It’s Not Them, It’s Us: Unadaptable to Climate Change

It’s Not Them, It’s Us: Unadaptable to Climate Change

by | Dec 7, 2014 | Climate Change, Indigenous Autonomy

By Lxs inadaptadxs al cambio climático

22 years ago on this very continent was brought to the negotiating table the crisis of climate change. Many evasive proposals, claims to turn the crisis into an opportunity for business, denials, omissions and grand tragedies embody the climate crisis in the territories. A balance of 22 years of indifference and cynicism.

Governments and transnational interests continue to invest in the destruction of forests, rivers, oceans, jungles, mashlands, mountains and deserts; living spaces that end up being sacrificed in the name of “development” and “progress”.

In these 22 years, we are far from believing that the solution will come from governments; that the market will contribute to environmental conservation, or that the commodification of nature will protect the climate.

Our view is the way of indigenous communities that have known to preserved ecosystems, in farming communities who struggle to protect their lands, in women who work caringly in the rivers, in the children that keep alive their capacity of fascination with nature, and in the inhabitants of large cities who know that they have been robbed from nature since birth. Our guardians.

Us, the very ones who we are, have come here to convince you (and convince ourselves of the certainty that the world we want already exists), as there are colors of the earth, the suns that shine us, and the ways of our guardians that defend the territories around the globe.

This is why we call to find ourselves on the road to the COP20, to join our histories, our views, and our ways that demand climate justice under these guiding principles:

1. Maintain the fossil fuels underground is not only a priority to halting environmental devastation, but to end one of the evils that has so hurt and changed the pace of the climate in very few decades.

2. Ban the financialization of forests and the commodification of the functions of nature, as they are not a solutions to reduce emissions of carbon gases into the atmosphere; strategies which represent false solutions that have increased the destruction of ecosystems, the breakdown of communitarian social fabric and organization.

3. Water, as a common good can no longer be conceived as a commodity. Dams and hydroelectric dams are part of the mining and energy industries. The production of hydroelectric power is what keeps widening the gap of environmental devastation.

The aggressiveness with which the occupation of territories intends to expand itself does not depend on the political color of governments, but rather is linked to the perpetuation of the capitalist system under the same logic of accumulation at the expense of nature and communities.

Therefore, it becomes more urgent to find one another, Us.

They are the ones who will find the solutions- It’s us, the unadaptaded, the unadaptable climate change- It is us that can and must contain the war against nature.

From Lxs inadaptadxs al cambio climático

“Carbon Sinks” Insufficient In Absorbing CO2 Emissions

“Carbon Sinks” Insufficient In Absorbing CO2 Emissions

by | Sep 14, 2014 | Climate Change, NEWS

By Tom Bawden / The Independent

Carbon dioxide is being accumulated in the atmosphere at the fastest rate since records began, as scientists warn that the oceans and forests may have absorbed so much CO2 that their crucial function as “carbon sinks” is now severely threatened.

The jump in atmospheric CO2 is partly the result of rising carbon emissions as the world burns ever-more fossil fuels, according to the latest World Meteorological Organisation report, which finds the concentration of carbon increased by nearly three parts per million (ppm) to 396ppm last year.

But, crucially, preliminary data in the report indicates that the jump could also be attributed to “reduced CO2 uptake by the Earth’s biosphere” – the first time the effectiveness of the world’s great carbon sinks has been scientifically called into question.

Scientists said they were puzzled and extremely concerned by prospect of reduced absorption of the world’s oceans and plants, which they cannot explain and which threatens to accelerate the build-up of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere if the trend continues.

“That carbon dioxide concentrations continued to surge upwards last year is worrying news,” said Professor Dave Reay, of the University of Edinburgh.

“Of particular concern is the indication that carbon storage in the world’s forests and oceans may be faltering. So far these ‘carbon sinks’ have been locking away almost half of all the carbon dioxide we emit,” Professor Reay added.

“If they begin to fail in the face of further warming then our chances of avoiding dangerous climate change become very slim indeed.”

The plants and the oceans each typically absorb about a quarter of humanity’s CO2 emissions every year, with the other half going into the atmosphere, where it can remain for hundreds of years.

The last time there was a reduction in the biosphere’s ability to absorb carbon was in 1998, a year in which extensive forest fires and dry weather killed off lots of plants, dealing a blow to the world’s carbon sink.

But Dr Oksana Tarasova, chief of the atmospheric research division at the WMO, said this time it is much more worrying because there have been no obvious impacts on the biosphere this year.

“This problem is very serious. It could be that the biosphere is already at its limit, or it may be close to reaching it. Or it may be that it just becomes less effective at absorbing carbon. But it’s still very concerning,” said Dr Tarasova.

The worst-case scenario in which the carbon sink ceased to function at all would double the rate at which CO2 emissions accumulate in the atmosphere, significantly increasing the fallout of climate change, such as storms, droughts and temperature increases, Dr Tarasova said.

The latest WMO survey packed a second environmental punch – revealing that the oceans are currently acidifying at a rate that is unprecedented in the past 300 million years.

This is because they are absorbing about 4kg of carbon dioxide for every person on the planet, the report says.

The WMO’s findings intensified calls for co-ordinated global action to limit global warming to 2C, beyond which its consequences become increasingly devastating.

“We are running out of time. Past, present and future CO2 emissions will have a cumulative impact on both global warming and ocean acidification. The law of physics are non-negotiable,” said the WMO’s secretary-general Michel Jarraud. He added that, rather than rising, fossil fuel and other emissions badly need to come down.

Read more from The Independent: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/carbon-dioxide-accumulates-as-seas-and-forests-struggle-to-absorb-it-9722224.html

Photo by Tienko Dima on Unsplash

Video: Arctic Emergency: Scientists Speak

Video: Arctic Emergency: Scientists Speak

by | Sep 13, 2014 | Climate Change

This film, by DGR member Max Wilbert, brings you the voices of climate scientists – in their own words.

Rising temperatures in the Arctic are contributing the melting sea ice, thawing permafrost, and destabilization of a system that has been called “Earth’s Air Conditioner”. Global warming is here and is impacting weather patterns, natural systems, and human life around the world – and the Arctic is central to these impacts.

Scientists featured in the film include:

  • Jennifer Francis, PhD. Atmospheric Sciences
    Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences, Rutgers University.
  • Ron Prinn, PhD. Chemistry
    TEPCO Professor of Atmospheric Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
  • Natalia Shakhova, PhD. Marine Geology
    International Arctic Research Center, University of Alaska-Fairbanks.
  • Kevin Schaefer, PhD.
    Research Scientist, National Snow and Ice Data Center.
  • Stephen J. Vavrus, PhD. Atmospheric Sciences
    Center for Climatic Research, University of Wisconsin-Madison
  • Nikita Zimov, Northeast Science Station, Russian Academy of Sciences.
  • Jorien Vonk, PhD. Applied Environmental Sciences
    Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University
  • Jeff Masters, PhD. Meteorology
    Director, Weather Underground

Credit Addendums

  • At 16:15, the footage of methane venting from the seafloor was captured by Ocean Networks Canada / CSSF. It is venting from a place called “Bubbly Gulch” near one of their seafloor observatory nodes called Clayoquot Slope (a.k.a. ODP 889), located off the coast of Vancouver Island, not Oregon. The footage was captured in May 2010 at a depth of 1257 m.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEHFit_5l-Y

Study suggests climate change has stunted fish size up to 29% over four decades

by | Mar 20, 2014 | Climate Change

By Renee Lewis / Al Jazeera

Climate change may be stunting fish growth, a new study has said. Fish sizes in the North Sea have shrunk dramatically, and scientists believe warmer ocean temperatures and less oxygenated water could be the causes.

The body sizes of several North Sea species have decreased by as much as 29 percent over a period of four decades, according to the report, published in the April issue of Global Change Biology.

The report presents evidence gathered as researchers followed six commercial fish species in the North Sea over 40 years. Their evidence showed that as water temperatures increased by 1 to 2 degrees Celsius, an accompanying reduction in fish size was observed.

It is generally accepted among scientists that decreased body size is a universal response to increasing temperatures, known as the “temperature size rule,” the report said. But before this report, led by scientists at Scotland’s University of Aberdeen, there was no empirical evidence showing this response in marine fish species.

The scientists warned that fish stunting cannot be unequivocally blamed on temperature changes, but they did observe fish stunting across varying species and backgrounds that coincided with a period of increasing ocean temperature.

Other factors that could have influenced fish size include fisheries-induced evolution and intensive commercial fishing — which favors larger specimens. But, the scientists said, these causes would not be likely to affect growth rates across species, which was observed in the North Sea study.

Scientists at the University of Washington have been working on a similar study, looking at many species of fish from Alaska to California. Tim Essington, an associate professor of aquatic and fishery sciences at UW who is working on the study, said he was looking into whether changes in fish body size could be related to environmental parameters.

“We haven’t seen the same strong response,” Essington told Al Jazeera. “But we have seen variation in the sizes of some stocks, like halibut. Its body size has been shrinking sharply over the past 10 years, and has resulted in reduced catch quotas and higher prices at the supermarket.”

He said various factors explain why UW results were different from those of the Scottish team. University of Aberdeen scientists were looking at a much more localized area and a unique data set, and had many more years of data to make comparisons.

Overall, Essington said the Aberdeen findings represented a plausible hypothesis that should be looked at more closely, and that warmer temperatures could explain the stunting.

“Fish aren’t any different than us. It’s all about the difference between how much we eat and how much energy we expend. And they’re arguing that temperature is changing the fishes’ energy versus expension rates,” which could result in smaller sizes, Essington said.

The Aberdeen findings echoed earlier model-derived predictions that fish would shrink in warmer waters. Those projections for future fish size reduction are already being seen in the North Sea, scientists said.

The first global projection of the potential for fish stunting in warmer, less oxygenated oceans was carried out by the University of British Columbia in 2012, and published in the journal Nature Climate Change.

The projection said changes in ocean and climate systems by 2050 could result in fish that are 14 to 24 percent smaller globally.

“It’s a constant challenge for fish to get enough oxygen from water to grow, and the situation gets worse as fish get bigger,” said Daniel Pauly, principal investigator with the University of British Columbia’s Sea Around Us Project, and the co-author of the UBC study.

The study warned that strategies must be developed to curb greenhouse-gas emissions or risk disrupting food security, fisheries and the very way ocean ecosystems work.

From Al Jazeera America: http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/3/19/report-climate-changestuntingfish.html

Scientists: Climate change will damage Great Barrier Reef beyond recovery by 2030

by | Mar 7, 2014 | Climate Change

By Agence France-Presse

Time is running out for Australia’s iconic Great Barrier Reef, with climate change set to wreck irreversible damage by 2030 unless immediate action is taken, marine scientists said Thursday.

In a report prepared for this month’s Earth Hour global climate change campaign, University of Queensland reef researcher Ove Hoegh-Guldberg said the world heritage site was at a turning point.

“If we don’t increase our commitment to solve the burgeoning stress from local and global sources, the reef will disappear,” he wrote in the foreword to the report.

“This is not a hunch or alarmist rhetoric by green activists. It is the conclusion of the world’s most qualified coral reef experts.”

Hoegh-Guldberg said scientific consensus was that hikes in carbon dioxide and the average global temperature were “almost certain to destroy the coral communities of the Great Barrier Reef for hundreds if not thousands of years”.

“It is highly unlikely that coral reefs will survive more than a two degree increase in average global temperature relative to pre-industrial levels,” he said.

“But if the current trajectory of carbon pollution levels continues unchecked, the world is on track for at least three degrees of warming. If we don’t act now, the climate change damage caused to our Great Barrier Reef by 2030 will be irreversible.”

The Great Barrier Reef, one of the most biodiverse places on Earth, teems with marine life and will be the focus of Australia’s Earth Hour—a global campaign which encourages individuals and organisations to switch off their lights for one hour on April 29 for climate change.

The report comes as the reef, considered one of the most vulnerable places in the world to the impacts of climate change, is at risk of having its status downgraded by the UN cultural organisation UNESCO to “world heritage in danger”.

Despite threats of a downgrade without action on rampant coastal development and water quality, Australia in December approved a massive coal port expansion in the region and associated dumping of dredged waste within the marine park’s boundaries.

The new report “Lights Out for the Reef“, written by University of Queensland coral reef biologist Selina Ward, noted that reefs were vulnerable to several different effects of climate change; including rising sea temperatures and increased carbon dioxide in the ocean, which causes acidification.

It found the rapid pace of global warming and the slow pace of coral growth meant the reef was unlikely to evolve quickly enough to survive the level of climate change predicted in the next few decades.

From Physorg: http://phys.org/news/2014-03-great-barrier-reef-scientists.html

1C warming enough to devastate planet, scientists warn

by | Dec 3, 2013 | Climate Change

 

By Suzanne Goldenberg / The Guardian

The limit of 2C of global warming agreed by the world’s governments is a “dangerous target”, “foolhardy” and will not avoid the most disastrous consequences of climate change, new research from a panel of eminent climate scientists warned on Tuesday.

In a new paper, the climate scientist Professor James Hansen and a team of international experts found the most dangerous effects of a warming climate – sea level rise, Arctic ice melt, extreme weather – would begin kicking in with a global temperature rise of 1C.

Allowing warming to reach 2C would be simply too late, Hansen said. “The case we make is that 2C itself is a very dangerous target to be aiming for,” he told the Guardian. “Society should reassess what are dangers levels, given the impacts that we have already seen.”

The research, published in the peer-reviewed journal PLoS One, represents Hansen’s most public intervention so far into the world of climate policy, following his retirement earlier in 2013 from Nasa’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies.

Hansen, who left Nasa to be more free to act as a climate advocate, set up a new climate policy programme at the Earth Institute in September. In a separate action, he intervened in November in support of a law suit demanding the federal government act to cut the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change.

The new study, however, was aimed at marshalling the expertise of 17 other climate and policy experts from the UK, Australia, France, Sweden and Switzerland as well as the US, to outline the dangerous consequences of sticking to the 2C warming target endorsed by the United Nations and world leaders.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned in its major in October that the world had only about 30 years left before it exhausted the rest of the 1,000 gigaton carbon emission budget estimated to lead to 2C warming. But Hansen and his colleagues warned that the UN target would not avoid dangerous consequences, even if it kept within that carbon budget.

“Fossil fuel emissions of 1,000 gigaton, sometimes associated with a 2C global warming target, would be expected to cause large climate change with disastrous consequences. The eventual warming from one gigaton fossil fuel emissions likely would reach well over 2C, for several reasons. With such emissions and temperature tendency, other trace greenhouse gases including methane and nitrous oxide would be expected to increase, adding to the effect of CO2,” the researchers said.

The paper draws on multiple strands of evidence to make its case, including the rapid decline of Arctic sea ice, mountain glaciers, and the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, the expansion of hot, dry subtropical zones, the increase in drought and wildfires, and the loss of coral reefs because of ocean acidification.

“The main point is that the 2C target – which is almost out of reach now, or quickly becoming out of reach – is itself a dangerous target because it leads to a world that is greatly destabilised by rising sea levels and massive changes of climate patterns in different parts of the world,” said Professor Jeff Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, one of the PLoS paper’s authors.

An even bigger problem however was that the international community was far from even reaching that inadequate target, Sachs said. “Right now we are completely off track globally,” he said. “We are certainly not even in the same world as a 1C world. We are not even in a 2C world.”

The paper goes on to urge immediate cuts in global emissions of 6% a year as well as ambitious reforestation efforts to try to keep temperatures in check. The paper acknowledges such actions would be “exceedingly difficult” to achieve, but says it is urgent to begin reductions now, rather than wait until future decades.

It warns that the targets will remain far out of reach so long with continued exploitation of fossil fuels, such as coal burning for electricity and continued exploitation of unconventional oil and gas.

The paper also offers prescriptions, urging the adoption of a direct carbon tax at point of production and entry. “Our policy implication is that we have to have a carbon fee and some of the major countries need to agree on that and if that were done it would be possible to actually get global emissions to begin to come down rapidly I think,” Hansen said.

Read more from The Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/dec/03/un-2c-global-warming-climate-change