s severe climate experience, here is what Rafay Alam concludes, a widely shared viewpoint throughout the Global South: “There is a significant denialism on climate change in places like the United States. And it angers me because I see people affected. I see animals affected. And this is a lived experience for the global majority, the Global South. It’s extremely infuriating to see people who’ve participated in this global warming deny it, deny any accountability, try and move on as if nothing’s happened and try and continue to make money and drive that bottom line.”

There’s an adage of the 1950s “Ugly Americans” that lingers to this day outside of America’s borders. It pejoratively references Americans as loud, arrogant, self-absorbed, demeaning, thoughtless, ignorant, with ugly ethnocentric behavior, which also applies to U.S. corporate interests internationally. Regrettably, climate change is reviving this debasing dictum in a very big way, 70 years later. And people who think today’s sociopolitical atmosphere is poisoned, divided, and postured for trouble in the USA should look over their shoulders, as anger foments around the world with America a target. Trouble’s universal.

Rafay Alam resides in Lahore (pop. 13M) known as the “City of Gardens.” It is the cultural heart of Pakistan with exquisite arts, cuisine, and music festivals, known for filmmaking and the recognized home of the intelligentsia. Lahore is a sophisticated metropolis that’s a safe place to live. According to the World Crime Index, the city is safer than living in London, New York, or Melbourne.

Yet, life for millions in Pakistan has changed for the worse seemingly overnight. Today, the country experiences persistent heat waves over 120°F in some cities, and summer is just beginning. Anything approaching the normal rhythm of life of past decades has been overwhelmed by brutal severely damaging climate change. The country is still recovering from the biblical flooding of 2022 when normal rainfall turned voracious 400% to 800% beyond anything ever experienced, a torrential downpouring lasting weeks in regions of the country that do not drain into the Indus Basin. Thus, a 100-kilometer (62-mile) artificial lake formed, displacing 10 million and impacting 30 million, bringing in its wake $35B infrastructure damage, roads swept away, schools swept away, hospitals swept away. It will take a generation to rebuild. This is climate change in full blast mode.

Rafay Alam: “We’ve seen temperatures since the middle of May to the first of June currently more than 50 degrees Centigrade, which is well over 120°F. Lahore, where I live is 44°C today, which is about 111°F… I go for a walk in the evenings when the sun sets It’s not unpleasant, but I notice animals and birds collapsed to the ground looking for water, dogs on the side of the road unable to get up… Recently, it was 125°F, the hottest place on Earth, at Mohenjo-Daro, which is home to an ancient civilization.”

Accordingly, Pakistan is not just experiencing a scorching heat wave, it is actively experiencing the climate crisis in all its variations on a real time basis. And according to meteorologists: “It’s going to stay hotter for longer.”

Climate change has wrought an economic nightmare, as Pakistan has sought flood relief that came as loans, not grants or aid, which has doubled Pakistan’s external debt in only two years. This is devastating for a country that is trying to regain its footing and rebuild an economy that climate change clobbered.

Nevertheless, the country is learning to live with devastating temperatures by changing life’s normal patterns. Schools are let out by 12:00 noon but shutdown entirely when temperatures rise too far, which is a common experience of late.

Of even more concern, and possibly the most dangerous scenario of all, the monsoon season is coming by the end of June, early July which will convert dry heat to extreme humid heat with deadly wet bulb temperatures. At 95°F and 70% humidity, it’ll impact the human body like 120°F. That’s deadly because at that level the human body cannot release heat by sweating. Rather, it bakes internal organs. Hmm- it’s been triple digits for some time now with daytime forecasts to remain in triple digits to the end of June, and likely beyond into the heart of the summer.

Agriculture is 20% of Pakistan GDP. And according to Alam, a leading English newspaper recently ran a headline about crops decimated in Pakistan by heat, cotton basically sizzling, maize, mangos, and other vegetables and fodder for cattle, expecting a decline of productivity. Nearly one-half of the Pakistani workforce is in agriculture and they’re being hammered down to the poverty line by unforgiving climate change.

“This heat wave is a man-made event due to the greenhouse gases consumed and thrown into the atmosphere by the Global North since the industrial revolution These greenhouse gases have to stop.” (Alam)

Meanwhile, he claims the country must adapt as soon as possible to an off-the-rails climate system fed by profit-motives outside of Pakistan. He suggests changes to agriculture by working on heat-resistant crops. Currently, no crops can withstand 50-plus Centigrade temperatures. And the water economy must learn to adapt as 90% of water goes to agriculture, which is 20% of GDP employing 40% of the workforce, which is at the poverty line.

Meanwhile, it is currently harvesting season. Agricultural workers are waking up when the sun rises for only a couple of hours of work before it gets too hot to work. When it’s too hot to work any longer, people congregate inside for shelter from the sun. But those who live near fields are warned that snakes and scorpions also seek cooler spaces, entering homes en masse seeking shelter.

Alam’s biggest concern is for most Pakistanis who are middle class, working class and at the poverty line, unable to withstand climate shocks much further. Moreover, there are really not many safe places for them to go to escape global heat, unless they have a rich friend.

Even heading to the Himalaya mountains for cooler terrain could be treacherous. There are over 3,000 glaciers that, due to global warming, form glacial lakes in the mountains. Over time, these blow apart in outburst of devastating unannounced floods bringing down mountainsides as roads and bridges are washed away leaving those seeking cool mountain air stranded. According to the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, the Hindu Kush Himalaya is a “hotspot of risk” for outburst floods.

Pakistan, unfortunately, has become a proving ground for what climate change is capable of. And there’s no reason to expect it to remain confined to the borders of Pakistan.

Rafay Alam first became aware of climate change’s potential impact nearly 20 years ago when he saw Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth (Paramount Classics, May 2006), which opened a lot of eyes. Yet, the nations of the world have failed to adequately confront the primary cause, burning fossil fuels, that fuels radical climate change that’s whiplashed Pakistan’s environment beyond limits.

Alam believes the basis of the legal systems and the international system can’t cope with an existential crisis such as climate change: “One of the worst ways to deal with something like climate change is to divide the world into 200 different countries and have them argue with each other.” The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -IPCC- is testament to this, 30 years later and CO2 is still increasing each year without missing a beat, targeting Pakistan. But, for certain, Pakistan is not an isolated case.

According to Alam, in conclusion: “Earth’s ecosystem has been in balance since the last ice age… That civilization is over… the way that we interact with each other- extremely heavy energy use, extremely heavy water use, incredibly consumptive of natural resources producing greenhouse gases for just about everything… It’s this behavior, this civilization, which is at risk. And yes, it is very much an apocalypse.”
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This article was originally published on June 21, 2024 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

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Chomsky & UN Forewarnings Revisited

Photo by Matthias Heyde is licensed by Unsplash
Photo by Matthias Heyde is licensed by Unsplash

Chomsky & UN Forewarnings Revisited

By Robert Hunziker

I recently attended a family affair in Upstate NY and was informed that climate change articles, like this one, are too negative, causing close relatives to shutdown and going so far as to ignore articles, too gloomy, too negative, do something more positive. My response: Analyzing the planet’s climate system by studying peer-reviewed scientific publications for over a decade, every year has gotten worse and worse, no letups, more negatives every year… there’s nothing positive about climate change to write about. And people need to know the truth about anthropogenic-led crashing of ecosystems.

Furthermore, one of the key reasons why many Americans don’t accept climate change as an existential issue is because they have been shielded from the most impactful events of climate change, from the truth as experienced by the rest of the world, e.g., Europe’s five-year average temperature has been running 2.3°C above pre-industrial, a danger zone according t0 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which under the 2015 Paris Agreement, nearly 200 countries agreed to limit global warming to no more than 2.0° Celsius by 2100 to avoid significant and potentially catastrophic changes to the planet. Hmm. Ipso facto, 75% of Spain is at risk of desertification, according to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification.

The USA, uniquely. happens to be located in a “global sweet spot” ideally within latitudes and longitudes that first attracted Europeans to a Garden of Eden setting, For example, during the mid-17th century in the words of William Wood of Boston, circa 1634 (Source: Boston’s Flora and Fauna in the 1630s, Boston Public Library): “For the Country it is as well watered as any land under the Sun, every family, or every two families having a spring of sweet waters betwixt them, which is far different from the waters of England being not so, but of a fatter substance, and of a more jetty colour; it is thought there can be so better water in the world.”

“The next commodity the land affords, is good store of Woods, & that not only such as may be needful for fuel, but likewise for the building of Ships, and houses, & Mils, and all manner of water-work about which Wood is necessary. The Timber of the Country grows straight and tall, some trees being twenty, some thirty-foot high, before they spread forth their branches…. Of these swamps, some be ten, some twenty, some thirty miles long, being preserved by the wetness of the soils wherein they grow.”

Today, people in Asia and Europe and Central America do not complain about negative climate articles, rather, they embrace it, believing that more exposure is necessary so people know how to bitch and moan and groan about the failure of political leaders to take heed of top-notch scientists’ warnings for decades that global warming, primarily caused by fossil fuels like CO2, eventually leads to ecosystem collapse and dangerous heatwaves and destructive droughts. Today, unrelenting heatwaves are rampant for all to see but could be only the beginning.

Regarding the Chomsky and UN warnings, it was June 2022 when the UN issued GAR2022, UN Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction shortly thereafter followed by Noam Chomsky as keynote speaker for the American Solar Energy Society 51st annual conference at the University of New Mexico.

The UN report, for the first time, brought into focus the challenge: “Escalating synergies of climate disasters, economic vulnerability, and ecosystem failures increasingly headed for a juggernaut of collapse.”

On the heels of the UN report about an impending “juggernaut of collapse,” Chomsky’s opening statement at the American Solar Energy Society echoed the UN’s statement: “We are at a unique moment in human history. Decisions that must be made right now will determine the course of future history if there is to be any human history, which is very much in doubt. There is a narrow window in which we must implement measures to avert cataclysmic destruction of the environment.”

Today, there is compelling evidence that both the UN and Chomsky were dead-on correct. But Chomsky’s call for implementing measures to avert cataclysmic destruction of the environment have been mostly ignored. Now, two short years later. killer heat is consuming the lifeblood of megacities in some regions of the planet.

“Water sources are depleted around the world,” according to Victoria Beard, professor of city and regional planning, Cornell University: “Every year, more cities will face ‘Day Zero,’ with no water in their piped systems.” (Source: This Mega-City is Running Out of Water: What Will 22 Million People do When the Taps Run Dry? Phys.org, March 26, 2024)

For example: Mexico City (22M pop.) could run dry this summer. Bogotá (8M pop.) recently started water rationing. Residents of Johannesburg (6M pop.) line up for municipal truck deliveries. South Delhi (2.7M pop.) announced a rationing plan on May 29th. Several cities of southern Europe have rationing plans on the table. In March 2024 China announced its first-ever National-Level Regulations on Water Conservation, a disguised version of water rationing. Global warming is the key problem as severe droughts clobber reservoirs. And global warming is a product of energy creation from fossil fuel emissions such as CO2.

According to Chomsky, the “Energy System” is the provocateur of global warming, and it has enormous institutional breadth, including fossil fuel companies, banks, and other financial institutions and a large part of the legal community. Accordingly, the Energy System’s political base is the Republican Party, and it is the main driving force for global warming which, in turn, threatens megacities with “Day Zero” or dry reservoirs. This is becoming prevalent around the globe.

The fact that the UN Global Assessment Report GAR2022 received little, or no media attention, explains how and why we are in deep trouble; the issue is simply ignored. Yet, it is the first-ever UN flagship global report with findings that current global policies are “accelerating the collapse of human civilization.” It should have been front page news. Importantly, the report does not suggest that collapse is a “done deal.” Rather, without radical change, it’s where the world is headed.

Alas, where is the “radical change” that the UN report said is necessary to prevent collapse? Answer: There is no radical change ongoing, planned, or discussed. Radical change has never been mentioned by any world-recognized authorities.

Celebrated weather historian Maximiliano Herrera, recently commented on global warming’s impact: “Thousands of records are being brutalized all over Asia, which is by far the most extreme event in world climatic history.” (Source: Summer Heat Hits Asia Early, Killing Dozens as one Expert Calls it the ‘Most Extreme Event’ in Climate History, CBS News, May 2, 2024)

“The most extreme event in world climatic history” is a very strong characterization of the impact of climate change and global warming. Dangerous heat waves are sweeping the world like a scythe harvesting wheat and more people are being killed than reported by authorities, especially in India. There’ll never be accurate counts of the dead for public release. Some megacities are currently at knife’s edge of loss of drinking water for millions of residents. They’re not prepared. Water is trucked for firefighting in some megacities and to neighborhoods where residents are parched. This could have been prevented, but it wasn’t.

Of even more immediate concern, an Environmental Emergency has been declared for Brazil’s Pantanal wetlands by Mato Grosso do Sul, the Brazilian state containing most of Pantanal. The emergency has been declared as the number of fires surged by 980%, as of June 5th, well ahead of wildfire season which starts in July/August. This is one of the world’s largest wetlands (10 times Florida’s everglades) which has partially dried out due to ongoing severe drought. (Source: Fires in Brazilian Wetlands Surge 980%, Extreme Drought Expected, Reuters, June 7, 2024)

The Pantanal is the world’s largest freshwater wetland stretching over parts of Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia offering unseen gifts to a vast swath of South America by regulating the water cycle upon which life depends. Its countless swamps, lagoons and tributaries purify water and help prevent floods and droughts. It stores untold amounts of carbon, helping to stabilize the world’s climate. It is one of the wonders of the world, but large areas are blazing afire because of severe drought; it’s global warming at work.

What to do? There are experienced capable people, such as Roger Hallam, co-founder of Extinction Rebellion, who believe that the failure of world leaders to listen to scientists for decades necessitates a changing of the guard. He’s organizing a worldwide movement.

In summation, the United Nations claims “radical change” is needed, and as stated by Noam Chomsky: “There is a narrow window in which we must implement measures to avert cataclysmic destruction of the environment.” But nobody is doing this on a radical change basis.

Meantime, if megacities run dry, what will millions of city residents do? The risks have never been more pronounced.

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This article was originally published on June 14, 2024 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

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Where’s the Water?

Photo by Brandon DesJarlais is licensed by Unsplash
Photo by Brandon DesJarlais is licensed by Unsplash

Where’s the Water?

By Robert Hunziker

“Whiskey’s for drinking and water’s for fighting,” a popular adage from the chronicles of the American West that’s starting to come back into vogue.

The world’s megacities are on a knife’s edge of water stress.

Climate change is clobbering water resources and testing the nerves of the world, especially megacities, e.g., Mexico City (pop. 22 million) could run dry this summer. Nearly 90% of greater Mexico City is in severe drought. The country has been in widespread drought since 2021-22. Subsidence is causing the city to sink 20 inches per year because of rapid groundwater extraction supplanting low reservoirs. The Metro is sinking unevenly. The rails are wobbly. The massive city could go dry this year.

Bogotá, a city of 8 million located in a humid patch of the northern Andes Mountains surrounded by cloud forests, has instituted water rationing as of April 15, 2024. The Chingaza Reservoir System is 15% full and if rains do not return soon, it’ll run out of water in two months. The mayor recommended eliminating daily personal showers, with several other suggestions.

Human-caused climate change is enemy number one, and it all starts at the Arctic, influencing the entire Northern Hemisphere, too hot for too long melting reflective ice upsetting an age-old interchange with jet streams at 30,000 feet that drive weather patterns. Like a drunken sailor, the jet streams don’t know which way to go and neither do weather systems. Result, rains for Mexico City reservoirs are horribly weak, if at all, following years of unprecedented drought.

The United Nations General Assembly, NY was briefed last year by leading scientists: “Conflict, Climate and Cooperation.” It’s been 4,500 years since an actual war has broken out over water rights. It took place between two Mesopotamian city-states in what is now called Iraq.

Like 4,500 years ago, tensions over water are on the rise and climate change is largely to blame as fossil fuels lurk in the background. Major cities of the world are at risk of drying out and climate change is the problem, too hot for too long with drought on a rampage, festering big time trouble of Day Zero, as taps go dry, leading candidates: Mexico City, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Jakarta, São Paulo, Beijing, Cairo, Bangalore, Tokyo, London, Bogotá, Moscow, Istanbul (Sources: Euronews and World Resources Institute Aqueduct)

Global warming is impacting a very sensitive touch-and-go relationship between major cities and diminishing water resources. Extreme heat shrinks reservoirs combined with decades of neglect as water infrastructure crumbles and climate change shifts precipitation patterns making once wet regions drier than ever.

The 2024 World Water Development Report claims that nearly one-half of the world’s population experiences “at least temporary severe water scarcity.” Meanwhile, tensons over water are exacerbating conflicts worldwide, Press Release: Water Crises Threaten World Peace, UNESCO, March 2024. More to the point, 2.2 billion people don’t have access to “safely managed drinking water.” This is a guaranteed formula for trouble as desperate people take desperate measures… to survive.

Recent water wars have spilled bloodshed in India, Kenya, and Yemen. And on the Iran-Afghanistan border, conflict rages over water from the Helmand River.

Based upon studies by the Pacific Institute, over the past 18 months there have been 344 instances of water-related conflicts in the world. According to Peter Gleick of Pacific Institute: “We also see a worrying increase in violence associate with water security worsened by drought – climate disruptions, growing populations, and competition for water.” (Source: Water Increasingly at the Center of Conflicts from Ukraine to the Middle East, LA Times, Dec. 28, 2023)

Climate change is creating a war path, forcing major urban centers to change lifestyles, living with less, and butting heads with a worldwide neoliberal capitalistic economic system that promotes endless growth at any and all costs.

By ignoring the dreadful influence of fossil fuels spewing CO2 whilst powering endless growth that rips apart predictable climate systems of the ages, which has now turned viciously unpredictable, the end may be in sight.

The ineptitude of world leadership to properly judge and deal with human-generated global warming, despite decades of warnings by top notch scientists, and their blatant kowtowing to the fossil fuel interests, is leading down a very difficult pathway. As a result, there are rumblings about how to change direction, for example, The Climate Revolution broadcast on the Climate Emergency Forum featuring Roger Hallam, co-founder of Extinction Rebellion, who suggests a changing of the guard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc8KS89lG8Y&t=276s

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This article was originally published on June 7, 2024 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

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Goodbye Oil & Gas – Hello Thermal Bricks

Photo by Greg Rosenke is licensed by Unsplash.
Photo by Greg Rosenke is licensed by Unsplash.

Goodbye Oil & Gas – Hello Thermal Bricks

By Robert Hunziker

The world of energy struggles with the nearly impossible task of getting off fossil fuels. This requires thinking outside of the box, something revolutionary bustling with energy that bails us out of sluggish fossil fuels that emit too much CO2 into the atmosphere and rapidly overheats the planet. The CO2/global warming relationship, joined at the hip, must come to an end, or it’ll self-destruct everything in sight.

In the face of ultra-rapid technological developments, oil and gas production is old and dirty and slow and captures unbelievable sums of money for few people by removing the remains of dead organisms found deep underground, i.e., oil. In a strange, twisted manner, this is biological money stolen from Earth. but that’s too deep of a subject for now.

Instead, what if thermal bricks with zero CO2 content could convert electricity to 1,800°C (3,275°F) powerful enough to melt steel, no fossil fuels needed? And not only create heat for heavy industry but also store heat for days when the sun doesn’t shine. Sounds too good to be true. It’s a case that breaks that rule.

Abracadabra! meet Electrified Thermal Solutions (“ETS”) an MIT spinoff that has designed Joule Hive, a thermal battery the size of an elevator that’s featured in a writeup in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: Can Electrically Conductive Bricks Replace Fossil Fuels? d/d May 27, 2024. (originally from Inside Climate News)

Even more miraculous yet, ETS has perfected the technologically marvelous brick and contracted with a major industrial brick manufacturer, using ETS’s proprietary formula, to bring to market orders ranging from two tons of bricks to 2,000 tons of bricks, or more. In fact, ETS recently received its first multi-ton order for thermal bricks, no CO2 included.

A Brick that Creates Industrial-Scale Heat

ETS’s brick is a brilliant answer for the energy transition to convert electricity to high temperature heat that today is done by coal and natural gas to power heavy industry. Bring the bricks, remove the coal, turn off the natural gas. Brick technology is here to eliminate global warming’s biggest advocates, i.e., oil and gas and coal.

Significantly, and this is big: With the Joule Hive Thermal Battery, for the first-time electricity can be used to drive a gas turbine. Interpretation: The world’s 1.8 Terawatts of existing natural gas power plants could be converted to grid-scale batteries to balance intermittent renewable generation. ETS intends to transform natural gas power plants into decarbonized batteries to enable a zero-carbon grid of the future. Here’s the bottom line: One trillion watts (one Terawatt) equals all the electricity from all US power plants, now targeted by thermal bricks that will boot CO2 out of the front gate of the industrial plant.

The origin of thermal bricks came from Dan Stack and Joey Kabel, when Dan Stack as a grad student at MIT wondered out loud whether fire bricks like those commonly used in residential fireplaces could be used to store heat as well as create heat. Thereafter, altering the metal oxides within brick creation, wonderful things happen: (1) conduct electricity (2) generate heat (3) store heat. It’s remarkable and marketable and should become a hot new product, assuming success in the commercial market with a couple of high-profile adventurous first-time customers.

According to Stack, “There’s no exotic metals in here, there’s nothing that’ll burn out.”

Thanks to the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act -IRA-, the US Energy Department awarded ETS a $5 million grant to help build the first commercial-scale demo at Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio: “The project will demonstrate how the thermal battery could provide high temperature heat for a number of industrial processes including cement manufacturing, which currently relies primarily on burning coal for heat.” (Bulletin)

“Massimo Toso, president and chief executive of Buzzi Unicem USA, one of the largest cement producers in the United States and an industrial partner with ETS on the Energy Department grant, praised the company’s thermal battery: ‘ETS’s Joule Hive Thermal Battery is the first industrial heat decarbonization solution we have identified that could potentially enable us to cost effectively and eliminate the use of fossil fuels in our heating processes,” Ibid.

This is a big step for decarbonization of heavy industry, which accounts for approximately one-fourth (1/4th) of direct greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. It’s believed thermal batteries (bricks) powered-up by renewable energy could reduce one-half of industry emissions. That’s a huge step in the right direction and groundbreaking for more rapid decarbonization of the economy. Indeed, if as successful as it appears, this is a giant leap forward towards getting off fossil fuels.

Another astute placement by the Biden administration was a $35 million grant to Ashland, a specialty chemical manufacturer in Wilmington, Delaware, a matching grant from the Energy Department for commercial deployment of ETS’s thermal batteries to be installed at Ashland’s ISP Chemicals Plant in Calvert City, Kentucky where large volumes of high temperature steam are needed to run its operations.

“The project would replace natural gas-fired boilers at the Calvert City plant with ETS’s thermal batteries. Air blown through the Joule Hive batteries would transfer flame-temperature heat to the boilers to generate steam. The project would reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with steam generation at the plant by nearly 70 percent, according to the Energy Department,” Ibid. Ashland is currently evaluating the proposal.

This brings to the forefront the significance and key role of policymakers that focus on mitigation of global warming; it’s never been more important. Global warming is not a tongue-in-cheek make-fun-of issue. It’s already killing people and decimating life-sourcing ecosystems, rising ocean levels, and turning the global weather system inside out and upside down with unprecedented levels of ferociousness never witnessed, world’s biggest, fiercest wildfires, meanwhile, scorching heat now blankets the planet like never before: When it is hot, it’s never been so hot!

A fair question is whether Electrified Thermal Solutions would have been funded under the description of the following proposal for a new 2025 federal administration: Project 2025 is the Heritage Foundation’s roadmap for MAGA Republicans going forward: “The plan’s proposals include eviscerating existing climate programs and increasing reliance on fossil fuels. It emphatically repudiates efforts to decarbonize the economy and is a wholesale reversal of the progress made on climate policy over recent years.” (Source: Project 2025 Tells us What a Second Trump Term Could Mean for Climate Policy. It Isn’t Pretty, WBUR nonprofit news org, March 27, 2024.

The light at the end of the tunnel just flickered.

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This article was originally published on May 31, 2024 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

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Deadly Heat in a Political Jungle

Photo by Chris LeBoutillier is licensed by Unsplash.
Photo by Chris LeBoutillier is licensed by Unsplash.

Deadly Heat in a Political Jungle

By Robert Hunziker

World heat is worse than ever. The entire planet is sweating.

Every summer is hot but never like this. In America, it’s a national election year in the face of global record heat. What are candidates’ positions on CO2-infused heat?

A graph showing the temperature of the earth Description automatically generated

Graph by Brian Brettschneider, PhD, Climatologist

It’s extremely significant that global heat is just as bad in the world’s oceans, which have absorbed 85-90% of planetary heat, serving as a heat reservoir for decades. But now, the ocean’s starting to strut its hot stuff. According to Copernicus, April was the 13th month in a row that global sea surface temperatures between 60 degrees latitude south and 60 degrees latitude north have been the warmest on record for the month. Astoundingly, nearly 30% of the world’s oceans were above 28C (82.4°F) too hot for a bath, in April 2024, setting a record. Both the Mediterranean and Black Seas also had sharp upward trends for the month. Has civilization lost its ocean heat cushion?

Consequently, heat deaths are on the rise and look to escalate, by a lot, and soon. This is a worldwide crisis like none other. It requires world leadership to do something, soon, like the day before yesterday. But, how soon and will it be enough and who’s willing?

According to World Weather Attribution d/d May 14, 2024: Consistent sweltering temperatures well above 40C (104F) are creating havoc from Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria in the West to Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines in the East, and even though heat-related death tolls are typically underreported, hundreds of heat-related deaths have been reported, schools have been closed, and citizens warned to stay indoors.

Moreover, two studies by World Weather Attribution (“WWA”) “found that human-induced climate change influenced the events, making them around 30 times more likely and much hotter.”

Heat knows no borders. According to WLRN South Florida d/d May 23, 2024: ‘Heat Dome Leads to Sweltering Temperatures in Mexico, Central America, and US South: “This extreme heat is occurring in a world that is quickly warming due to greenhouse gases, which come from the burning of fossil fuels like oil, gas, and coal.” For example, Miami International Airport is running 10°F hotter than normal at 96°F.

Mexico City is nearly a war zone scenario with record high temperatures, which combined with pollution, leads to multiple city-wide protests, including by police: “A group of police agents blocked six lanes of traffic Wednesday on a main Mexico City avenue, saying their barracks lacked water for a week and the bathrooms were unusable,” Ibid. Water has been trucked for hospitals and to firefighting teams. Numerous birds and animals in the wild of Mexico have dropped dead on the spot.

All Central America is exposed to the same horrendous moist heat. And people wonder why they migrate North.

Yale Climate Connections d/d April 29, 2024 listed some global warming samplers (1) corals are bleaching in every corner of the ocean, threatening its web of life (2) extreme drought in southern Africa leaves millions hungry (3) West African heat wave: high humidity made 40°C feel like 50°C, which is a killer (4) discomfort may increase: Asia’s heat wave scorches hundreds of millions (5) record heat in Europe, Asia closes another extremely warm month for the planet (6) Europe unprepared for rapidly growing climate risks, report finds (7) China breaks heat records as sweltering weather baked cities from north to south.

“The era of global boiling has arrived,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres has warned. “Climate change is here. It is terrifying. And it is just the beginning.” (Source: Climate Action, World Economic Forum, August 4, 2023)

António Guterres “nailed it” 9 months ago. Meanwhile, at some point in time soon, the major nations of the world will hit panic buttons and go all-in supplanting fossil fuels with renewables as quickly as possible. They’ll be forced to do this. After all, when police protest in the streets, as in Mexico City, who’s left to patrol?

It’s a national election year in America, and climate change should be a major political issue as the heat is on for the whole world to see like never before, and it will get worse, as stated by the UN secretary-general. What’s the political landscape in America? According to the mainstream publication Yahoo! Finance d/d Feb. 15, 2024: “MAGA Republicans Have a 920-Page Plan to Make Climate Change Worse.” Isn’t that just great!

Here’s the opening paragraph of Yahoo! Finance’s write-up: “When former President Donald Trump exited the Oval Office in January 2021, he left behind a record of environmental rollbacks unrivaled in US history. Over his 1,461 days as commander-in-chief, Trump replaced, eliminated, or otherwise dismantled more than 100 environmental rules – at least — from repealing the Clean Air Act to allowing coal plants to dump toxic wastewater into lakes and rivers to declaring open season on endangered gray wolves.” Several of the hatcheted rules were from Richard Nixon’s administration.

Subsequently, the Biden administration rolled back a lot of Trump’s hatchet job.

“Had all Trump’s policies gone into effect, the nonpartisan Rhodium Group estimated at the end of 2020, they would have added an additional 1.8 gigatons of CO2-equivalent to the atmosphere by 2035 – more than the annual energy emissions of Germany, Britain, and Canada combined. But even though we never felt the full brunt of them, the medical journal The Lancet estimated that the policies undertaken during his presidency were responsible for 22,000 deaths in 2019 alone due to sharp increases in things like asthma, heart disease, and lung cancer,” Ibid.

Project 2025 is the Heritage Foundation’s roadmap for MAGA Republicans going forward: “The plan’s proposals include eviscerating existing climate programs and increasing reliance on fossil fuels. It emphatically repudiates efforts to decarbonize the economy and is a wholesale reversal of the progress made on climate policy over recent years.” (Source: Project 2025 Tells us What a Second Trump Term Could Mean for Climate Policy. It Isn’t Pretty, WBUR nonprofit news org, March 27, 2024.

Well, that’s great to know, but here’s the real issue: “Much of the voting public is disturbingly unaware of both Biden’s climate record and the assault that Project 2025 would marshal against it,” Ibid.

Make America Great Again. Really?

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This article was originally published on May 27, 2024 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

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Amazon Rainforest Collapse?

Photo by Lingchor is licensed by Unsplash.
Photo by Lingchor is licensed by Unsplash.

Amazon Rainforest Collapse?

By Robert Hunziker

“A major question is whether a large-scale collapse of the Amazon forest system could actually happen within the twenty-first century.” (Source: Bernardo M. Flores, et al, Critical Transitions in the Amazon Forest System, Nature, Feb. 14, 2024).

It may seem absurd to consider collapse of the Amazon rainforest (65-million-years-old) which seems impossible, too far out, not warranting an article like this, but, sorry to say. it is already happening in early stages, as explained herein in some detail, with facts.

In fact, peer-reviewed studies of ecosystems such as (1) Greenland (2) the Great Barrier Reef (3) vast permafrost regions of the Northern Hemisphere upper latitudes define risks combined with (4) the Amazon rainforest could result in a synchronized collapse 1,2,3,4 sometime in the future, who knows, but it’s headed in that direction? All four are noticeably breaking down; no doubt about it, 100% factual. It would likely be geologically catastrophically quick. Each of these tottering ecosystems is negatively impacted by human-generated global warming via fossil fuel emissions, CO2. And it’s happening fast.

The potential collapse of the iconic Amazon, one of the planet’s biggest, best-known ecosystems, arises after years of failure by world leaders to listen to scientists’ warnings to do something about fossil fuel CO2. As a result, by ignoring science, society is its own worst enemy, in denial, unapproachable denial.

A recent Earth.org headline reflects the sobering facts found in the Flores study of the Amazon and supports the uncanny proposition of a potential synchronized collapse of ecosystems: “Up to 47% of Amazon Rainforest at Risk of Collapse by Mid-Century Due to ‘Unprecedented Stress’ from Global Warming and Deforestation,” Earth.org, Feb.15, 2024.

The Flores study is the first-ever major study to focus on a range of forcings impacting the world’s most famous rainforest. Previous research only assessed individual forcing aspects without looking at the entire picture. “This study adds it all up to show how this tipping point is closer than other studies estimated,’ said Carlos Nobre, an author of the study.” (Source: Manuela Andreoni, A Collapse of the Amazon Could Be Coming ‘Faster Than We Thought,’ The New York Times, February 14, 2024).

The Flores study combined with NASA research of droughts occurring so frequently that the Amazon no longer has enough time to heal, depict a tenuous ecosystem that could turn the global climate system upside down, putting civilization into a state of stress and confusion. Already, portions of southeastern Amazon have experienced large-scale deforestation that’s past the point of recovery.

“The collapse of part or all the Amazon rainforests would release the equivalent of several years’ worth of global emissions, possibly as much as 20 years’ worth, into the atmosphere as its trees, which store vast amounts of carbon, are replaced by degraded ecosystems. And, because those same trees pump huge amounts of water into the atmosphere, their loss could also disturb global rainfall patterns and temperatures in ways that aren’t well understood,” Ibid.

The Flores study outlines parameters for the rainforest to survive: (1) global warming not to exceed 1.5°C (2) deforestation kept below 10% of original tree cover (3) annual dry season cannot exceed five months for the forest to stay intact. “If you pass those thresholds, then the forest could, in principle, collapse or transition into different ecosystems,” Ibid.

{Footnote to Prior Paragraph: According to the World Wildlife Foundation, 17% of the forest is already lost with another 17% degraded. The Council on Foreign Relations claims 20% has been destroyed over 50 years. According to a recent study in Nature d/d March 1, 2024: “The combined effects of land use change and global warming resulted in a mean annual rainfall reduction of 44% and a dry season length increase of 69%, when averaged over the Amazon basin… Savannization and climate change, via increasing dry-season length and drought frequency, might have already pushed the Amazon close to a critical threshold of rainforest dieback. Increases in the length of the dry season have been reported in several recent studies.”}

Are the three above-stated parameters for rainforest survival achievable?

The Flores study says governments must halt carbon emissions and deforestation and somehow restore 5% of the degraded rainforest to keep the ecosystem alive and functioning as a rainforest. Yet, the parameters are threatened: “Dry season mean temperature is now more than 2 °C higher than it was 40 years ago in large parts of the central and southeastern Amazon. If trends continue, these areas could potentially warm by over 4 °C by 2050.” (Flores)

“Keeping the Amazon forest resilient depends firstly on humanity’s ability to stop greenhouse gas emissions, mitigating the impacts of global warming on regional climatic conditions.” (Flores) Indeed, this is the problem of all problems as fossil fuel producers are intent on increasing production over the foreseeable future into 2050. The health of the Amazon rainforest is not a consideration in oil and gas company business plans.

Yet already, “the northwestern portion of the biome (in Amazonas and Roraima states) and in the interior of the Para state, as well as other parts of Brazil, such as the semiarid region of Bahia state, in the northeast, and Mato Grosso do Sul state in the savanna biome, have already seen extreme temperature increases of more than 3°C (5.4°F) just since the 1960s.” (S0urce: Detailed NASA Analysis Finds Earth and Amazon in Deep Climate Trouble, Mongabay, Dec. 21, 2023).

This “deep climate trouble” statement made by NASA reflects insanely fast temperature increases, and GRACE satellite groundwater readings in dangerous red zones with severe bouts of drought so frequent that the rainforest no longer snaps back, never seen before in NASA’s data base. The Amazon rainforest is truly a victim of excessive global warming. All arrows point down.

Moreover, in addition to too much CO2: “Real-time satellite monitoring shows that so far in 2024, more than 10,000 wildfires have ripped across 11,000 square kilometers of the Amazon, across multiple countries, never have this many fires burned so much of the forest this early in the year.” (Source: Fires Imperil the Future of the Amazon Rainforest, Mother Jones, March 18, 2024) This info is based upon Brazil’s own National Institute for Space Research, as excessive wildfires weaken the forests and emit CO2 in competition with human CO2 emisions.

Roraima, which is Brazil’s northernmost state within the rainforest and known for its “wet-wet climate” positioned above the equator naturally suppresses forest fires because of its “wetness.” However, in late February, according to NASA satellites, widespread intense fire activity 5-times the average for February and 50% above the previous record number of fires. According to Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service: “The intensity and size of many of the fires are also unusual.” It’s dry, it burns.

Equally concerning for Roraima, during a normal year the fires only cover a few square kilometers, but this year the fires that began in fragmented regions of the rainforest of pastures and recently cleared forest spread into surrounding areas, burning hundreds of square kilometers, not just a ‘few.” (Source; Shane Coffield, postdoc at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center)

“A new NASA study shows that over the last 20 years, the atmosphere above the Amazon rainforest has been drying out, increasing the demand for water, and leaving ecosystems vulnerable to fires and drought. It also shows that the increase in dryness is primarily the result of human activities.” (Hunan Activities Are Drying Out the Amazon: NASA Study, Vital Signs of the Planet, NASA.)

“Indeed, despite global efforts to protect forest land, deforestation is still rampant, with around 15% of the Amazon already cleared, 17% degraded by human activities such as logging, fires, and under-canopy extraction, and a further 38% at risk due to prolonged droughts. About a third of global tropical deforestation occurs in Brazil’s Amazon forest, amounting to 1.5 million hectares each year.” (Earth.org)

Based upon simple arithmetic from the preceding paragraph, 70% of the rainforest is (a) already cleared (b) degraded by human activities (c) at further risk due to prolonged droughts. Not a good score card. In fact, horrible.

There are solutions, which have been harped upon by climate scientists for decades, stop fossil fuel emissions, stop CO2 which is 76% of greenhouse gases. At the risk of being overly didactic, world leaders need to consider ramifications when skirting the original precepts of the Paris 2015 climate accord to take bold measures to commence halting CO2 emissions more seriously by 2030 to hold global warming in check at 1.5C pre-industrial, especially as major ecosystems of the world are fast approaching the cliff’s edge with global temperatures knocking on the 1.5C door (assuming IPCC decadal calculations for 1.5C) although, 1.5C seems to be here now.

Should world leaders, more than 100 typically attend UN climate conferences, “go to the ends of the earth” to demand sticking to the Paris climate accords of 2015 instead of attending the conference just for photo ops with Bono?

Answer: Absolutely, Yes!
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This article was originally published on May 24, 2024 © Counterpunch
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

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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.

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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.

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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