Global warming

Carbon dioxide levels continue to increase, followed by rising temperatures around the world.

Sea levels are rising as ice melts, droughts are spreading and storms are getting stronger, leading to catastrophic floods.

And it is not just the weather that is affected.

Coral reefs are bleaching and dying, leading to a depletion of sea life.

Forests are drying out and burning. Rivers are drying up and aquifers are being pumped dry.

Wildlife species are dying and going extinct, never to return.

And this is just the beginning.

If the ice on Greenland and Antarctica melts, say goodbye to coastal cities and low-lying areas like Florida.

If mountain glaciers melt, rivers will disappear. There will be millions of climate refugees.

Avoid depression and despair

Yes, the data and climate models lead me to depression and despair.

But spiritual writers warn us that despair is a temptation from the devil, who tries to get good people to give up the practice of virtue.

Likewise, communal despair leads to political paralysis as good people cede the political arena to selfishness and greed.

"Depression is our enemy because it leads to passivity which leads to a lack of action, which means you lose what you care about," warns Jay Inslee.

He's the governor of the state of Washington and a leader in the fight against global warming.

Any action will do, "blogging, tweeting, talking to your neighbor, voting, anything," said the governor. "Any action you take is good for you and your mental health."

And, I would add, your spiritual health.

Rather than seeing our time as the worst possible days, Inslee, like Winston Churchill during the Second World War, thinks the opposite.

"These are the greatest days," Inslee argued.

"There's no other time in the history of our species where so much was at stake, where the whole shooting match was at stake, where the whole future of all multiple generations are at stake.

"We are the luckiest generation in human history to have something that is so meaningful to fight for," he said. "That's a blessing.

"That's what I wake up in the morning thinking. I wake up feeling great. I hope everybody else does, too."

Stepping up to fight

Like the "Greatest Generation," which responded to the challenge of fascism, those living today are called to respond to the challenges of climate change.

If we do it, history will extol us. If we fail, future generations will curse us for ushering in a new dark age.

Winning the Second World War took individual sacrifice, governmental action and technological innovation.

Likewise, winning the war against global warming will take all three

As individuals, we need to accept a simpler lifestyle with a smaller carbon footprint.

We need to support government programs like the Inflation Reduction Act, which, despite its name, is really a series of programs to limit climate change.

Our most creative minds have to focus on new technologies that will help us eliminate fossil fuels, the principal source of greenhouse gases.

The Volts podcast

Volts describes itself as a podcast about leaving fossil fuels behind.

It is unflinching in its realism in the face of global warming, yet it is also hopeful in its examination of the technological innovations that can help us reduce our carbon footprint.

Roberts, the host, interviews analysts, technologists and politicians about the transition from fossil fuels.

On the podcast, Inslee spoke of the innovative programs his state has enacted, making it a leader in responding to climate change.

He is now fighting a ballot initiative funded with $5 million by Brian Heywood, a hedge fund billionaire who wants to roll back the State's efforts.

Other Volts episodes look at battery technology, upgrading the electrical grid and alternative sources of energy, as well as the political strategies needed to get them implemented.

Volts goes into geeky detail in a way that is understandable and entertaining.

It is inspiring and hopeful to listen to so many smart and dedicated people grapple with the science and technology of responding to global warming.

The Lord is with us

Yes, the devil is working hard to lead us to despair over global warming, but the Spirit is also alive in many dedicated people doing exciting work in response to climate change.

"Fear not," the Lord says in Isaiah, "for I am with you."

• First published in Religion News Service
• The Rev. Thomas J. Reese, a Jesuit priest, is a Senior Analyst at Religion News Service

But what will happen under more advanced climate change? How will vegetation respond to projected changes in atmospheric CO₂, temperatures and rainfall? Our study, published today in Science Advances, shows plants might take up more CO₂ than previously thought.

We found climate modelling that best accounted for the processes that sustain plant life consistently predicted the strongest CO₂ uptake. The most complex model predicted up to 20% more than the simplest version.

Our findings highlight the resilience of plants, and the importance of planting trees and preserving existing vegetation to slow climate change.

While this is good news, it doesn't let us off the hook in the fight against climate change. The rapid increase in atmospheric CO₂ means we must still cut emissions.

What happens to the CO₂ plants take up?

Plants take up CO₂ through photosynthesis. This process uses the Sun's energy to convert - or "fix" - CO₂ from the air into the sugars plants use for growth and metabolic activity.

Plants release around half of that CO₂ back to the atmosphere via respiration relatively quickly. The other half is used for growth and stays in the plant biomass for longer - months to centuries.

That biomass will eventually die and decompose. Part of the carbon will be released again to the atmosphere, but other parts will enter the soil where it can stay for hundreds of years.

So, if plants take up more CO₂, it's likely more carbon will be stored in vegetation and soils. This "land sink" of carbon has indeed increased over the past few decades as the annual global carbon budget assessment has shown.

What's more, the increasing land carbon sink has largely been attributed to the beneficial effects of rising atmospheric CO₂ on plant photosynthesis. This is important because that carbon stored in plants and soils slows the increase in atmospheric CO₂ and therefore global warming.

A gap in current climate models

But how do we know how much carbon is taken up and stored on land? Even more challenging, how can we predict what happens in the future?

One attempt to answer these questions is to use so-called terrestrial biosphere models. These models encapsulate our understanding of how plants function and how they respond to changes in climate.

For example, we know from experiments that plants photosynthesise more under higher CO₂ concentrations but less when they don't have enough water. Models translate all this knowledge into mathematical equations and allow them to interact with each other.

All this knowledge? Well, not really, and that was the motivation for our research.

While today's terrestrial biosphere models include a plethora of processes, they do not necessarily account for all mechanisms and processes that we know exist.

There might not be enough data or information available to confidently represent a process across the entire globe, or it might just be difficult - conceptually or technically - to include it in models.

What did the study look at?

We included three of those neglected processes into the well-established Australian terrestrial biosphere model. We accounted for:

• how efficiently CO₂ can move inside the leaf
• how plants adjust to changes in their surrounding temperature
• how they distribute nutrients most economically.

We used the most recent data and research publications to include the processes as realistically as possible. We then confronted the model with a strong climate change scenario and looked at how much CO₂ plants will take up until the end of this century.

We repeated this experiment with eight different versions of the model. The simplest version did not account for any of the three physiological mechanisms. The most complex version accounted for all three.

The results were surprisingly clear: the more complex the model, the higher the predicted CO₂ uptake by plants.

Model versions that accounted for at least two mechanisms (those with greater ecological realism) consistently predicted the strongest CO₂ uptake - up to 20 percent more than the simplest version.

What does this mean for climate action?

For modellers this is important news. It tells us our current models, which are usually at the lower end of this complexity range, likely underestimate future CO₂ uptake by plants.

These results suggest plants could be pretty resilient to even severe climate change.

However, we only looked at this from a plant physiological angle. Other processes in models are still oversimplified, such as the impacts of, and recovery from, fires and droughts.

We clearly need to better capture these processes to get a more complete picture of how effectively plants will absorb CO₂ in the future.

And last but not least, because plants help fight climate change, it's essential to conserve existing plant biomass and restore lost vegetation.

But while plants might even be more industrious helpers than previously assumed, they will never do the heavy lifting for us. It is still up to us humans to fight climate change by drastically cutting fossil fuel emissions. There is no shortcut.

• Jürgen Knauer is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University. He is an environmental modeler interested in vegetation responses to ongoing environmental and climate change.
• First published in The Conversation

The good news is there are ways to reduce and eliminate the growth in global warming; the bad news is I am not sure we will implement them fast enough.

As I mentioned in my column last week, human-caused climate change threatens life as we know it on the planet. Sadly, too many people deny the science or don't make it a priority.

As a result, some politicians are not willing to make the tough decisions to deal with climate change.

First, the good news. What can we do to deal with global warming?

Economists are almost unanimous in saying the best way to slow down global warming is through a tax on carbon emissions. This is basic economic theory.

If you tax something, you make it more expensive and people will use less of it. This approach uses the power of the marketplace rather than government regulations to influence people's decisions.

A tax on carbon emissions would make energy from fossil fuels more expensive, which makes alternative sources of energy more attractive.

Customers will demand cheaper alternatives and more energy-efficient devices, and investors will be willing to put their money toward responding to these demands knowing there is a market for it.

Theoretically, this reduces the need for government regulations and investment since the market would encourage thousands of entrepreneurs to try various approaches until some succeed.

This is why the auto industry preferred raising gasoline taxes to government efficiency standards.

The problem with taxing carbon is political. Voters don't like taxes and politicians are afraid to enact them.

The Biden administration flips this idea on its head by enacting tax credits for alternative sources of energy. In other words, instead of making fossil fuels more expensive, the administration is making alternative energy cheaper.

On top of this is direct government spending to foster alternative sources of energy by installing charging stations and by purchasing electric cars and trucks for government agencies.

Tax credits are politically more acceptable than taxes or government spending. Voters love tax credits, even though tax reformers hate them. Politicians find them easy to vote for and hard to criticise.

Now that the credits are in the law, Republicans are going to find it hard to repeal them.

Individual and corporate taxpayers will get mad at anyone trying to repeal what they now consider their right. Republicans will be accused of trying to raise taxes, something they always accuse Democrats of doing.

Another advantage of tax credits is that, although more energy-efficient equipment is cheaper in the long run, it tends to be more expensive in the short term.

A rational consumer should be willing to pay more for a refrigerator, air conditioner or car if in the long run it is cheaper. But most consumers are not rational, or they don't have the money to afford energy-efficient purchases.

Most people look at the sticker price, not the cost over a five-year period.

In response, government regulations can set energy standards for equipment or simply ban the sale of inefficient products, like incandescent lightbulbs.

It can also give a tax credit for the purchase of energy-efficient equipment, which brings down the original sticker price. The Biden administration has done both.

The good news is that government and private research and investments have brought down the cost of alternative energy more dramatically than the experts expected. The cost of wind and solar energy is now cheaper than oil, gas or nuclear.

"The world has produced nearly three billion solar panels at this point, and every one of those has been an opportunity for people to try to improve the process," Gregory Nemet, a solar power expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told The New York Times.

"And all of those incremental improvements add up to something very dramatic."

Europe is now getting more energy from wind and solar than from fossil fuels, thanks in part to Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine.

China, because of government investment, is still outperforming Europe and the United States, but the growth of solar and wind energy is expected to be dramatic in the coming years.

Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, with its subsidies for domestic investment in alternative energy, has forced European countries to come up with their own programmes to compete.

A tsunami of investment in alternative energy is coming, and much of it is occurring in red states and rural areas that traditionally vote Republican.

Flat rural areas like the Midwest and Texas have the steady wind needed for energy production. Southern states have the sun. Green jobs in red states are going to eventually impact American politics surrounding global warming.

Republicans are going to have to change their position on global warming or they are going to begin losing elections in their backyards.

The biggest obstacles to alternative energy are no longer technical or economic. They are political. First, there are campaign donations, phony science and propaganda funded by fossil fuel interests.

Second, there is NIMBY-ism, "not in my backyard."

Liberal states in the Northeast have beach towns that don't want their ocean views "desecrated" by wind turbines.

And to make full use of wind and solar power, the electric grid needs to be upgraded, and no one wants transmission lines near their homes.

Even environmentalists object to wind farms over concerns birds and bats will be killed by the turbines.

Environmental and local-control laws favored by liberals in recent decades are now making it difficult to deal with global warming.

But we cannot afford to delay our response. We have ways to deal with global warming and they are improving every day. The question is, still, do we have the will to save God's creation?

• The Rev. Thomas J. Reese, a Jesuit priest, is a Senior Analyst at RNS.
• RNS

And yet millions of Americans still do not accept the facts revealed by science.

Rather, they continue to believe the lies propagated by the fossil fuel industry, their political cronies and the pseudo scientists who have prostituted themselves to the industry.

Just as bad are all of us who accept the science of climate change, but don't do anything to stop the madness.

We are like frogs in a pot of water being slowly cooked as the temperature rises. We don't have the sense to get out of the pot, let alone turn off the heat.

July was the hottest month on record in all of human history.

Emergency rooms in Phoenix were flooded with heatstroke victims as well as people burned by roads, sidewalks and metal equipment turned hot in the sun.

Heat actually kills more people in the United States than hurricanes. Globally, 5 million people a year die from the heat.

The elderly, the sick, the poor and the homeless suffer the most from the heat.

The rich and the middle class can retreat to their air-conditioned bunkers, which makes matters worse with increased CO2 emissions from the power plants that create the electricity to run our air conditioners.

Others died from floods caused by warm air that holds more water during storms.

The Northeast was especially hard-hit this summer, while earlier Pakistan was devastated by floods.

The western United States welcomed rains that filled reservoirs, but it was also hit by floods that destroyed homes and farmlands.

Drought will inevitably return in the future.

The heat and floods cost billions of dollars in damage and in lost productivity. They are creating more climate refugees who must migrate to survive.

As awful as this all sounds, it is only the beginning. We are doing permanent damage to the home in which we live.

Around the world, mountain glaciers are shrinking. When they are gone, millions of people will lose dependable sources of water.

Warm water and increased acidity are killing coral reefs around the world, reefs that took hundreds of years to grow, reefs that are the nurseries of the ocean.

When these reefs are gone, it will be the end of thousands of ocean species that breed or live in the coral reefs.

They will never recover. It will be the end of the oceans as we know them, along with the fish we eat.

Meanwhile, the oceans continue to rise.

There is less ice in the water around Antarctica this winter, which does not have an immediate effect, but it means the ice on the continent will be threatened.

There is less ice at the North Pole.

Not only does all this melting add to ocean levels, it also means open oceans will absorb more heat since ice reflects sunlight.

The only remaining question is how fast this climate apocalypse will come.

Some scientists think the worst will not come until the next century, while others warn of tipping points that could bring it on quickly.

Around the world, mountain glaciers are shrinking. When they are gone, millions of people will lose dependable sources of water.

Warm water and increased acidity are killing coral reefs around the world, reefs that took hundreds of years to grow, reefs that are the nurseries of the ocean.

When these reefs are gone, it will be the end of thousands of ocean species that breed or live in the coral reefs.

They will never recover. It will be the end of the oceans as we know them, along with the fish we eat.

Meanwhile, the oceans continue to rise.

There is less ice in the water around Antarctica this winter, which does not have an immediate effect, but it means the ice on the continent will be threatened.

There is less ice at the North Pole.

Not only does all this melting add to ocean levels, it also means open oceans will absorb more heat since ice reflects sunlight.

The only remaining question is how fast this climate apocalypse will come.

Some scientists think the worst will not come until the next century, while others warn of tipping points that could bring it on quickly.

"If we are able to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, U.S. sea level in 2100 is projected to be around 0.6 meters (2 feet) higher on average than it was in 2000," according to NOAA.

"On a pathway with high greenhouse gas emissions and rapid ice sheet collapse, models project that average sea level rise for the contiguous United States could be 2.2 meters (7.2 feet) by 2100 and 3.9 meters (13 feet) by 2150."

Two climate scenarios for quicker disaster are terrifying.

One is that all the ice on Greenland destabilizes and slides into the sea.

If all the Greenland ice melts, sea levels will rise by 6.5 feet. If the entire Antarctic ice sheet melts, sea levels will rise by 190 feet.

Coastal cities will be flooded, displacing hundreds of millions of people.

Such a catastrophe will also upset the Atlantic Gulf Stream that warms Europe.

Ironically, under global warming, Europe without the Gulf Stream could become as cold as Alaska, since they are on the same latitude.

The other tipping point could come from unfreezing the Siberian permafrost, which might release enough methane (a potent greenhouse gas) to end the world as we know it.

The planet could quickly warm, melting ice everywhere.
In the 22nd century and beyond, when people have forgotten the wars, the pandemics and the economic and political crises of the 20th and 21st centuries, they will not honour us for our technological innovations.

They will not care about Donald Trump or who is "woke."

They will curse us for destroying our planet, their only home.

Today, we ask why Germans did nothing to stop genocide under the Nazis. Future generations will ask why we did nothing to stop global warming. It's not like we did not know.

Millions will die in the coming catastrophe, perhaps half the world's population.

Billions more will suffer privations on an impoverished planet for centuries to come. Governments will collapse into chaos; the whole world will look like Haiti does now.

The Earth will never recover.

Perhaps in a few millennia, other species will evolve that can live in the wasteland that is Earth, but it will never be the same.

For believers this is even more depressing because we are destroying God's creation, God's greatest gift to us.

Rather than treasuring this gift, we are like children who break all our toys on Christmas Day.

Christians profess that we should take up our cross and follow Jesus. Instead, we are making crosses for future generations to carry.

Jesus tells us, "Do not be afraid."

I must confess that I am terrified by what is coming even though I know I will be dead before the worst happens.

For once, I am happy I don't have children. I pray for a miracle, a deus ex machina, even though we do not deserve one.

To those not yet born, all I can say is, "I'm sorry." But I don't expect you to forgive us.

• Rev. Thomas J. Reese is a a Jesuit priest and a Senior Analyst at Religion News Service.
• First published in Religion News Service. Republished with permission.

High Court Justice Jillian Mallon dismissed the judicial review of the Government's climate policies by the activist group Lawyers for Climate Action.

The lawyers had argued the advice given to Shaw by the Climate Change Commission and his subsequent setting of emissions budgets were flawed for a number of reasons.

One of the key points made by the lawyers was the emissions budgets are not aligned to the emissions pathways the world's top climate experts say will limit global warming to 1.5C.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said global carbon dioxide emissions must fall between 40 and 55 percent by 2030 from 2010 levels to have even a two-thirds chance of capping warming at 1.5C. By comparison, the commission's pathway sees New Zealand's net CO2 pollution fall just 30 percent over the same period, as Newsroom reported last year.

Lawyers for the commission pushed back in court, arguing the IPCC pathways are not the only determinant of what's consistent with 1.5C, and the unique circumstances of each country allow for unique pathways.

Shaw's lawyers went even further, telling the judge the Zero Carbon Act actually doesn't impose a specific duty on the Government to act in line with 1.5C.

They said references to contributing to the global 1.5C effort in the "Purpose" section of the legislation were merely "aspirational".

This conflicted with the statements of various Government MPs when the act passed, who all said it placed a legal obligation on the Government.

"Today we create a legal obligation to reduce our climate emissions in this country to keep warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius," Green MP Chlöe Swarbrick said at the time.

Even the Prime Minister said in Parliament the Government had "committed ourselves to a 1.5 degrees Celsius target that we are embedding in legislation".

In a range of public statements, as well as comments to Newsroom as recently as last year, Shaw too said the act bound the Government to act in line with 1.5C.

"The Government and the Commission are both required by the law to act in a way that's consistent with a 1.5-degree temperature threshold pathway," he said when asked whether the proposed emissions budgets might be changed.

"If we wanted to come up with a different emissions budget than the one that they're recommending, the Government would still be required to act within a 1.5-degree pathway.

So that suggests that any alternative that we come up with would have to be stronger than what the Commission are proposing because anything weaker almost certainly would not be consistent with a 1.5-degree pathway, so then we'd be breaking the law."

Jenny Cooper KC, the president of Lawyers for Climate Action, told Newsroom Shaw was trying to "have his cake and eat it too". Continue reading

Scientists at Monash analysed temperature and mortality data from dozens of countries across the world over the first 20 years of this century.

While fewer people are dying from cold weather, deaths from abnormal warmer conditions are causing concern.

The study found deaths related to hot temperatures increased in all regions from 2000 to 2019. This indicates that global warming due to climate change will make this mortality figure worse in the future.

It is the first study to definitively link above and below optimal temperatures to annual increases in mortality.

The study found 9.43 per cent of global deaths could be attributed to cold and hot temperatures. This equates to 74 excess deaths for every 100,000 people.

Importantly, cold-related death decreased 0.51 percent from 2000 to 2019, while heat-related death increased 0.21 per cent. This led to a reduction in net mortality due to cold and hot temperatures.

Professor Yuming Guo, from the Monash University School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, said this shows global warming may "slightly reduce the number of temperature-related deaths, largely because of the lessening in cold-related mortality."

"However, in the long-term, climate change is expected to increase the deaths burden because hot-related mortality would be continuing to increase," Guo concluded.

In other words, eventually the growing number of deaths attributable to excess heat would surpass those saved.

According to NASA, 19 of the world's hottest years since records began have happened in the past 20 years. Every year in the past decade has been hotter than the 20th century's record-holder, 1998. Global mean temperatures are increasing about 0.26C a decade.

"As each new year is added to the historical record, it becomes one of the top 10 warmest on record at that time, but it is ultimately replaced as the 'top ten' window shifts forward in time," according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Sources

• Newshub
• Science Daily
• Monash University

Among the global businesses responsible for 55% of the world's plastic packaging waste are both state-owned and multinational corporations, including oil and gas giants and chemical companies, according to a comprehensive new analysis.

Top 20 producers of single-use plastic

The Plastic Waste Makers index reveals for the first time the companies who produce the polymers that become throwaway plastic items, from face masks to plastic bags and bottles, which at the end of their short life pollute the oceans or are burned or thrown into landfill.

It also reveals Australia leads a list of countries for generating the most single-use plastic waste on a per capita basis, ahead of the United States, South Korea and Britain.

ExxonMobil is the greatest single-use plastic waste polluter in the world, contributing 5.9m tonnes to the global waste mountain, concludes the analysis by the Minderoo Foundation of Australia with partners including Wood Mackenzie, the London School of Economics and Stockholm Environment Institute.

The largest chemicals company in the world, Dow, which is based in the US, created 5.5m tonnes of plastic waste, while China's oil and gas enterprise, Sinopec, created 5.3m tonnes.

Eleven of the companies are based in Asia, four in Europe, three in North America, one in Latin America, and one in the Middle East. Their plastic production is funded by leading banks, chief among which are Barclays, HSBC, Bank of America, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase.

The enormous plastic waste footprint of the top 20 global companies amounts to more than half of the 130m metric tonnes of single-use plastic thrown away in 2019, the analysis says.

It's not just oceans: scientists find plastic is also polluting the air

Single-use plastics are made almost exclusively from fossil fuels, driving the climate crisis, and because they are some of the hardest items to recycle, they end up creating global waste mountains. Just 10%-15% of single-use plastic is recycled globally each year.

The analysis provides an unprecedented glimpse into the small number of petrochemicals companies, and their financial backers, which generate almost all single-use plastic waste across the world.

Al Gore, the environmentalist and former US vice-president, said the groundbreaking analysis exposed how fossil fuel companies were rushing to switch to plastic production as two of their main markets - transport and electricity generation - were being decarbonised.

"Since most plastic is made from oil and gas - especially fracked gas - the production and consumption of plastic are becoming a significant driver of the climate crisis," said Gore.

"Moreover, the plastic waste that results - particularly from single-use plastics - is piling up in landfills, along roadsides, and in rivers that carry vast amounts into the ocean."

The plastic waste crisis grows every year. In the next five years, global capacity to produce virgin polymers for single-use plastics could grow by more than 30%.

By 2050 plastic is expected to account for 5%-10% of greenhouse gas emissions. Continue reading

The days of civilised debate, of accepting different opinions seem to be disappearing.

None of us likes being yelled at or chastised for our views.

The pleasure of exchanging opinions, exploring them and in the process better understanding or modifying our own is one of the hallmarks of a free society.

The Greta Thunberg circus has become a complete farce.

Travelling across oceans in emissions-free boats (excluding the making thereof) and doing one's ablutions into a bucket lined with a biodegradable bag that then gets ditched into the ocean is first-world fake melodrama at its best.

If Thunberg wished to address any meeting worldwide on whatever issue she wanted without spewing carbon emissions from either jet or ocean liner travel she could easily do so: The New York Times reports that internationally famous choreographer Jerome Bell has decided to refuse air travel and now works internationally via Skype.

It's a personal choice but I don't think telling people they'll never be forgiven, berating them with "how dare you", does much to bring people on board.

Usually it has the opposite effect.

It's just another sad example of serious and complex political issues being reduced to "I'm right and you're an idiot".

That kind of discourse just pollutes the town square.

It's fractious and shuts others out. It is toxic to democratic debate.

The whole trip, the hype and the expense was one big media circus.

One can't help but think it's more to promote the person than the issue.

Given the over-dramatisation of global warming by some, including Thunberg, we now have a generation of children worried about being burnt to a crisp.

Out of all the 16-year-olds in the world, why is it that just one features in the media worldwide?

There are other kids who care as much, are just as articulate, just as concerned.

If you think the world focussing on this one young girl was just some happy accident you are plugged into a faulty socket.

I've seen the photo of her outside her school on her first climate strike.

Posed to draw on the haunting concept of the lonely outsider who (surprise, surprise) becomes the involuntary hero. Who took that photo and, more importantly, why?

Now we have kids all over the world skipping school for the day to show how much they care. I'd be more impressed if they gave up their free time to make their statement.

Even more impressive would be if they organised to collectively make a lasting statement by doing something useful.

If everyone who skipped school had planted a tree in pre-agreed areas that needed revegetating, that would have made an impressive statement.

If all the protesters focussed on a few areas, whole suburbs could be made better places in which to live.

All it would take is commitment and elbow grease.

Just skipping school gives you no skin in the game. Continue reading

• Amanda Vanstone is an Australian former politician and a former Ambassador to Italy.

Clearly, there is a groundswell of concern about the current track we are on. The IPCC Report shows that urgent changes are needed to prevent a disaster developing.

Alarm bells should be ringing in the corridors of power in Wellington, Canberra and around the world," says Julianne Hickey, Director, Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand.

"We simply cannot keep going the way we are going. The time for a major shift in direction has arrived," says Mrs Hickey.

Caritas has already called for significant changes in the way local communities are engaged within the Pacific.

As our recent State of the Environment Report in Oceania stated: "Rather than impose further foreign debt and burden on Pacific states and the people that reside within them, more needs to be done to ensure effective funding, preferably through grants rather than loans that:

• ensure climate finance benefits the poorest and most vulnerable communities
• increase sustainable investment and eliminate unsustainable investment
• put in place a just transition that promotes capacity building and technology transfer among Pacific island nations."

CIDSE - an organisation which represents leaders of Catholic development agencies working together in more than 120 countries to promote social justice, also reacted to the IPCC report yesterday by sending an urgent call for climate action.

"The next United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 24, Katowice, Poland, December 2018) must be a milestone in the implementation of the Paris Agreement signed three years ago. Furthermore, governments, as the IPCC report also says, must imperatively and swiftly raise ambition.

The reality is that we are on a warming pathway of 3.5°C or more, pointing that there is a huge gap with the 1.5°C objective.

Limiting global warming to 1.5°C is a matter of survival for all and it is feasible through bold political actions: the barriers to fighting climate change are political! Now more than ever we need leaders to acknowledge and take actions to curb our current emissions trajectory. " - CIDSE, (8 October 2018).

Meanwhile, Caritas Oceania Forum attendees, from over 10 Pacific Island countries, praised a recent State of the Environment Report for Oceania (SEFO) saying it was "an attentive listening to the sea, land and peoples of Oceania and amplifies the voices of the region's most vulnerable communities affected by climate change.

It calls for action, focussed on ensuring global commitment to the Paris Agreement and climate finance measures to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees. It provides an important basis for CO members to pursue their work and advocacy more actively." - Caritas Oceania Forum Statement (5 October 2018)

• Click here to read IPCC Report
• Click here to readThe CIDSE Statement
• Click here to read The Caritas Oceania SEFO Report

Suppiled Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand

"I don't think the biblical deluge is just a fairy tale," Terence J Hughes, a retired University of Maine glaciologist living in South Dakota, told the New York Times.

"I think some kind of major flood happened all over the world, and it left an indelible imprint on the collective memory of mankind that got preserved in these stories."

n some ways, Hughes is a surprising figure to be quoted by the NYT.

A Newsweek article on him three years ago, credited Hughes with predicting the likely collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet as early as 1973.

But he is a contrarian, who doesn't consider climate change to be a great concern.

In fact, according to Newsweek he sees upsides including that carbon dioxide is good for plants, thawed permafrost could be farmed, and rebuilding coastal cities would create jobs.

The New York Times' interest in Hughes was as part of a series produced by a team visiting Antarctica.

His quote came in an article about the risks of ice sheets melting and coastal cities being inundated by rising seas.

According to the article the great flood of the Bible - and of other early literature - happened at the end of the last ice age.

Beginning 25,000 years ago ice sheets began to melt and the sea level started rising. Over thousands of years, coastlines receded by as much as 160km.

If the sea level rise from melting ice sheets under way now turned out to be as fast as the worst-case projections, "it could lead to a catastrophe without parallel in the history of civilisation," the Times said.

The impact of climate change on Antarctica is a key interest of New Zealand scientists, with the latest research to be presented at the New Zealand Antarctic Science Conference in Dunedin in late June. Continue reading

Source and Image

• Article by Michael Daly in Stuff

It harbored 1,625 species of fish, 3,000 species of mollusk, 450 species of coral, 220 species of birds, and 30 species of whales and dolphins. Among its many other achievements, the reef was home to one of the world's largest populations of dugong and the largest breeding ground of green turtles.

The reef was born on the eastern coast of the continent of Australia during the Miocene epoch. Its first 24.99 million years were seemingly happy ones, marked by overall growth. It was formed by corals, which are tiny anemone-like animals that secrete shell to form colonies of millions of individuals. I

ts complex, sheltered structure came to comprise the most important habitat in the ocean. As sea levels rose and fell through the ages, the reef built itself into a vast labyrinth of shallow-water reefs and atolls extending 140 miles off the Australian coast and ending in an outer wall that plunged half a mile into the abyss.

With such extraordinary diversity of life and landscape, it provided some of the most thrilling marine adventures on earth to humans who visited. Its otherworldly colors and patterns will be sorely missed.

To say the reef was an extremely active member of its community is an understatement. The surrounding ecological community wouldn't have existed without it. Its generous spirit was immediately evident 60,000 years ago, when the first humans reached Australia from Asia during a time of much lower sea levels.

At that time, the upper portions of the reef comprised limestone cliffs and innumerable caves lining a resource-rich coast. Charlie Veron, longtime chief scientist for the Australian Institute of Marine Science and the Great Barrier Reef's most passionate champion (he personally discovered 20 percent of the world's coral species), called the reef in that era a "Stone Age Utopia."

Aboriginal clans hunted and fished its waters and cays for millennia, and continued to do so right up to its demise. Continue reading

Sources

• Outside article by Rowan Jacobsen
• Image: Traveldigg.com

"In 30 years, the area has shrunk approximately by half," said a scientist who examined the onslaught. "There doesn't seem anything able to stop this."

In the Pacific this spring, the enemy staged a daring breakout across thousands of miles of ocean, waging a full-scale assault on the region's coral reefs. In a matter of months, long stretches of formations like the Great Barrier Reef—dating back past the start of human civilization and visible from space—were reduced to white bone-yards.

Day after day, week after week, saboteurs behind our lines are unleashing a series of brilliant and overwhelming attacks. In the past few months alone, our foes have used a firestorm to force the total evacuation of a city of 90,000 in Canada, drought to ravage crops to the point where southern Africans are literally eating their seed corn, and floods to threaten the priceless repository of art in the Louvre.

The enemy is even deploying biological weapons to spread psychological terror: The Zika virus, loaded like a bomb into a growing army of mosquitoes, has shrunk the heads of newborn babies across an entire continent; panicked health ministers in seven countries are now urging women not to get pregnant.

And as in all conflicts, millions of refugees are fleeing the horrors of war, their numbers swelling daily as they're forced to abandon their homes to escape famine and desolation and disease.

World War III is well and truly underway. And we are losing. Continue reading

Sources

• New Republic article by Bill McKibben, the Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury College and co-founder of the climate group 350.org.
• Image: Daily Star, Albany

The Polynesia Against Climate Threats declaration calls for a joint effort to protect the ocean and the environment, and will be taken to world leaders at a major climate change conference in December.

The declaration was signed by the leaders in French Polynesia on Friday.

It calls for an international support mechanism to be established to compensate for the impacts of climate change and to protect displaced populations.

The leaders say they want the international community to limit global warming to below 1.5 degrees celsius by 2100, and to financially support the countries in implementing adaptation solutions.

Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand has been promoting awareness of the environmental challenges that the people of Oceania face.

"Already vulnerable Pacific communities are living with early impacts of climate change," says Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand's director, Julianne Hickey.

"In the long term it is the poorest communities and future generations who will have to bear the costs of adapting to the environmental devastation that climate change will bring."

"We recently hosted Ursula Rakova from the Carteret Islands in Papua New Guinea, whose people have been forced by rising seas to move to the mainland - and have seen nothing of climate change adaptation funds that the world community is supposed to make available."

The Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand director says that in his Encyclical, Laudato Si, Pope Francis hasn't flinched from acknowledging the immensity and urgency of responding to environmental degradation faced by many people, especially the poorest.

Source

• radionnz.co.nz
• caritas.org.nz
• caritas.org.nz
• Image: radionz.co.nz

In Laudato Si', on Care for Our Common Home, released on June 18, Francis urged the world to embark upon a revolutionary ethical rethink and change of heart in its relationship with the earth.

The encyclical letter also lambasted global political leaders for their "weak responses" to the issue.

The document also shows a reorientation of the Church's understanding of the human person, from a being that dominates to one that responsibly serves creation.

Human life, the Pope wrote, is grounded by three relationships - those between God, neighbour and earth.

"We are not God," he wrote.

"The earth was here before us and it has been given to us."

The encyclical rejects the belief that population control is the solution to environmental problems.

It also cites abortion as part of the throwaway mentality that has damaged the planet.

The title Laudato Si' comes from St. Francis of Assisi's famous 13th-century prayer "The Canticle of the Creatures".

In English, it translates as "Be praised" or "Praised be".

The encyclical is addressed to every person on earth.

Among other main issues and themes touched upon by the letter:

• Environmental degradation causing lack of access to drinking water, loss of biodiversity, and decline in quality of human life;
• Global inequity that leaves billions experiencing "ecological debt";
• The search for long-term solutions to replace fossil fuels and other unsustainable energy sources;
• Linking the ecological crisis with a global social crisis that leaves the poorest in the world behind and does not make them part of international decision-making;
• Changes in global lifestyle that could "bring healthy pressure to bear on those who wield political, economic and social power".

The encyclical cites reports from bishops' conferences around the world, including a 2006 document by New Zealand's bishops.

The president of the New Zealand Catholic Bishops Conference, Cardinal John Dew, welcomed the encyclical, noting its emphases on urgency, life and hope.

Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand director Julianne Hickey said: ""We welcome and accept the wero (challenge) [the Pope] gives to all of us to take urgent and radical action to protect our planet and its people."

Sources

• The Tablet
• National Catholic Reporter
• Laudato Si'
• NZCBC
• Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand
• Image: Catholic World Report

Francis warned Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, Minister of the Environment of Peru and President-Designate of the conference, that neglect and inaction on the issue could have very serious consequences for the planet and humanity.

The Roman Catholic Church leader said that "we can find solutions only if we act together and agree." He urged a collective response that is free from political or economic influences, one that overcomes mistrust and promotes a culture of solidarity and dialogue. Continue reading

It is part of a 5700 acre piece of land given to the church by a Mr Campbell.

The Anglican Archbishop of Polynesia, Winston Halapua, said the church has kept aside 300 acres for Melanesians living on the land.

He explained the land was given to the church with the instructions that it be used for the mission of the church.

"In the Anglican Church, property is vested with our trustees so this transaction because it has to do with the land and the purpose falls under the trustees and they do things according to the will of the person who gave it," Archbishop Halapua said.

Responding to questions on the valuation of the land, he said the church trustees and the Kiribati Government came to an agreement on the value of the land.

"Well they have to agree, there was a lot of negotiation and fact-finding, and waiting on those who have other say on this because this is in the Government of Fiji and there is a proper channel."

Halapua said the money from the sale would be invested to serve the purpose of the church.

Source

• The Fiji Times
• Image: fijilandsales.com

Cardinal Pietro Parolin sent a message to a UN summit on climate change, which was delivered by the Holy See's Permanent Observer at the United Nations, Archbishop Francis Chullikatt.

The archbishop said that the evidence for global warming in the world was unequivocal and that climate change was principally the result of human behaviour.

"Prudence must prevail", the Indian-born archbishop said.

He called for "a great political and economic commitment" to tackling levels of greenhouse gas emissions.

"There is no room for the globalisation of indifference, the economy of exclusion or the throwaway culture so often denounced by Pope Francis," he said.

He called for "a profound and far-sighted revision of models of development and lifestyles".

He also highlighted the "significant efforts" the Vatican City state had already made to reduce its consumption of fossil fuels through diversification and through energy efficiency projects.

But he said that such measures alone were not enough, adding that respect for the environment depended on respect for human dignity within society.

Continue reading

But an Anglican Church spokesman Jason Rhodes, speaking in Auckland said "The best I can establish is that there has been no sale and the trustees say there has been speculation for more than a year,"

In February, Anglican Church Trust Manager of Fiji, Bob Harness, told a local newspaper that the deal was done.

But he refused to discuss the issue with Fairfax, referring the issue to Rhodes, who blames the whole story on the media, saying it began with a freelance journalist writing for The New York Times.

Kiribati President Anote Tong said last August that they were buying the Anglican land so that his 100,000 people would have some where to move should the archipelago sink due to global warming.

The Interim Fiji Government believes the sale has taken place, and it has been reported internationally that the people of Kiribati will settle on the land.

Natoavatu remains listed with land agents.

Source

• Stuff.co.nz
• Image: Fijilandsales.com

Although 72% of media outlets report on global warming with a skeptical air, the overwhelming majority of scientists believe that the extreme weather of the last decade is at least partially caused by global warming. Some examples of climate calamities caused partly by global warming include:

• Hurricane Katrina
• Drought in desert countries
• Hurricane Sandy
• Tornadoes in the Midwest

These storms, droughts, and floods are causing death and economic issues for people all over the world - many of whom cannot afford to rebuild their lives from the ground up after being wiped out by a tsunami or other disaster.

Evidence also indicates that the face of the Earth is changing because of warming trends. The ice caps of the Arctic are noticeably shrinking, the ice cap of Mt. Kilimanjaro alone has shrunk by 85% in the last hundred years, and the sea levels are rising at the rate of about 3 millimeters per year because of all the melting ice. Climate change is also affecting wildlife - for instance, Arctic polar bears are at risk of losing their environment; the Golden Toad has gone extinct; and the most adaptable species are evolving into new versions capable of withstanding warmer water.

Despite some naysayers with alternative theories about why global temperatures are rising - including the idea that the earth goes through natural temperature cycles every few millennia - the dramatic changes in the earth's atmospheric makeup suggests humans are to blame. In fact, 97% of scientists agree humans are responsible for climate change. Since the Industrial Revolution, carbon dioxide levels increased 38% because of humans, methane levels have increased 148%, nitrous oxide is up 15% - and the list goes on and on, all because of human-instigated production, manufacturing, and organizations and individuals work hard to promote an Earth-friendly existence, resistance to change is rampant and actions are slow. Continue reading

Sources

• LearnStuff
• Image: The Telegraph

Last June, over 100 governments gathered at the United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development (UNCED) in city of Rio de Janiero to address the inseparable concerns of the environment, development, and poverty. Although the results of UNCED, otherwise known as the Earth Summit, are difficult to evaluate, it is still necessary to attempt to do so. In general, UNCED was not as comprehensive and effective as it hopes to be. Why we say this is the subject of this article.

Moral commitment

The Earth Summit sought to achieve the strengthening of objectives and the binding of action to sustain life. Instead, only selected concerns and their operationalization were agreed upon without specific targets or timetables. Twenty years after the Stockholm Conference where the participating countries developed the moral vision of urging unity of action to protect our fragile globe, UNCED has been little else but a forum to exchange development concerns. To illustrate this weakening moral vision, we shall cite how one issue (nuclear weapons) and one situation (the World Bank) were treated during the Conference.

The Stockholm Declaration called for the elimination of nuclear weapons. UNCED failed, however, to approve a paper on nuclear power and to affirm the condemnation of nuclear weapons, even if the global power struggle today has been diminished.

For the last 30 years, the model for development operationalized by the World Bank has been criticized by non-government organizations working closely with the poor. True, the World Bank was heavily funding energy programs, particularly those concerned with global warming. At the same time, however, it was also fueling the poverty of millions and adding to the environmental problem. Yet the World Bank remained virtually unchallenged by governments, even during the Conference. Read more

Sources

• ESSCNews
• Image: Brazil Surf Travel