a climate emergency...

plane

When the patient is dead, there is no point taking him/her to the hospital emergency. The morgue is the place to do a post mortem that tells us that an hour ago, the patient was alive and kicking. So what killed him? Were we warned or alarmed enough to see that the patient was going to die? What could have been done to prevent his/her death?

In his long political analysis of the "climate emergency", Waleed Aly tends to confuse political games and the need to do something about a problem, whether or not the parties recognise the situation. The Greens see the global warming issue as an emergency, not so much as a political issue but as a need to save the bloody planet — while the other doctors, the Libs and Labor, keep smoking their pipes, arguing about how much more burning of coal can the patient take without dying or falling off the cliff. Here is Waleed Aly:

The problem with the invocation of emergency is that it implies a suspension of politics. Even when the idea is just used rhetorically, the aim is to take an issue to a place above politics, no longer subject to its contingencies. Emergencies exist to shut down dissent and contestation, to foreclose debate. Ultimately, they cleave the entire political spectrum into a simple dichotomy of allies and enemies. You side with the threat or with the response. With us or against us.

Declarations of emergency are therefore really de facto acceptances of whatever policies are necessary to deal with it. That might work in saner nations like Britain where a declaration of a “climate emergency” reflects a working consensus. But our politics is almost uniquely dysfunctional on the issue. We have an engineered lack of consensus. And I’m afraid there’s no way simply to declare that disagreement out of existence. In that context, an emergency declaration doesn’t put climate change beyond politics. It can only be the very prosecution of it. And ultimately it can only reinforce the vernacular of emergency in our political culture – a habit we’d probably be better off without.

I don't understand what Waleed talks about. Should we or should we not have an emergency? Or is the problem not serious enough yet, that we have to wait till we're all dead to do something about it politically?

Yes we know, our politicians, Libs and Labor, are dysfunctional on the issue. So what's wrong with the vernacular of EMERGENCY brought in by the Greens?

Retreating from the coastlines is on the cards… As a new storm is approaching The Bahamas, we need to consider the impact of rising sea levels on cities/towns/villages near the oceans. This is not an if, but a when. To achieve this retreat, it has to be organised equitably.

POLICY FORUM
CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION
The case for strategic and managed climate retreat
• A.R. Siders • Miyuki Hino • Katharine J. Mach
Science 23 Aug 2019:
Vol. 365, Issue 6455, pp. 761-763

Faced with global warming, rising sea levels, and the climate-related extremes they intensify, the question is no longer whether some communities will retreat—moving people and assets out of harm's way—but why, where, when, and how they will retreat. To the extent that retreat is already happening, it is typically ad hoc and focused on risk reduction in isolation from broader societal goals. It is also frequently inequitable and often ignores the communities left behind or those receiving people who retreat. Retreat has been seen largely as a last resort, a failure to adapt, or a one-time emergency action; thus, little research has focused on retreat, leaving practitioners with little guidance. Such a narrow conception of retreat has limited decision-makers' perception of the tools available and stilted innovation. We propose a reconceptualization of retreat as a suite of adaptation options that are both strategic and managed. Strategy integrates retreat into long-term development goals and identifies why retreat should occur and, in doing so, influences where and when. Management addresses how retreat is executed. By reconceptualizing retreat as a set of tools used to achieve societal goals, communities and nations gain additional adaptation options and a better chance of choosing the actions most likely to help their communities thrive.

We argue for strategy that incorporates socioeconomic development and for management that is innovative, evidence-based, and context-specific. These are not radical alterations to adaptation practice—adaptation planning often starts with identifying the goals people have, and context-specific implementation has long been a central tenet of adaptation—but they have been underapplied to retreat. Retreat is hard to do and even harder to do well, for many reasons: short-term economic gains of coastal development; subsidized insurance rates and disaster recovery costs; misaligned incentives between residents, local officials, and national governments; imperfect risk perceptions; place attachment; and preference for the status quo. A reconceptualization could make strategic, managed retreat an efficient and equitable adaptation option.

a sinking capital...

Indonesia is moving its capital city away from Jakarta, one of the world's fastest-sinking cities.

Planning Minister Bambang Brodjonegoro announced on Monday that President Joko Widodo has decided to move the government out of the city and choose a new location as the country's capital, a process that he said could cost as much as $33 billion, according to CNN Indonesia.

Brodjonegoro said that a new location had not yet been chosen, but that the goverment will move the capital off the island of Java, the country's most populous island. He called the move an "important decision" for Indonesia.

https://www.insider.com/indonesia-move-capital-city-from-sinking-jakarta...

This week, amid devastating flooding, Indonesia announced it's planning to move its capital out of Jakarta, which really is nothing new—the country’s first president was talking about it way back in 1957. Part of the problem is extreme congestion, but today the city of more than 10 million is facing nothing short of obliteration by rising seas and sinking land, two opposing yet complementary forces of doom. Models predict that by 2050, 95 percent of North Jakarta could be submerged. And Jakarta is far from alone—cities the world over are drowning and sinking, and there’s very little we can do about it short of stopping climate change entirely.

Jakarta is a victim of climate change, the fault of humans the world over (though mostly the fault of corporations), but it’s also a victim of its own policies. The city is sinking—a process known as land subsidence—because residents and industries have been draining aquifers, often illegally, to the point that the land is now collapsing. Think of it like a giant underground water bottle: If you empty too much of it and give it a good squeeze, it’s going to buckle. Accordingly, parts of Jakarta are sinking by as much as 10 inches a year.

That’s destabilizing buildings in the short term—some structures have sunk straight down, enveloping their lower levels in mud—but in the long term it means that about half the city is now beneath sea level. All it takes is one storm surge to inundate a huge chunk of the metropolis: In 2007, for instance, a monsoon left half of Jakarta under as much as 13 feet of water, causing more than half a billion dollars in damage.

https://www.wired.com/story/jakarta-is-sinking/

Jakarta could be the first big city to suffer this fate, but it won't be the only one. New York, London and many other places are on the verge of being swamped. By 2100, the damage will be in trillions of dollars. If this isn't an emergency, what is?

Picture at top by Gus Leonisky.

By Gus Leonisky at 13 Sep 2019 - 2:42pm
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meanwhile flipflopping in aussieland...

Australia’s minister responsible for drought and natural disasters, David Littleproud, now says he accepts the science on manmade climate change, and “[I] always have”.

Littleproud’s comments to the House of Representatives on Thursday were entirely at odds with a written statement he made to Guardian Australia on Tuesday. In response to questions, Littleproud said: “I don’t know if climate change is man-made.”

“I’m about practical outcomes, whether that’s about having a cleaner environment or giving farmers and emergency services the right tools to adapt,” the minister said in that statement. “I am responsible for making sure we have the tools we need to adapt to a changing climate.”

Guardian Australia approached Littleproud to clarify his position after comments he made to the ABC at the start of the week about the relationship between early spring bushfires in Queensland and climate change.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/sep/12/australian-natural-d...

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Note: climate change is natural. GOBAL WARMING is human-made... Get a grip everybody...

By Gus Leonisky at 13 Sep 2019 - 6:32pm
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a carbon tax...

Finance ministers of the 28 European Union countries met in Helsinki on Friday to discuss measures to finance and encourage environmentally sustainable growth.

The meeting took place on the same day the governing coalition parties in Germany met to decide on climate measures targeting the transportation sector to ensure the country meets its 2030 goals to combat the climate crisis. Spending toward that end could approach a reported €75 billion ($83.6 billion).

"We have neutralized our carbon dioxide emissions," proclaimed Finland, which currently holds the EU Council's rotating presidency, as the image was beamed onto large blue screens around the Finlandia Hall in Helsinki where finance ministers gathered.

The country is paying compensation for all the flights required during its six-month presidency. The money is earmarked for fostering environmental projects and planting trees.

It's not entirely clear if all the finance ministers are impressed by the message. After all, nothing concrete will be decided at this informal meeting in Helsinki; the intention is to start a fundamental discussion.

The EU, says German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, must find a way to put a sensible price on carbon dioxide emissions, optimally on an international level. "I believe we are currently in a situation where many say 'we'd like to do something on a national level, but no one else is.'"

https://www.dw.com/en/eu-plans-energy-tax-to-combat-climate-change/a-504...

By Gus Leonisky at 14 Sep 2019 - 11:56am
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emergency-ish. you could have a melanoma on a roadway...

On Wednesday the Greens moved a motion which, after acknowledging the early fire season and the critical role of emergency services, called on the government to “urgently take action to address climate change and manage the risk and severity of bushfires, invest in community adaptation efforts to build resilience to climate change in moderate and high risk areas, and commit to action to progress a rapid and just transition to clean and renewable energy sources to reduce the harmful emissions driving climate change”.

In essence to act and adapt.

The ALP voted against the motion because, as senator Katy Gallagher stated, it sought “to politicise the emergency in Queensland, where 72 fires are currently burning”.

The ALP senator Murray Watt echoed these thoughts on twitter and he replied when I (and others) criticised him by referring to a speech he had made on the issue the day before.

In that speech on the bushfires his one reference to climate change was this: “It is of concern that so many bushfires of this severity are occurring so early in the year, and this should prompt further thought by all in this place.”

Yeah. That’ll do it.

It is bizarre the Cancer Council hasn’t gone with the campaign slogan of “the growing number of moles on your body should prompt further thought”.

We need to be as loud and active about combating climate change as we do skin cancer. Stop seeking excuses not to act, stop demanding definitive proof for every single incident, and look at the overall trends.

We need to use the moments when bad things happen to remind everyone that further action and further adaptation is needed unless we want to see more severe events occur more often.

Oh and also go have a mole check up.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/sep/15/dont-politicise-th...

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Meanwhile:

Thirty-six environmental activists have been arrested after they disrupted traffic until police physically carried them off a major bridge in Melbourne's CBD.

About 200 people took part in the Extinction Rebellion rally, holding signs with messages such as "no prosperity on a ruined planet" and "declare a climate emergency".

The protesters blocked tram services and traffic on Princes Bridge for several hours.

Scores of police, including some on horseback, issued verbal warning to the protesters before carrying them from the scene one-by-one and placing them under arrest.

"Protestors assembled on the bridge and were asked by police to move off the roadway," a police statement said.

"A number of protestors complied but police had to arrest 36 protestors who refused to leave the roadway.

"They are expected to be charged on summons for obstructing a roadway."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-14/extinction-rebellion-protest-in-m...

We've been facing a climate emergency for a while. What to do about it? Nothing, of course say the pollies... This song about John Howard doing not much about it tells a lot about it... Note: Today is sustainable house day...

emergency

By Gus Leonisky at 15 Sep 2019 - 7:23am
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moving on...

WE ARE LIVING through some scary times. As Greta has told us so often: “Our house is on fire.” And I firmly believe that there are three things that have to align if we are going to douse the flames. First, we need the courage to dream of a different kind of future. To shake off the sense of inevitable apocalypse that has pervaded our culture. To give us a destination, a common goal, a picture of the world we are working towards.

But those dreams are useless unless we are willing to embrace the other two forces. One is the need to confront the truth of our moment in history — the truth of how much we have already lost and of how much more we are on the brink of losing if we do not embrace revolutionary levels of change.

The other thing we have to do is this: We have find our fight. We have to come together across differences and build credible, unshakable power. In the face of the fires roiling our world, we have to find our own fire. Truth and fire.

Greta Thunberg is one of the great truth-tellers of this or any time. Let me refresh your memories about some of her most iconic lines. To the U.N. climate negotiators in Poland last December, she said: “You are not mature enough to tell it like it is. Even that burden you leave to us children.”

To the British MPs who asked her to speak, she asked, “Is my English OK? Is the microphone on? Because I’m beginning to wonder.”

To the rich and mighty at Davos who praised her for giving them hope, she replied, “I don’t want your hope. … I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. I want you to act. I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if the house is on fire, because it is.”

She also told them that not everyone is to blame for the climate crisis. No, she looked them in the eye and said that they were to blame. And we will always love her for that.

But Greta is not all talk. All of this began with action. It began when Greta realized, one year and one month ago, that if she wanted powerful politicians to put themselves on emergency footing to fight climate change, then she needed to reflect that state of emergency in her own life. And so she stopped doing the one thing all kids are supposed to do when everything is normal: Go to school to prepare for their future as adults.

Instead, she stationed herself outside of Sweden’s parliament with a handmade sign that said simply: “School Strike for the Climate.” She started doing it every Friday, and pretty soon she attracted a small crowd. Then other students started doing it in other cities as well.

Students like Alexandria Villaseñor, who stations herself outside the United Nations in this city every Friday, week after week, rain, snow or shine. Sometimes the student climate strikes were just one lonely kid. Sometimes tens of thousands showed up.

And then, on March 15, came the first Global School Strike for Climate. Over 2,000 strikes in 125 countries, with 1.6 million young people participating on a single day. 1.6 million people. That’s quite an achievement for a movement that began just eight months earlier with a single 15-year-old girl in Stockholm, Sweden.

And now this movement is gearing up for its biggest challenge yet: They have called on people of all ages to join the and go on strike, all around the world, on September 20. Because protecting the future is not a spectator sport.

Thunberg and the many other amazing young organizers have been very clear that they do not want adults to pat them on the head and thank them for the hope infusion. They want us to join them and fight for the future alongside them. Because it is their right. And all of our duty.

https://theintercept.com/2019/09/13/greta-thunberg-naomi-klein-climate/

And piss on Miranda...

By Gus Leonisky at 15 Sep 2019 - 8:30am
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the single biggest polluter on the planet...

IT MAY NOT come as a surprise that the largest industrial military in the history of the world is also the single biggest polluter on the planet. A recent study from Brown University’s Costs of War project surfaced this startling fact: The U.S. Department of Defense has a larger annual carbon footprint than most countries on earth. With a sprawling network of bases and logistics networks, the U.S. military is the single biggest emitter of carbon dioxide in the world aside from whole nation-states themselves. “Indeed, the DOD is the world’s largest institutional user of petroleum and correspondingly, the single largest producer of greenhouse gases in the world,” the report notes. If the Pentagon were a country, it would be the world’s 55th biggest emitter of carbon dioxide. And its main purpose — warfare — is easily its most carbon-intensive activity. Since the present era of American conflicts began with the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the U.S. military is estimated to have emitted a staggering 1.2 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere. For comparison, the entire annual carbon emissions of the United Kingdom is roughly 360 million tons.

That massive additional burden on the planet might be justifiable were it all being done in the name of vital national security interests, but the biggest components of the U.S. military’s carbon dioxide footprint have been in wars and occupations that were almost entirely unnecessary. To put it crudely: The U.S. poisoned the planet for vanity projects.

Read all:

https://theintercept.com/2019/09/15/climate-change-us-military-war/

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the climate story...

That said, we’re glad to see so many mainstream publications — local, national, and international — are starting to catch on and have committed to at least the next eight days of reporting on the “climate story” as part of this collaboration. It’s about time.

So, over the course of the next eight days, leading up to the United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York City on September 23, DeSmog will be publishing a number of stories analyzing and reflecting on the impediments to climate action.

We begin today with a story by our UK editor Mat Hope, dissecting the international network attacking Swedish teen climate activist Greta Thunberg. Stay tuned for Sharon Kelly’s examination of the PR shift among fossil fuel companies beset by lawsuits, for Justin Mikulka’s analysis of the dangerous distraction posed by geoengineering, and for Ben Jervey’s revelation of the Koch network social influence strategy now working to quash the burgeoning electric car industry.

We’ll look at the past and future of climate science denial and at how the rise of populism is fueling this denial across Europe, in a special jointly published story with Spanish newspaper La Marea's Climática magazine.

In addition, we’ll be republishing on DeSmog some of the excellent stories by others in this collaboration and making our stories available for others to do the same.

Thanks, as always, to you, our readers, for your support of DeSmog and our mission. We are dedicated to covering the climate story — the story of our time — now and in the future.

https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/09/15/desmog-collaboration-covering-clim...

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Note this site YD has been at the forefront of the problem since 2005. Gus has been studying the subject in earnest since 1979.

By Gus Leonisky at 16 Sep 2019 - 12:56pm
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annoyingly trite and daddy issues...

...Want to save the planet, but can’t overcome your addiction to steak and air travel? NBC has put out a call for “climate confessions,” allowing viewers to unburden themselves of their first-world problems anonymously.

Anyone concerned about their failure to “do their part” in “preventing climate change” can confess their sins to NBC in one of six categories: plastics, meat, energy, transportation, paper and food waste. Previous visitors’ climate “sins” are posted anonymously, in case you need inspiration or can’t remember how you last violated the trust of Mother Nature.

https://www.rt.com/news/469124-climate-sins-religion-greta-nbc/

Gus: Trying to shame people about their trespass against "global warming" or turning this concept into a sin is annoyingly trite. It's turning the whole scientific understanding into a belief rather than a study of facts. And I do not think that's what the kids like Greta, are doing, but the adults, especially the media, still have the "Christian" guilt ethics running through their veins.

In regard to kids, one has to remember that for many years in the Byzantine era, Including the Christian orthodox era, children were being used as slaves — and often traded as such. Some of the kids escaped and were subtly driven by the system to enter the religious orders, while others managed to become free — or ran their parents business, like the local fruit-shop. And this was common throughout the middle ages, as kids were sent to work in the fields and learn the trade the hard way — often punished for nothing.

At this stage, let me go back to the movie, Ad Astra, which for some critics deserve five stars and for others did not take off. For Gus, the theme of the movie is a bit thin, when one child is of adult age still dealing with daddy issues, while I suppose there are far more important problems, including reality of sciences, to deal with. It's a theme that has been with us for a while, say since the Byzantine empire:

The tensions between fathers and sons are examined through the allegorical lens of a space adventure in Ad Astra, a science fiction thriller starring Brad Pitt and Tommy Lee Jones that frequently threatens to be a lot of fun, but mostly reneges on that promise.

It's directed by James Gray (The Lost City of Z, The Immigrant), one of America's most impressive, young-ish filmmakers (he's 50) — lauded by Scorsese and Coppola in a recent glowing New Yorker profile. Which makes this even more disappointing.

Imagine trying to cast a role that features a complex psychological awakening made explicit in voiceover, but that's mostly hidden from view in a stoic male protagonist of few words? Now imagine Pitt.

The actor produced the film, his third such collaboration with Gray, and probably should have vetoed his own on-screen presence.

Read more: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-19/ad-astra-review-brad-pitt-father-...

Of fathers and sons see from afar, in Russia:

The story of lost children tribes...

SOVIET LITERATURE 1988. 1-12

Elga Lyndina

IN THE ORBIT OF THE FUTURE

...

At that time [late 1920s, early 1930s], many young Soviet cinematographers manifested their ideas with bold defiance. The practical evolutionary experience of the world’s first socialist state inspired optimism and gave rise to a boundless faith in one’s own strength. It was then that the Mezhrabpom-Rus Film Studio decided to make a film version of Alexei Tolstoy’s science fiction novel Aelita and to put it in competition with the most popular foreign box-office hits. Alexei Tolstoy worked on the script with the well-known playwright. Alexei Faiko. One of the great names of pre-revolutionary Russian cinema, Yakov Protazanov, was invited to be the director.
An Impressive advertising campaign preceded the appearance of the film in 1926. Mysterious words “Anta… Adeli…Uta…", signals sent by the film characters from Mars, appeared on the pages of the Kinogazeta (Cinema Gazette) and on street billboards. Numerous interviews with those involve in the film were published in Magazines.
…
Gus: After many Russian science fiction movies came Letters from a Dead Man (1986) from young director Konstantin Lopushansky.
…
Letters from a Dead Man, in its own way, realised the theme of an alternative future, the theme of the world of tomorrow, which is intended for the children and will be saved by them.

Two years later, the director Valeri Rubinchik, solving present-day ethical and moral problems through the mode of science fiction, was to speak about another danger that is threatening the world. may be even as much as nuclear war… The loss of eternal moral criteria, which is leading to depersonalisation, and as a result, recreancy [duplication and cloning]. “One shouldn’t renounce a single trait of one’s individuality” wrote Boris Pasternak. It seem that precisely the words determined the direction of thought in Rubinchik’s film The Recreant, based on Pavel Bagryak’s novel Five Presidents…

Notes:
Aelita (Russian: Аэли́та, pronounced [ɐɛˈlʲitə]), also known as Aelita: Queen of Mars, is a silent film directed by Soviet filmmaker Yakov Protazanov made at the Mezhrabpom-Rus film studio and released in 1924. It was based on Alexei Tolstoy's novel of the same name. Nikolai Tseretelli and Valentina Kuindzhi were cast in leading roles.Though the main focus of the story is the daily lives of a small group of people during the post-war Soviet Union, the enduring importance of the film comes from its early science fiction elements. It primarily tells of a young man, Los (Russian: Лось, literally Moose), traveling to Mars in a rocket ship, where he leads a popular uprising against the ruling group of Elders, with the support of Queen Aelita who has fallen in love with him after watching him through a telescope. In its performances in the cinemas in Leningrad, Dmitri Shostakovich played on the piano the music he provided for the film.
In the United States, Aelita was edited and titled by Benjamin De Casseres for release in 1929 as Aelita: Revolt of the Robots.
Read more:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aelita

Dead man's letters

The plot is set in a town after a nuclear war, which was caused by a computer error and the failure of the operator to prevent the missile launch — he noticed the mistake, but choked on coffee and was not able to shout respective commands in time. The town is destroyed and polluted with radioactive elements. Police curfew is established in the immediate vicinity and only healthy people are selected for admittance to the underground bunkers. The main character, played by Rolan Bykov, is a Nobel Prize in Physics laureate, who tries to survive and helps a small group of children and adults survive by staying with them in the basement of the former museum of history. He survives by writing letters in his mind to his son Eric, though it is obvious that they will never be read. The main character is very disappointed that science has led to such a disaster. Many die from the radiation. He escapes the safe bunker, returning to the dying abandoned children, taking care of them for some time and giving them hope. Eventually he dies as well. The film ends with children wandering through the uninhabited landscape, their future uncertain.

Read more:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Man%27s_Letters

———————————

Here we also need to see the Mad max series:

The concept of The Lost Tribe of children was originally Terry Hayes' idea. It was conceived for Mad Max 2, but due to budget constrains, a whole tribe of children was reduced to only one child - The Feral Kid.[1]

That same idea was pivotal for the creation of Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. George Miller and Terry Hayes discussed the concept of mythology and how lack of knowledge leads to belief, which in turn drives primitive societies such as the Aboriginal tribes of Australia.[2]

“

Terry was saying if you had a tribe of kids after the apocalypse who had only a few fragments of knowledge, [they would construct] a mythological belief as to what was before.

”– George Miller
Eventually the idea of Max stumbling upon such misguided belief ridden tribe formed into a central part of the next installment of Mad Max. Early on the children were to be found near a derelict school bus, but that was replaced with a crashed 747 - an idea almost identical to the one written for The Feral Kid.

Read more:https://madmax.fandom.com/wiki/The_Lost_Tribe

-------------------------

Now the kids are turning the table. But the adults have to deal with their own feeling of insecurity — and lack of knowledge. Using the concept of sin as a motivation or denigration is atrocious.

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By Gus Leonisky at 19 Sep 2019 - 6:54pm
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tiktok time...

Armed with a tripod and an internet connection, as well as a coterie of scruffy lambs, dogs and horses, Tara Bellerose broadcasts a message to the world.

From a farm in the Victorian highlands, the 21-year-old uses the controversial video app TikTok to share what she believes are urgent messages about climate change — and point users to Friday's global climate strike.

As a young farmer, Tara experiences increasingly unpredictable weather first-hand.

This year was supposed to be dry. Instead, it's been wet, flooding her crops away to "basically nothing".

This is a generation anxious about the future, and that's key to Tara's social media rants, which are raw and unapologetic — and detail what Tara fears is on the way.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-19/tiktok-youth-led-climate-activism...

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By Gus Leonisky at 20 Sep 2019 - 12:01am
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we stand for the young ones today...

From one activist to millions

Here's some more on Greta Thurberg, the teenager credited with inspiring these protests.

Back in 2018, Greta started ditching school to sit by herself outside parliament in Stockholm with a protest sign calling for climate action.

Her action soon snowballed into demonstrations across Europe, the US and Australia. As they're usually on a Friday, they became known as Fridays for Future or School Strike for Climate. Students are essentially calling on their governments to put their money where their mouth is and take urgent

Since those early days in Sweden, the now 16-year old has gone from solitary activist to global figurehead, speaking in front of the US Congress and fist bumping Barack Obama.

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-49753710

carbon-neutral not soon enough...

Swedish teen activist Greta Thunberg has rebuked the EU's plan for tackling climate change, telling MEPs it amounts to "surrender".

Ms Thunberg spoke in Brussels on Wednesday as the EU unveiled a proposed law for reducing carbon emissions.

If passed, the law would make it a legal requirement for the EU to be carbon neutral by 2050.

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen hailed the law as the "heart of the European Green Deal".

But 17-year-old Ms Thunberg dismissed the law as "empty words", accusing the EU of "pretending" to be a leader on climate change.

"When your house is on fire, you don't wait a few more years to start putting it out. And yet this is what the Commission is proposing today," Thunberg told the European Parliament's environment committee.

She said the law, which would give the EU Commission more powers to set tougher carbon reduction goals, did not go far enough.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51736134

MEANWHILE:

Scientists have published the first assessment quantifying the role of climate change in the recent Australian bushfires.

Global warming boosted the risk of the hot, dry weather that's likely to cause bushfires by at least 30%, they say.

But the study suggestst the figure is likely to be much greater.

It says that if global temperatures rise by 2C, as seems likely, such conditions would occur at least four times more often.

The analysis has been carried out by the World Weather Attribution consortium.

A visual guide to Australia's bushfire crisis

Co-author Geert Jan van Oldenborgh of the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute in De Bilt, The Netherlands, told BBC News said that even the study's very conservative estimates were troubling.

"Last year the fire prevention system in Australia, which is extremely well prepared for bushfires, was straining. It was at the limits of what it could handle, with volunteers working for weeks on end," Prof van Oldenborgh.

"As the world warms, these events will become more likely and more common. And it's not something that we are ready for."

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-51742646

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By Gus Leonisky at 5 Mar 2020 - 5:33am
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