Environmentalism is undergoing a radical transformation. New science has shown how long-held notions about trying to “save the planet” and preserve the life we have today no longer apply.
Instead, a growing chorus of senior scientists refer to the Earth with metaphors such as “the wakened giant” and “the ornery beast”, a planet that is “fighting back” and seeking “revenge”, and a new era of “angry summers” and “death spirals”.
Whether you consider yourself to be an environmentalist or not, the warnings from Earth system science have far-reaching implications for us all.
Forget ‘saving the Earth’ – it’s an angry beast that we’ve awoken by Clive Hamilton, the Conversation (UK), May 27, 2014
Americans are more concerned about the changing planet when the words "global warming" are used than when they hear "climate change," new research finds.
The two terms are often used synonymously, but new surveys reveal that they carry different connotations for many people, particularly African Americans, Hispanic Americans, liberals and people between the ages of 31 and 48. Republicans see the two terms as more or less equivalent, but Democrats, political independents, liberals and moderates are more likely to express concern about "global warming" than "climate change."
"The studies found that the two terms are often not synonymous — they mean different things to different people — and activate different sets of beliefs, feelings and behaviors, as well as different degrees of urgency about the need to respond," the researchers wrote in a report released today (May 27). [8 Ways Global Warming Is Already Changing the World]
'Global Warming' Scarier Than 'Climate Change,' Surveys Find by Stephanie Pappas, Live Science, May 27, 2014
President Obama is expected to announce on Monday an Environmental Protection Agency regulation to cut carbon pollution from the nation’s fleet of 600 coal-fired power plants, in a speech that government analysts in Beijing, Brussels and beyond will scrutinize to determine how serious the president is about fighting global warming.
The regulation will be Mr. Obama’s most forceful effort to reverse 20 years of relative inaction on climate change by the United States, which has stood as the greatest obstacle to international efforts to slow the rise of heat-trapping gases from burning coal and oil that scientists say cause warming.
Governments Await Obama’s Move on Carbon to Gauge U.S. Climate Efforts by Coral Davenport, New York Times, May 26, 2014
An overpopulated planet is not necessarily doomed. What matters most is how those billions of people choose to live.
Having Kids Probably Won't Destroy the Planet by Sheril Kirshenbaum, The Atlantic, May 25 2014,
Let us imagine that in 3030BC the total possessions of the people of Egypt filled one cubic metre. Let us propose that these possessions grew by 4.5% a year. How big would that stash have been by the Battle of Actium in 30BC? This is the calculation performed by the investment banker Jeremy Grantham.
Go on, take a guess. Ten times the size of the pyramids? All the sand in the Sahara? The Atlantic ocean? The volume of the planet? A little more? It's 2.5 billion billion solar systems. It does not take you long, pondering this outcome, to reach the paradoxical position that salvation lies in collapse.
To succeed is to destroy ourselves. To fail is to destroy ourselves. That is the bind we have created. Ignore if you must climate change, biodiversity collapse, the depletion of water, soil, minerals, oil; even if all these issues miraculously vanished, the mathematics of compound growth make continuity impossible.
It's simple. If we can't change our economic system, our number's up, Op-ed by George Monbiot, The Guardian, May 27, 2014
ne of John H. Mercer’s most famous Ohio State University students was Lonnie Thompson, who has led 60 expeditions over 40 years, many to high-mountain regions, in search of ice that yields clues about the Earth’s climate history.O
Now — as if that sort of career isn’t adventurous enough — he’s doing it with a new heart.
Mr. Thompson, 66, led an expedition to mountains in west-central Tibet in May, 2013, less than a year after receiving a heart transplant on June 1, 2012. And he recently traveled to South Korea.
Mr. Thompson wants to be an inspiration to all people who receive organ transplants. He also wants to show insurance companies and employers that they should not discourage organ-transplant recipients from trying to resume their lifelong passions.
Mercer's protege (Lonnie Thompson) carries out expeditions with new heart by Tom Henry, Toldedo Blade, May 25, 2014
Carbon dioxide levels throughout the northern hemisphere hit 400 parts per million (ppm) for the first time in human history in April, an ominous threshold for climate change, the World Meteorological Organization said on Monday.
The 400 ppm level in the atmosphere, up 40 percent since wide use of fossil fuels began with the Industrial Revolution, is rapidly spreading southwards. First recorded in 2012 in the Arctic, it has since become the norm for the Arctic spring.
The WMO expects the global annual average carbon dioxide concentration to be above 400 ppm in 2015 or 2016. Rising concentrations of the heat-trapping gas raise risks of more heatwaves, droughts and rising sea levels.
Northern hemisphere hits carbon dioxide milestone in April, Reuters, May 26, 2014
Conventional wisdom holds that second term presidencies rarely yield accomplishments and that this second term president, in particular, has lost the ability to get much done. In one week, President Obama has a chance to prove that the conventional wisdom is wrong.
And he can do it while helping to stop the planet from cooking.
On June 2, Obama will to unveil a new set of federal regulations on power plants, designed primarily to keep coal-fired plants from spewing so much carbon into the atmosphere. The hope is that these new regulations will slow down climate change—at first incrementally, by reducing emissions from existing plants in the U.S., and then more dramatically, by providing the Administration with more leverage to negotiate a far-reaching, international treaty on emissions from multiple sources.
Obama's New Rules for Coal Plants Are a B.F.D. The Ensuing Political Fight May Be Even Bigger. by Jonathan Cohn, The New Republic, May 25, 2014
President Barack Obama is about to unveil the centerpiece of his agenda to fight climate change, a much anticipated rule to slash the emissions of planet-warming gases from power plants.
The president will call for major reductions, according to sources familiar with the planning, with each state given its own greenhouse gas emissions reduction target and the power to decide how to meet it. The Environmental Protection Agency is putting the plan together, and Obama will announce it Monday.
The plan could push states to require more renewable energy use and to lower demand by investing in efficiency programs for homes and businesses. States also could use so-called “cap-and-trade” systems, in which emissions are limited and polluters buy and sell rights to release greenhouse gases, according to indications the Obama administration has given to environmental groups and others.
Obama will let states decide how to cut greenhouse gas emissions by Sean Cockerham, McClatchy Washington Bureau, May 27, 2014
Thirty-six years after catching flak for one of the most bold and dire predictions about global warming, former Ohio State University glaciologist John H. Mercer is being hailed as a visionary.
Mr. Mercer was hardly the first to sound an alarm about greenhouse gases: Scientists were well on their way by the late 1950s toward connecting mankind’s burning of fossil fuels to Earth’s changing climate.
But Mr. Mercer made a groundbreaking contribution with a peer-reviewed research paper about West Antarctica’s instability he got published on Jan. 26, 1978, in the scientific journal Nature.
In it, he warned the world that West Antarctica’s massive ice sheet — one of Earth’s largest and most important — would eventually melt from beneath, become dislodged, and cause global sea levels to rise 5 meters, the equivalent of nearly 16.5 feet.
Eccentric OSU scientist vindicated on melting, global warming predictions by Tom Henry, Toledo Blade, May 25, 2014
Imagine the street you live on is knee-deep in floodwater, and it’s ruining everything in sight, including your home. Now imagine that those awful floodwaters never, ever recede. Instead, the water just keeps rising and rising until your entire country drowns.
For a number of island nations, that's ultimately the significance of the recent reports about the unstoppable melt of the massive ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland, along with hundreds of glaciers.
“We’ve already lost some island atolls. On others the rising sea is destroying homes, washing away coffins and skeletons from graves,” Tony de Brum, the foreign minister of the Marshall Islands, told me. “Now with every full moon the high tides brings salt water into our streets. We’re moving further inland but can’t move much further."
The Nations Guaranteed to Be Swallowed by the Sea by Stepehn Leahy, Motherboard, May 27, 2014
Fossil fuel executives, watch out.
A group of environmental organizations want to know who is going to be held responsible for the corporate obstructionism of climate change information and policies, despite clear scientific consensus.
In a letter of warning issued Wednesday to over 75 major insurance and fossil fuel corporations, Greenpeace International, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) beg the question: Who will pay for this climate deceit?
Citing "asbestos to tobacco to oil spills," Carroll Muffett, president of CIEL, said history shows that "those who mislead the public, the market or the government about the risks of their products, or the availability of safer alternatives, can face substantial legal liability, both as companies and as individuals."
Will Big Oil Execs Ever Stand Trial for Willful Climate Deceit? by Lauren McCauley, Common dreams, May 28, 2014
Posted by John Hartz on Thursday, 29 May, 2014
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