Happy New Year 2024 (and sorry for the forum being offline some hours) /DM
10 technologies to fight AGW:https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613979/gene-editing-will-help-far-more-than-organic-food-to-slow-global-warming/
Quote from: Tom_Mazanec on July 22, 2019, 05:48:08 PM10 technologies to fight AGW:https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613979/gene-editing-will-help-far-more-than-organic-food-to-slow-global-warming/The evil voice of agri-business: "please let's not have organic food because that would be good for living nature and stop deforestation and pesticide use etc. Far better to further destroy living nature with manipulating DNA with that wonderful CRISPR and of course even more powerful poisons otherwise our profits and existence are in peril."
Good one, Terry.DBR is clearly an @$$ Time to ban
This stuff is certainly interesting, I just wish it did not bring with it such dread. Great to have community to collectively chew on tthe details and the scary prospects for my kids and all of of us. Would be even more disturbing to watch this train wreck unfold alone, would be maddening actually. mini-speech (again) - I work in the natural sciences (ag & biology), and if people think that the general scientist community is fully aware of the pace and prospects of what's happening our spaceship Earth, my observation is that they would be wrong. Heck even some of the people I do climate adaptation work with do not fully get the urgency. The scientists and other smart people I interact with know the basic trajectories, but like like all of us, our rains focus on the day to day issues. Hard to save the world between breakfast and dinner. The climate crisis is so big that it is hard to react to in specific ways. But we have to take any steps we can to push a survival agenda. In case it's news, we are heading for deep doo doo friends. I'm off topic for this thread and becoming a pain in the butt with yet another iteration of this speech. Sorry, I just can't help preaching to the choir. I just hope all us who visit the ASIF will become irritants even if it makes us irritating and predictable to our family, friends and our larger social network. If not those of us who watch the unfolding epic changes in minute detail, then who else? Thanks for considering this request. I will try to stick to the data hereafter -- for a while at least.
U.S. Democrat presidential hopefuls Debates, Round 2There was sharp wrangling among the Democratic presidential contenders over the details of universal health care, immigration and crime. But on climate change, there was remarkable unity.Debate’s Attempt to Show Candidates Divided on Climate Change Finds Unity Instead https://insideclimatenews.org/news/01082019/2020-presidential-debate-climate-change-question-democrats-green-new-deal-global-warming
The Next Twilight of Environmentalism:https://www.ecosophia.net/the-next-twilight-of-environmentalism/
On July 29, humanity will have used nature’s resource budget for the entire year, according to Global Footprint Network, an international sustainability organization that has pioneered the Ecological Footprint. It is Earth Overshoot Day. Its date has moved up two months over the past 20 years to the 29th of July this year, the earliest date ever.Earth Overshoot Day falling on July 29th means that humanity is currently using nature 1.75 times faster than our planet’s ecosystems can regenerate. This is akin to using 1.75 Earths. Overshoot is possible because we are depleting our natural capital – which compromises humanity’s future resource security. The costs of this global ecological overspending are becoming increasingly evident in the form of deforestation, soil erosion, biodiversity loss, or the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The latter leads to climate change and more frequent extreme weather events.“We have only got one Earth – this is the ultimately defining context for human existence. We can’t use 1.75 without destructive consequences,” said Mathis Wackernagel, co-inventor of Ecological Footprint accounting and founder of Global Footprint Network.
Beef burgers, burritos and other enduring student dishes are off the menu at a London university -- in order to help the fight against the climate crisis.Goldsmiths University in London will be scrapping all beef products from its campus, the institution's new chief has announced, as it seeks to become carbon neutral by 2025. ...
Some say they've noticed a drop-off in numbers. "It's harder for students to miss out on school nowadays," Berlin student Martha Stert, who attended more than 20 weekly Fridays for Future protests in 2018, told DW. The 18-year-old — whose summer break finished at the beginning of August — says teachers have become stricter about missing class as the weekly protests have continued; and that the movement's reputation has also been negatively affected by some students who use the strikes as an excuse to miss school.But while Stert says she herself is struggling to attend protests as final year exams loom, she believes that younger students are just as enthusiastic and will keep up the momentum. "Protesting at school time" is an essential strategy, she says, as it's the only thing adults "are going to take notice of."
I expressed concern recently, on a listserv for climate nerds, over Senator Elizabeth Warren’s military-focused climate plan. It seemed weird to me that one of the first climate policies she’d announce would focus on greening the military; it seemed like a ploy to win over “never Trump” Republicans, centrists and “progressives” who are somehow still pro-military action. I couldn’t understand why someone so famous for holding corporate execs to account wouldn’t burst out the gate with guns blazing at the fossil fuel companies. “I think we need to avoid emotional responses to these policies,” one man sniffed.My response had been based on knowledge, not emotion, but also: an emotional response to catastrophic climate change and our system’s evident inability to address it seems perfectly valid to me.
Tom, thanks again for the links.Maybe it's just me, but I think it would be good to have a title and a context above a quote. To know what's it about And yesterdaymorning my firefox crashed after following a link of yours, can't remember which one though.This is meant as positive and constructive critique.
e don’t know how to talk about climate change.Sure, we try. We tread through a battlefield of technical, clinical jargon. Boobytrapped with too many syllables and jolted acronyms. But it’s anything but clinical. What we’re living through is deeply, deeply personal. And emotional. It’s heartbreakingly human.Climate change means watching not just your childhood home, but your ancestral home, surrender to the sea. It’s being sold on an open slave market because drought sucked your homeland dry. It’s a ticking clock until your tap runs dry.It’s war, famine, gang violence, sex-trafficking. It’s skyrocketing suicide.It’s watching everything you planned for light up in fantastic flames right in front of you, all the dreams you were supposed to dream: buying a house, raising a family, planning for retirement.This isn’t some distant, dystopian future. This isn’t “somewhere else” (and even if it were, that’s no excuse not to care). This is here and now.
Climate change has become a national cause for concern with almost three in four people now believing Britain is already feeling its effects, a poll has revealed.The Ipsos Mori survey found 85 per cent of Britons were worried about climate change with more than half (52 per cent) ‘very concerned’.This is the highest level of anxiety about the topic recorded since Ipsos Mori began tracking in 2005.
The declaration, “Draft Joint Statement of the Nordic Prime Ministers and the Nordic CEOs for a Sustainable Future,” was signed by Iceland’s Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir, Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, Finland’s Prime Minister Antti Rinne, Norway’s Prime Minister Erna Solberg and Sweden’s Prime Minister Stefan Löfven; along with Greenland’s Premier Kim Kielsen, Aksel V. Johannesen, the prime minster of the Faroe Islands, a self-governing region part of the Kingdom of Denmark, and by Katrin Sjögren, the premier of Åland, an autonomous region of Finland.
With Germany set to miss its climate goals by a wide margin, a solution might be right next door. The Netherlands recently revealed a wide-ranging climate deal — including a carbon tax that Dutch companies agreed to pay.
I think this format of articles is perfect. Title, link, short quote.thanks for all the updates Tom.
Well, I can pretty much guarantee that my contribution will be on hiatus Feb 1-10, when I will be on a pilgrimage to Israel (God willing).
The City of Pittsburgh Department of City Planning has announced the addition of two new members and the promotion of another staff member in the Department’s Sustainability and Resilience Division.The positions will work together to support energy efficiency in municipal and commercial buildings, integrate the planning and development of district scale and renewable energy strategies for the city operations and projects within the city; and help coordinate the implementation of the city’s climate action plan.
Missoula is tackling this problem head-on. The city recently partnered with scientists affiliated with the Thriving Earth Exchange, a project of the American Geophysical Union, to map heat patterns and vulnerable populations. Armed with that data, the city and its nonprofit partners are devising strategies to keep Missoula cool.
A new survey of global attitudes toward the environment released this week shows 67 percent, two-thirds, of young Republican voters are worried about human damage to the environment. The Amsterdam-based Glocalities polling data reveals an 18 percent spike in 18 to 34-year-old GOP supporters who say they fear the effects of climate change.The survey of 189,996 respondents from 20 countries between 2014 and 2019 found that a majority of U.S. Republican Party voters today, 58 percent, say they are concerned about human-caused damage to the planet.The 2014 to 2019 rise in concerns about man-made pollution, greenhouse gases and their effect on the environment is most sizable among Republicans. The U.S. overall has seen an 8 percent increase from 61 to 69 percent over the past five years in people expressing climate change worries. The Glocalities survey also showed a 10 percentage increase among U.S. Republicans who reported trying "to live eco-consciously."About 17 percent of Republicans explicitly said they have no worries about the effects of climate change. That number is reduced to just 11 percent of young Republicans between the ages of 18 and 34 years old.
Among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents overall, 84% say climate change is a major threat to the country’s well-being as of July 2019, up from 58% in a March 2013 survey. Views among Republicans and Republican leaners have stayed about the same (27% in 2019 vs. 22% in 2013).
NYT Climate (@nytclimate) 9/3/19, 7:46 AMThe New York Times has ended its sponsorship of the annual Oil and Money conference, now in its 40th year. Read the statement from NYT spokeswoman Eileen Murphy.
The Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication have been studying public responses to global warming for over a decade. Our most recent nationally representative survey found that majorities of Americans are convinced that global warming is happening (69 percent), mostly human caused (55 percent), are worried about it (62 percent), and support a wide variety of climate change policies. More important, however, are recent shifts within the political climate of climate change. For years, climate change was a relatively low national priority among voters. Recently, however, global warming has emerged as a higher national and voting priority, especially among Democrats. In our most recent national survey (April 2019), registered voters said that out of 29 issues, ranging from healthcare to international trade, global warming was the 17th most important issue in determining their vote in the 2020 presidential election. Indicating the extent of the current partisan divide, global warming was 29th out of 29 voting issues among conservative Republicans. Among liberal and moderate Republicans, it was 23rd. Among moderate and conservative Democrats, however, it was the eighth highest priority voting issue, up eighth places from a year prior. And among liberal Democrats (the progressive core of the Democratic base), global warming was voting issue No. 3, with environmental protection No. 2.
Two leading Canadian activists say voters need to think about climate change as if we are country a at war against greenhouse-gas emissions.
UNDP Palestine (@UNDPPalestinian) 9/4/19, 9:10 AMIn Gaza, @WHO, @Oxfam, PA and UNDP just agreed that it is high time to reduce reliance on fuel and invest more in #RenewableEnergy to deliver basic services for hospitals, schools, clinics, water and sanitation facilities
The U.S. is at a critical juncture. We can remain a spectator and simply stand by and watch as damages continue to mount. Or we can rejoin the global effort to fight climate change and provide support and leadership in the struggle ahead. Committing to the global task represents the most just and ethical path; it is also the path most clearly in the nation’s self-interest.
New research for the Coller FAIRR Protein Producer Index, backed by $16 trillion of investment, finds that the world’s largest meat, fish and dairy producers are failing to match the sustainability commitments of the high-street brand names they supply, including McDonalds, Tesco, Nestlé and Walmart.
Vice President Mike Pence opposed federal action to address climate change as governor of Indiana.To explore climate change views, my colleagues and I commissioned an online survey of 1,002 Indiana residents statewide in April 2019. The most reported political affiliation was Republican (28%), though there was a wide diversity of affiliations across the sample. A slight majority were men (52%) and the largest age category was 25-34 (20%).I found that, overall, Hoosiers believed that climate change was real and was happening. Around 80% of respondents reported believing that climate change was occurring "somewhat" or "to a great extent."Similarly, a majority felt that climate change will harm Indiana's economy "somewhat" or to a "great extent" (77%) and that climate change was "already" causing harm in the United States or would by 2030 (72%). Over 65% "somewhat" or "strongly agreed" that climate change effects are greater now than five years ago, and 75% supported initiatives to address these impacts in Indiana.
First the basics: The House returns to session on September 17 and has 24 voting days scheduled between then and the end of the year. The Senate returns September 23 and has 15 voting days scheduled.Typically, midway through the 2-year legislative session like this, Harrisburg politicians are thinking about what bills they need to get moving or passed to please voters and contributors before running for re-election next year.And 2020, being a Presidential election year, promises to be a wild and expensive one.If we’re lucky, they’ll also think a little bit about what’s good for the Commonwealth, the public and, in this case, the environment and energy policy.Here’s the 30,000 foot view of the bills/issues on the Good, Bad & Ugly lists--
Low-paid drivers can’t afford the costs of updating to low- or zero-emission vehicles, leading to the spread of harmful pollutants. A new California bill aimed at reclassifying workers as employees would also apply to truckers.
Amidst this cloud of concern, though, there is an evident perception amongst political leaders that Quebec, in particular, is preoccupied with the threats of the warming world. After his Coalition Avenir Québec won power last year, Premier François Legault made a point to underscore his commitment to fighting climate change, after he was criticized for not talking about it enough on the campaign trail. This spring, the NDP chose to launch their climate platform, not in British Columbia, where a pipeline expansion has roused environmentalists and Jagmeet Singh has his seat, but in Montreal.
Almost a thousand Amazon employees plan to walk out of work later this month, as part of a global climate change demonstration.Amazon Employees For Climate Justice, a group of Amazon workers trying to push their company to take greater actions on climate change, organized an internal petition for the Sept. 20 walkout, the group confirmed in a Medium post Monday. Both Wired and Vice earlier reported the planned demonstration. Most of the walkout participants so far are from Amazon's Seattle headquarters, with many taking planned vacation days to participate, Wired said.
Over 900 Amazon employees have signed an internal petition pledging to walk out over their employer’s lack of action on climate change. The demonstration, scheduled to start at 11:30 am Pacific time on September 20, will mark the first time in Amazon’s 25-year history that workers at its Seattle headquarters have walked off the job, though many are taking paid vacation to do so. Most of the workers who have signed on so far work in Seattle, but employees in other offices, including in Europe, have indicated an interest in the event as well. The protest is part of a global general strike led by 16-year-old climate change activist Greta Thunberg taking place ahead of the United Nations Climate Action Summit on September 23.
Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, a group of Amazon workers who came together in Dec. 2018 to push for the development of a company-wide climate change plan, are demanding that the tech giant lower its climate emissions to zero by 2030. They will show their support by walking out of work on Sep. 20 at 11:30 PST. These employees will be joining youth and workers in different sectors on this day for a global climate strike, spurred by the millions of students who are protesting complicity to climate change.
