Climate Cosmos

 

Why Some Scientists Think We Should Let the Earth Warm Up

Big Oil Not Worried About Climate Change

London  (CNN) —  Is this the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era? The world’s latest climate deal could be that milestone. But recent events show the oil and gas industry still has a very different vision of the future.

Following marathon talks, the COP28 climate summit in Dubai struck a deal Wednesday that makes the unprecedented call for “transitioning away from fossil fuels.”

Some countries, including the United States, welcomed the firmest-ever commitment to moving away from energy sources responsible for most planet-heating emissions, but critics were quick to point out that the agreement falls far short of requiring the world to “phase-out” oil, coal and gas, a position more than 100 nations had supported.  READ MORE...

Batteries and Hydrogen Fuel Cells Are Needed

Though it may seem that the world is dividing between these clean energies, it’s not either/or.

Often when there are discussions about hydrogen fuel cells or battery electric engines, the conversation will focus on which one is the best clean energy option to power our future. Increasingly, experts are agreeing that it won’t be one or the other, and that it is likely that they will not be the only clean power options as we move forward in the battle against climate change.

There are advantages to both types of carbon emission-free power and they each have their place.

Proponents of each technology have been vocal in spotlighting the benefits that they have to provide. Often, they will compare battery electric to hydrogen fuel cell performances, particularly when it comes to vehicles. 

However, experts are now coming to the conclusion that it’s not really a matter of deciding which technology will win out and which will disappear. Instead, each form of clean power will find its place, as each has strengths in their own areas.

It’s true that battery electric passenger vehicles have taken a tremendous head start over hydrogen cars, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a place for both. Geography, use, cost, climate and other factors all play a role in determining which option is best suited.

Even in passenger vehicles hydrogen fuel cars are expected to play a supporting role in coming years.

According to Toyota’s fuel cell integration group senior engineering manager Jackie Birdsall and McKinsey & Co senior partner Bernd Heid, as zero-carbon transportation continues to advance, it is likely that fuel cell vehicles and electric cars will play complementary roles to each other.  READ MORE...

Scientist Left Out Truth About Climate Change

A California scientist admitted that he "left out the full truth" about climate change, blaming it primarily on human causes, to get his study published in a prestigious science journal.

Patrick T. Brown, a lecturer at Johns Hopkins University and doctor of earth and climate sciences, admitted in an online article in The Free Press, a blog post and a series of social media posts that he distorted the findings of his studies to appeal to the editors at Nature and Science magazines, which are prestigious online science journals.

"And the editors of these journals have made it abundantly clear, both by what they publish and what they reject, that they want climate papers that support certain preapproved narratives—even when those narratives come at the expense of broader knowledge for society," Brown wrote in The Free Press.

Brown's study published in Nature on Aug. 30 stated that climate change affected extreme wildfire behavior like the devastating fires in California and Maui. The established scientist now admits that he "focused narrowly" only on the human influence of wildfires, instead of focusing broadly on the complexities of other "obviously relevant factors."

He blamed his angle on the pressure scientists face to get their studies published in prestigious articles and the need to create catchy abstracts that can be turned into headlines.

Brown said in The Free Press he is not "disowning" his paper by criticizing how he chose to approach the piece, but admitting it is less "useful than it could have been."

"You might be wondering at this point if I’m disowning my own paper. I’m not," Brown wrote. "On the contrary, I think it advances our understanding of climate change’s role in day-to-day wildfire behavior. It’s just that the process of customizing the research for an eminent journal caused it to be less useful than it could have been."  READ MORE...

Human Life on Earth Has Passed 7 of 9 Thresholds

Back in 2009, a large group of scientists identified nine limits that humans should not cross if they want the earth to remain hospitable to civilization. These included, among others, the availability of fresh water, the conservation of natural areas, pollution levels, the ozone layer and, of course, climate change. 

Now, a new report just published in the journal Nature quantifies – for the first time – the thresholds for each of these problems that should not be exceeded, in order for the earth’s system to be safe and just, not only for humans today, but for future generations. However, seven of these thresholds have already been crossed in all or in large swaths of the planet. 

The apocalyptic picture is softened by the fact that the growing hole in the tropospheric ozone layer has fallen from the list: humanity was able to solve the problem in the nick of time.


The 2009 report identified the limits required for the global ecosystem to be sustainable and secure. It was written that, if these limits were to be greatly surpassed, a series of catastrophic changes would follow. 

But since then, security has been joined by another idea: that the earth’s system will not be secure so long as it is also not fair. The latest report includes this consideration, quantifying the notion of justice between humans, the rest of living beings, as well as future generations.  READ MORE...

Climate Tipping Point

With climate-enhanced droughts, heatwaves and fires ravaging three continents and the threat of a new surge in global warming, the world urgently needs to ramp-up solutions for slashing carbon pollution. But which solutions are most critical?

The organization Project Drawdown has detailed the potential, feasibility and cost of nearly a hundred climate solutions since it was set up in 2017.

Executive director Jonathan Foley, a leading climate scientist, spoke to AFP about how to assess and prioritize the actions needed to keep Earth liveable.

The following interview has been edited for length and flow:

Q: What are the three most important questions in assessing the usefulness and integrity of carbon-cutting solutions?

A: Is it available now and ready to deploy? Because we need to start bending the emissions curve immediately.

Is it cost-effective? Otherwise, it's not going to scale effectively.

Does it create co-benefits for people, especially in terms of health, jobs, equity, and justice? This will make it far more appealing.

Q: A lot of hope—and investment—is going into technological solutions such as filtering fossil fuel pollution or pulling CO2 out of the air. Comment?

A: While some very limited carbon removal will be needed by mid-century, the vast, vast majority of the work we need to do—more than 95 percent—is cutting emissions, and doing it now.

Of the five percent focused on carbon removal, I think it should be more than 90 percent nature-based removal, such as ecological restoration and regenerative agriculture. Machine-based removal is unlikely to work at any meaningful scale.

Q: We often hear that solutions are already available, all that's missing is political will. Is that it?  READ MORE...

Africa Takes Action

Demonstrators at the COP27 climate summit on Novmber 15, 2022, in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. A new climate financing mechanism for Africa, by Africa could reduce the continent's dependence on the West to deliver on its promises. [Peter Dejong/AP Photo)


Failure can, at times, inspire wins. Just ask Africa.

The recently concluded COP27 global climate talks witnessed the continent triumph over a status quo of consistent failed promises of $100bn in climate financing from rich nations.


The launch of the African Climate Risk Facility – a $14bn local, market-based funding tool to help African countries increase the resilience of their vulnerable communities – is a wake-up call for a world frustrated by the hollow commitments of wealthy countries. The financing is a climate solution designed by Africa, for Africa, to support losses and damage (L&D in climate negotiations jargon) caused by climate change. And it should serve as an example to Asia.

Of course, COP27 did eventually reach a historic agreement to set up an L&D fund. But the developing world is used to hearing big promises that never see the light of day. The $100bn in climate financing was supposed to reach poorer nations by 2020. That year has passed, and the figure has since become irrelevant. Pakistan alone requires more than $30bn to recover from just the direct losses caused by this year’s catastrophic floods.

Why should the new loss and damage fund prove any different? At the moment, it is an empty account. Who will contribute what is yet to be decided. It took the United Nations-sponsored COP process more than a decade and thousands of natural disasters to agree on establishing the fund, so one can only imagine how much loss and damage climate-vulnerable countries will have to bear before the money begins to flow.

There’s another risk too. By establishing an L&D fund while omitting language on phasing out fossil fuels, COP27 has come dangerously close to allowing rich countries to damage the planet as much as they please as long as they promise to pay for it after the fact.  READ MORE...

Greening Ourselves to Extinction

Partially burned and standing trees called snags loom over a site where researchers from the John T Harrington Forestry Research Center are conducting reforestation experiments at Deer Lake Mesa in Cimarron, New Mexico on August 17, 2021 [File: Reuters/Adria Malcolm]

More than a decade ago, investment experts James Altucher and Douglas Sease wrote a book for the Wall Street Journal called Investing in the Apocalypse. They argued that the end of the world is a profitable opportunity for those who know how to “fade the fear”, as everyone else panics. They maintained that when disaster strikes, investors should approach it with the rationale that “no matter how bad things seem, they really aren’t that bad”.

Well before the COVID-19 pandemic, they advised investing in big pharmaceutical companies as a strategy to reap dividends from global pandemics. They also encouraged putting money into renewable energy systems while ramping up oil production.


Today, it seems many have followed Althucher and Sease’s advice. Under the guise of taking action on the pandemic, billions of dollars have been poured into big pharma, instead of public health and policies aimed at preventing another global outbreak. The supposed energy transition that has been undertaken has seen renewable energy production expanded, but there has been no indication that oil and gas are being substituted and ultimately phased out.

What is worse, governments and corporations have teamed up to turn the apocalypse into a money-making opportunity. They have rushed to put forward false solutions to the climate crisis: from the push to replace fuel-engine vehicles with electric ones, to so-called climate-smart agriculture, to protected areas for nature conservation and massive tree planting projects for carbon offsets.

All this trickery is called “greening” and it is designed to profit off of climate fears, not stop climate change. While guaranteeing high returns, this deception is tantamount to the genocide of the hundreds of millions of people who will perish from the effects of climate change within the next century because things are that bad.  READ MORE...

Democracy Is In Trouble

In 1776 when we declared our independence from Great Britain and formed a Democratic Republic, having a Democratic Government was seen as an EXPERIMENT and many countries simply did not believe that it would work...  having that must trust in people to decide what is best for a country.  And, for 246 years, we have been conducting this experiment quite successfully until recently.

Our experimental government has created the:

• strongest military in the world.
• strongest economy in the world.
• best education programs in the world.
• best healthcare in the world.
• best employment opportunities in the world.

And it is because of this list above that we now have a divided country and that division is getting worse each year.  This division started to manifest itself about 2012 during the second term of Obama.  It worsened in 2015 when Donald Trump campaigned and won the Presidency and escalated into high gear from 2016-2020.  And, even though Trump is no longer President the division in this country is worsening.

It is my belief that Russia, China, and several multi-billionaires are financing and promoting this division through a campaign of misinformation.

According to the Brookings Institute:

Democracy in the United States is in serious trouble. A review of some recent public opinion research shows just how much.

For example, an NPR survey conducted earlier this year found that 64% of the American population believes that U.S. democracy is in crisis and is at risk of failing. A strong indication that the situation is getting worse and not better is that over 70% of respondents in that poll said that democracy is more at risk of failure now than it was a year ago.

Similarly, a Quinnipiac University survey reveals that 76% of respondents think political instability within the country is a bigger danger to the United States than external adversaries. Amazingly, this suggests that Americans recognize that we are a bigger threat to our own democracy than any other potential external threat. Sadly, according to this poll, over half of Americans (53%) expect political divisions in the country to worsen over their lifetime rather than get better.

One of the drivers of decreased confidence in the political system has been the explosion of misinformation deliberately aimed at disrupting the democratic process. This confuses and overwhelms voters. Throughout the 2020 election cycle, Russia’s cyber efforts and online actors were able to influence public perceptions and sought to amplify mistrust in the electoral process by denigrating mail-in voting, highlighting alleged irregularities, and accusing the Democratic Party of engaging in voter fraud. The “big lie” reinforced by President Trump about the 2020 election results amplified the Russian efforts and has lasting implications on voters’ trust in election outcomes.

Democracy is the heart and soul of the United States and the ONLY REASON that we are and continue to be the most successful country in the world.

Yes, we have Democratic Progressives here and yes we have Socialists here who want the government to pay for everything while requiring that the wealthy foot the bill...  and while that sounds a lot like being taken care of by our parents, it is not going to be healthy for our economy...  unless the wealthy volunteer to do this on their own.

Moving fast in having only a GREEN economy, is foolish, childish, economically unsound, and illogical.  Transitions like this must be gradual and to say we are going to stop using petroleum crude oil, is just blatantly IGNORANT.

Over 6,000 items are made from petroleum waste by-products, including: fertilizer, flooring (floor covering), perfume, insecticide, petroleum jelly, soap, vitamins and some essential amino acids.  SOURCE:  Google Search

Climate Change Alters Wine

Soon after the devastating Glass Fire sparked in California’s Napa Valley in September 2020, wine chemist Anita Oberholster’s inbox was brimming with hundreds of emails from panicked viticulturists. They wanted to know if they could harvest their grapes without a dreaded effect on their wine: the odious ashtray flavor known as smoke taint.

Oberholster, of UC Davis, could only tell them, “Maybe.”

Industry laboratories were slammed with grape samples to test, with wait times of up to six weeks. Growers didn’t know whether it was worth harvesting their crops. About 8 percent of California wine grapes in 2020 were left to rot.

Winemakers are no strangers to the vicissitudes wrought by climate change. Warmer temperatures have been a boon to some in traditionally cooler regions who are rejoicing over riper berries—but devastating to others. Scorching heat waves, wildfires, and other climate-driven calamities have ruined harvests in Europe, North America, Australia, and elsewhere.

And as 2020 showed, climate change can take its toll on grapes without directly destroying them. Wildfires and warmer temperatures can transform the flavor of wine, whose quality and very identity depends on the delicate chemistry of grapes and the conditions they’re grown in. Many growers and winemakers are increasingly concerned that climate change is robbing wines of their defining flavors, even spoiling vintages entirely.

“That’s the big worry,” says Karen MacNeil, a wine expert living in Napa Valley and author of The Wine Bible. “That’s the heartbeat of wine—it’s connected to its place.”

The greatest challenge that climate change brings to winemaking is unpredictability, MacNeil says. Producers used to know which varieties to grow, how to grow them, when to harvest the berries, and how to ferment them to produce a consistent, quality wine—but today, every step is up in the air. This growing recognition is spurring researchers and winemakers to find ways to preserve beloved grape varieties and their unique qualities under the shifting and capricious conditions of today’s warming world.  READ MORE...

Wind and Solar

Wind and solar generated 10% of global electricity for the first time in 2021, a new analysis shows.


Fifty countries get more than a tenth of their power from wind and solar sources, according to research from Ember, a climate and energy think tank.


As the world's economies rebounded from the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021, demand for energy soared.


Demand for electricity grew at a record pace. This saw a surge in coal power, rising at the fastest rate since 1985.


The research shows the growth in the need for electricity last year was the equivalent of adding a new India to the world's grid.

GETTY IMAGES - Wind turbine blades being made ready for export from China

Solar and wind and other clean sources generated 38% of the world's electricity in 2021. For the first time wind turbines and solar panels generated 10% of the total.



The share coming from wind and sun has doubled since 2015, when the Paris climate agreement was signed.


The fastest switching to wind and solar took place in the Netherlands, Australia, and Vietnam. All three have moved a tenth of their electricity demand from fossil fuels to green sources in the last two years.  READ MORE...

Global Concerns of Women at Davos - WEF

At the World Economic Forum’s virtual Davos Agenda Week back in January, some of the world’s highest-profile women leaders shared their thoughts on the biggest challenges facing us today – and how to tackle them.

As these thoughts came before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, they don't reflect the new reality of the world's geopolitical challenges and all that they involve. You can read more about this on Agenda.

1. Rebuilding trust
Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, “This year, like never before, trust is the most valuable currency when we speak about the state of the world. Trust in science and vaccines can make a difference between life and death. 

Trust among countries can tilt the balance of international affairs towards cooperation instead of conflict. Trust in functioning societies based on the rule of law channels higher levels of long-term private investment, giving these societies an edge over competitors – and this trust is also essential to all of Europe’s main ambitions.”  READ MORE...

Shell Needs Oil to Pay for Green

IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES


The boss of oil giant Shell has insisted it can transition to net zero by 2050, but it will need the cash from its oil and gas business to pay for it.

Ben van Beurden dismissed splitting its legacy oil and gas business from its renewables investment, a move urged by activist shareholder Third Point.

Talking exclusively to the BBC, he said the company's plans for greener energy could only be funded by oil and gas.

"At this point in time [the cash] comes from our legacy business," he said.

Mr van Beurden was speaking at Europe's biggest oil refinery at Pernis near Rotterdam, a facility he plans to transform from refining petrol and diesel, to making biofuels and hydrogen over the next decade.

"These things can only be done if you have a facility (like Pernis) to work with and if you have the cash.

"If we have to build a hydrogen plant from a wind farm that we build in the North Sea for a billion dollars that is not going to be funded by a hydrogen business - it will be funded by the oil and gas business," he said.  READ MORE...

Smoke and Mirrors

Ministers meeting here in Milan at the final UN session before the Glasgow COP26 climate conference heard that some progress was being made.  But officials from developing countries demanded tougher targets for cutting carbon emissions and more cash to combat climate change.

One minister condemned "selfishness or lack of good faith" in the rich world.  US special envoy John Kerry said all major economies "must stretch" to do the maximum they can.  Around 50 ministers from a range of countries met here to try to overcome some significant hurdles before world leaders gather in Glasgow in November.

But for extremely vulnerable countries to a changing climate the priority is more ambitious carbon reductions from the rich, to preserve the 1.5C temperature target set by the 2015 Paris agreement.

Scientists have warned that allowing the world temperatures to rise more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels is highly dangerous.  An assessment of the promises made so far to cut carbon suggests that the world is on track for around 2.7C.  READ MORE...

What's the Worst That Couild Happen?

How bad could climate change get?

Humans have already warmed the planet by at least 1 degree Celsius by burning fossil fuels that spew heat-trapping gases into the sky. The oceans are rising, and deadly disasters like wildfires, heat waves, and flooding are becoming more destructive. Almost every part of the world is experiencing the effects of climate change.

That much is “unequivocal,” according to the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an international team of scientists convened by the United Nations.

What’s far less certain is just how bleak the future of our planet will be.

This critical question reaches beyond physical sciences into economics, sociology, and even psychology. Humans still have the power to slow the climate crisis — though with each day that goes by without sweeping societal changes to slash emissions, the outlook grows more grim.

The first installment of the IPCC’s sixth assessment report, which focuses on the physical science behind climate change, considers five scenarios that game out how humanity will respond, or not, to the specter of warming. They reveal that some of the more extreme projections of the past are less likely to come to fruition. But every scenario in the report also overshoots one of the targets of the 2015 Paris climate agreement. A best-case scenario now requires drastically more climate action than the world has achieved to date, and the window for action is closing.

However, “Scenarios are not predictions,” the report says. “Instead, they provide a ‘what-if’ investigation of the implications of various developments and actions.”

In short, these scenarios show how scientists are grappling with the capriciousness of human behavior. What happens if more countries are taken over by nationalists? Or if clean technology makes a radical leap forward? Or if countries and corporations actually start to buckle down and throttle emissions?

Our planet has many possible futures that depend on human decisions. These visions of tomorrow emphasize that we have profoundly and irreversibly changed the world, but also that much of the potential warming is still in our hands.  READ MORE

Witest White Paint

The whitest paint in the world has been created in a lab at Purdue University, a paint so white that it could eventually reduce or even eliminate the need for air conditioning, scientists say.

The paint has now made it into the Guinness World Records book as the whitest ever made.

So why did the scientists create such a paint? It turns out that breaking a world record wasn't the goal of the researchers: Curbing global warming was.

“When we started this project about seven years ago, we had saving energy and fighting climate change in mind,” said Xiulin Ruan, a professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue, in a statement.

The idea was to make a paint that would reflect sunlight away from a building, researchers said.  READ MORE

Shapeshifting Animals

IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGESimage captionAustralian parrots' beaks are getting bigger as temperatures rise

When you hear the word "shapeshifting" you probably think of a sci-fi or horror film, and not the climate.  But that's what scientists say is happening to some animals in response to climate change.  Warm-blooded species are evolving to have larger beaks, legs and ears to regulate body temperature as the planet warms up, a new study suggests.

The scientists behind the study warn the physiological changes do not mean animals are coping with climate change.  "A lot of the time when climate change is discussed, people are asking 'can humans overcome this?' or 'what technology can solve this?'" says the study's author, Sara Ryding, from Deakin University. "It's high-time we recognised that animals also have to adapt to these changes."

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If animals fail to control their body temperature, they can overheat and die.  Some animals in warmer climates have historically evolved to have larger beaks or ears to get rid of heat more easily.  A larger wing, ear or beak relative to body size gives smaller animals a greater surface area from which to lose excess heat.  READ MORE

Artists and Their Private Jets

Artists and bands must swap private jets for trains, festivals and venues need to generate more of their own renewable energy and gig tickets should include free public transport.  

These are just some of the recommendations being made by scientists at the University of Manchester to help the music industry reduce its carbon emissions to stop climate change. 

The roadmap for live music was based on tour data supplied by the band Massive Attack.  The findings are being shared across the industry and, it's hoped, will inspire millions of fans to live more sustainably, too.

What are the recommendations?
Since 2019, scientists at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research have been poring over every detail of Massive Attack's last tour.  They then used lessons learned to create a roadmap for the whole industry.

Their recommendations for "super low carbon practices" deal with how musicians, promoters, tour managers and agents should work in order to keep the rise in global warming restricted to 1.5C.

The suggestions cover how artists move around, the venues they play at, and how fans get to events:

• Plan tour routes in a way that minimises travel and transport
• Include travel by public transport in the ticket price
• Generate renewable energy on site, e.g. solar panels
• Gig and concert venues should use renewable energy
• Use energy efficient lighting and sound equipment
• Use electric vehicles and trains to travel between venues
• Better bike storage at music venues
• Avoiding flying and eliminating private jets
• Perform at venues that are taking action to reduce their building energy use
• Offer incentives to fans who choose to travel by public transport

TO READ ENTIRE ARTICLE, CLICK HERE...

China Not Impressed

US climate envoy John Kerry has told China that climate change is more important than politics as tensions between the two countries continue.  He made the remarks following two days of talks with Chinese leaders in the city of Tianjin.

But China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned on Wednesday that the worsening relationship could hamper future co-operation on climate issues. Both countries have outlined steps to tackle climate change.  But Mr Kerry has called on China to increase its efforts to tackle carbon emissions.

Tensions between the two countries have worsened in recent months with disputes over China's human rights record, the South China Sea and the Covid-19 pandemic.  Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Mr Kerry said he had told the Chinese that "climate is not ideological, not partisan and not a geostrategic weapon".

"It is essential... no matter what differences we have, that we have to address the climate crisis," he said   Earlier, Mr Wang called on the US to "stop seeing China as a threat and an opponent", accusing Washington of a "major strategic miscalculation towards China".

"It is impossible for China-US climate co-operation to be elevated above the overall environment of China-US relations," he said. China became the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide in 2006 and is now responsible for more than a quarter of the world's overall greenhouse gas emissions.

President Xi Jinping has said he will aim for China's emissions to reach their highest point before 2030 and for the country to be carbon neutral by 2060. But it is not yet clear how he plans to achieve this.  Mr Kerry said he aimed to meet Chinese leaders again ahead of the upcoming COP26 UN climate summit in Glasgow this year and push for stronger emission reduction targets.  READ MORE  

Animals Growing Bigger

 

Human activity has shrunk the size of wild animals the world over, and yet recent research has found many mammals living near cities have become steadily larger, both in length and in weight.

The findings are unexpected. Sprawling urban environments, with their vast swathes of sun-soaked cement, can grow much hotter than natural habitats, and warmer temperatures usually benefit mammals that have a smaller, more energy efficient stature – a principle of biology known as Bergmann's rule.

As the world grows warmer, some scientists have worried that mammals living near cities are doomed to grow smaller, possibly reducing their fitness as a species and, no doubt, the fitness of their predators, too.

But even with climate change, that might not happen. As it turns out, there's another factor in determining a mammal's size that might rival or even exceed temperature, and that is food.

In and around cities with dense populations, where high-calorie human scraps are more widely available and predators are fewer and farther in between, new research discovered that most of the mammal species studied – such as coyotes and raccoons – appear to be growing in size, not shrinking.

That extra bulk has been noted before by both scientists and members of the public. Yet the reason or reasons why have rarely been explored.  READ MORE