Al Gore at SXSW: We Need to 'Punish Climate-Change Deniers' and 'Put a Price on Carbon'
The South by Southwest (SXSW) Festival is happening now in Austin, Texas. Running from March 9 to 22, it's a massive film, interactive and music festival that is nearly 20 years old. The festival brings together designers, developers, investors, entrepreneurs and politicians for panels and discussions about technology and innovation.
For the third time in the last few years, Al Gore, founder and chairman of the Climate Reality Project, spoke at the festival on Friday. Naturally, his interactive discussion focused on addressing the climate crisis. The former vice president focused on the need to "punish climate-change deniers, saying politicians should pay a price for rejecting 'accepted science,'" said the Chicago Tribune.
Gore said forward-thinking investors are moving away from companies that invest in fossil fuels and towards companies investing in renewable energy. "We need to put a price on carbon to accelerate these market trends,” Gore told the Chicago Tribune, referring to a proposed federal cap-and-trade system that would penalize companies that exceeded their carbon-emission limits. “And in order to do that, we need to put a price on denial in politics."
He called on the tech-minded SXSW crowd, which is dominated by Millenials, to harness technology to launch a grassroots movement to tackle climate change and call out climate deniers. “We have this denial industry cranked up constantly,” Gore said. “In addition to 99 percent of the scientists and all the professional scientific organizations, now Mother Nature is weighing in.”
Years from now, Gore said the next generation will look back at us and ask: "How did you change?," according to Macworld. “Part of the answer may well be that a group of people came to South by Southwest in Austin, Texas in 2015 and helped to make a revolution,” Gore said.
Gore wanted these young, tech-savvy attendees to start a grassroots movement using social media like they did when "net neutrality was threatened or when the Stop Online Piracy Act threatened to blacklist websites that offered so-called illegal content," said Macworld. That means signing petitions to fight climate change, utilizing social media to call out climate deniers in Congress and streaming the Live Earth Road to Paris concert on June 18, an event designed to draw attention to the climate talks in Paris this December.
The former Veep even gave a nod to Pope Francis during his talk, showing a slide of the pontiff and saying "How about this Pope?" Pope Francis celebrated his two-year anniversary as Pope on Friday, riding a wave of popularity "that has reinvigorated the Catholic Church in ways not seen since the days of St. John Paul II," said the Chicago Tribune. Gore said he was looking forward to the Pope's highly anticipated encyclical on the environment which is due to be released in June or July. “I’m not a Catholic,” Gore said, “but I could be persuaded to become one.”
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
Julia Roberts is Mother Nature
Pope Francis: Acting on Climate Change Is Essential to Faith
EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
One of the best things you can do for your child's well-being may be to raise them somewhere green.
<div id="c0d26" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="03960567cbd8baf0b578ce25926363b1"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1296116607794794496" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">In their latest publication, Esmée M Bijnens and colleagues reveal beneficial effects of a green environment on a c… https://t.co/vk8uzysUyh</div> — PLOS Medicine (@PLOS Medicine)<a href="https://twitter.com/PLOSMedicine/statuses/1296116607794794496">1597853254.0</a></blockquote></div>
Earth Lost Over 30 Trillion Tons of Ice in Under 30 Years, Scientists 'Stunned' by Landmark Study
The Earth has lost 28 trillion tonnes (approximately 31 trillion U.S. tons) of ice in just 23 years, and the climate crisis is largely to blame.
- Arctic Sea Ice Melting by 2035 Is Possible, Study Finds - EcoWatch ›
- Greenland Lost 600 Billion Tons of Ice Last Summer, Raising Sea ... ›
- Retreating Antarctic Glacier Could Raise Sea Levels 5 Feet ... ›
- Greenland Lost an Unprecedented Amount of Ice in 2019, Study Finds ›
The massive redwood trees that dot the landscape of Northern California have survived through countless earthquakes and natural disasters. Some of them are over 1,800 years old, hundreds of feet tall, and more than 90 feet in circumference. Yet, the climate crisis may threaten their livelihood as the latest California wildfires have encroached upon the ancient trees, as NPR reported.
- Conservation Group to Buy World's Largest Privately Held Sequoia ... ›
- California Governor Declares Statewide Emergency as 180,000 ... ›
- Tribute to the 'Mighty Redwoods' Wins EcoWatch Earth Day Photo ... ›
By Jessica Corbett
Swedish climate leader Greta Thunberg donned a mask and joined a socially distanced Fridays for Future protest in Berlin just a day after she and three other youth activists met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose government took over the European Council presidency in July, to discuss the planetary emergency.
<div id="dc9a2" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8229fb577f8697ac42ee3e8843974dc9"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1296748619522093056" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">School strike week 105. We’re back, social distant. Berlin! #climatestrike #fridaysforfuture #schoolstrike4climate… https://t.co/jcY5vVtahZ</div> — Greta Thunberg (@Greta Thunberg)<a href="https://twitter.com/GretaThunberg/statuses/1296748619522093056">1598003937.0</a></blockquote></div>
<div id="9032c" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8a0befc79f58c9dc4b239b3d6d45dada"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1296733781626257408" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">BREAKING: Nach dem Gespräch mit Merkel gestern haben heute 100 Aktivist:innen von #FridaysForFuture zusammen mit… https://t.co/e2UwCuZtNA</div> — Fridays for Future Berlin (@Fridays for Future Berlin)<a href="https://twitter.com/FFF_Berlin/statuses/1296733781626257408">1598000400.0</a></blockquote></div>
<div id="516c1" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="bc7d43c79b060445bfba2448e9003946"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1296698566455562240" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Week 36! #schoolstrike4climate from Kenya. let's stop talking and act!Action is better than words. We cannot eat co… https://t.co/WN3Nn5db4G</div> — Dorcas Wakio (@Dorcas Wakio)<a href="https://twitter.com/WakioDorcas/statuses/1296698566455562240">1597992004.0</a></blockquote></div>
<div id="ee5b3" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f96586f8ace84eefa25e4f55ffaf3552"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1296642301255536641" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">#ClimateStrikeOnline week17 危機感を持てば、行動せずにはいられません。 危機に気づくということは行動するということです。 ※私たちの"行動しないリーダー"はまだ気候危機の深刻さを理解していないのです。… https://t.co/l0fxBus5lN</div> — Tenshin てんしん (@Tenshin てんしん)<a href="https://twitter.com/ShindoTenshin/statuses/1296642301255536641">1597978589.0</a></blockquote></div>
<div id="417d1" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="272cf96a7e5bd51a38001515719e2f8c"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1296690147270909952" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">#FridaysForFuture climate strike at Sydney Town Hall https://t.co/N6DByTMqGK</div> — Fridays For Future Sydney (@Fridays For Future Sydney)<a href="https://twitter.com/fff_Sydney/statuses/1296690147270909952">1597989997.0</a></blockquote></div><p>"This is week 80 of my <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/schoolstrike4climate?src=hashtag_click" target="_blank">#schoolstrike4climate</a> but are you listening?" <a href="https://twitter.com/NamugerwaLeah/status/1296723352602718208" target="_blank">tweeted</a> Leah Namugerwa, a 16-year-old in Uganda. "Whether you do or not I'll continue doing what is right for my and future generations."</p>
- Fridays for Future Movement Urges Greater Global Focus on Africa's ... ›
- After a Year of Strikes Can Fridays for Future Maintain Momentum ... ›
By Jen Monnier
In the summer of 2015, Laurie Weitkamp was walking on the beach near her coastal Oregon home when she saw something strange: The water was purple. A colony of tunicates, squishy cylindrical critters that rarely come to shore, had congregated in a swarm so thick that you could scoop them out of the water with your hand. "I'd never seen anything like it," she says.
Weitkamp, a research fisheries biologist with the Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Newport, Oregon, knew that something had been afoot in the northeast part of the Pacific Ocean since the fall of 2013, which was unusually sunny, warm and calm. A mass of warm water stretched from Mexico to Alaska and lingered through 2016, disrupting marine life. Tunicates weren't the only creature affected; sea nettle jellyfish all but disappeared, while water jellyfish populations moved north to take their place, and young salmon starved to death out at sea, according to a report by Weitkamp and colleagues. Scientists dubbed this event "The Blob."
Marine heat waves like The Blob have cropped up around the globe more and more often over the past few decades. Scientists expect climate change to make them even more common and long lasting, harming vulnerable aquatic species as well as human enterprises such as fishing that revolve around ocean ecosystems. But there's no reliable way to know when one is about to hit, which means that fishers and wildlife managers are left scrambling to reduce harm in real time.
Fisheries biologist Laurie Weitkamp is helping develop policies to reduce the threat of marine heat waves, which can devastate ocean life. Photo courtesy of Laurie Weitkamp
Now, oceanographers are trying to uncover what drives these events so that people can forecast them and so minimize the ecological and economic damage they cause.
Unprecedented Heat
The Blob, which lasted three years, is the longest marine heat wave on record. Before that, a heat wave that began in 2015 in the Tasman Sea lasted more than eight months, killing abalone and oysters. A 2012 heat wave off the East Coast of Canada and the U.S., the largest on record at the time, pushed lobsters northward. It beat the previous record — a 2011 marine heat wave that uprooted seaweed, fish and sharks off western Australia. Before that, a 2003 heat wave in the Mediterranean Sea clinched the record while ravaging marine life.
As Earth's climate warms, record-setting marine heat waves are becoming more frequent and severe. Map adapted from Marine Heatwaves International Working Group.
Heat waves are a natural part of ocean systems, says Eric Oliver, an assistant professor of oceanography at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada. As with temperature on land, there's an average ocean temperature on any particular day of the year: Sometimes the water will be warmer, sometimes it will be colder, and every once in a while it will be extremely warm or cold.
But greenhouse gas emissions have bumped up the average temperature. Now, temperatures that used to be considered extremely warm happen more often — and every so often, large sections of the ocean are pushed into unprecedented heat, Oliver says.
Pelagic ocean ecosystems, however, have not caught up to these hotter temperatures. Organisms may be able to survive a steady temperature rise, but a heat wave can push them over the edge.
When blue swimmer crabs started dying in western Australia's Shark Bay after the 2011 heat wave, the government shut down blue crab fishing for a year and a half. This was hard on industry at the time, says Peter Jecks, managing director of Abacus Fisheries, but it managed to save crab populations. Not all creatures were so lucky — abalone near the heat wave's epicenter still haven't recovered.
"If you don't have strong predictions [of marine heat waves], you can't be proactive. You're left to be reactive," says Thomas Wernberg, an associate professor of marine ecology at the University of Western Australia.
See Them Coming
After Wernberg saw his region's sea life devastated by the heat wave, he recruited scientists from many disciplines in 2014 to begin studying these extreme events in what became the Marine Heatwaves International Working Group. The group held their first meeting in early 2015 and has since created protocols for defining and naming marine heat waves, tracking where they happen and measuring their ecological and socioeconomic impacts.
If we could see heat waves coming, aquaculturists, fishers and wildlife managers would have a better chance at saving money and species, Wernberg says. Seafood farmers could hold off stocking their aquaculture facilities with vulnerable species. Lawmakers could enact seasonal fishing closures or temporarily expand protected areas. Scientists could store animals or seeds of vulnerable plants.
That's why scientists around the world are trying to understand what triggers extreme warming in the ocean. Oliver is one such scientist. He feeds ocean data gathered by scientists, satellites, buoys, and deep-diving robots into computer modeling software to identify the forces that drive marine heat waves.
It's a relatively new field of research for which there are still few definitive answers. But past heat waves can be broadly classified into two categories, Oliver says: those driven by the ocean and those driven by the atmosphere.
For an example of an ocean-driven heat wave, Oliver points to the 2015 Tasman Sea heat wave. An ocean current that flows south down the East Coast of Australia normally veers toward New Zealand, but in 2015 it pulsed westward toward Tasmania, bringing a wave of warm water from the tropics that lingered more than six months. "Tropical fish were seen in water that is normally almost subpolar in temperature," Oliver says.
On the other hand, a 2019 heat wave in the Pacific, the so-called "Blob 2.0," was brought down from the atmosphere, according to Dillon Amaya, a climate scientist at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Using computer models, Amaya found that this heat wave emerged when a weather system over the Pacific lost steam, leading to weaker-than-usual winds. Wind helps cool the ocean by evaporating surface water in the same way a breeze cools a person's sweaty skin. But stagnant air above the Pacific locked more of the sun's heat into the water that year.
The recent "Blob 2.0" heat wave bears some resemblance to "The Blob," which disrupted marine life from Mexico to Alaska over the course of three years. NOAA Coral Reef Watch
Amaya is able to simulate heat waves thanks to recent technological advances. Scientists have known for decades that marine heat waves exist, he says, but "we have just begun to recognize these events as unique and deterministic — something we can predict — in the last five to 10 years."
That understanding inspired researchers to build computer simulations capable of playing out complicated ocean processes by weaving together information about ocean and atmospheric currents, sea surface temperature and salinity. Creating these simulations helps them learn more about heat wave mechanics, which lays the groundwork for predicting future events.
Back in Oregon, Weitkamp is part of the group that manages the Pacific Salmon Treaty between the U.S. and Canada. As heat waves like The Blob and Blob 2.0 deplete fish populations, the group is trying to figure out how to create policies better suited to this new normal. Knowing when the next one might hit could help.
"These heat waves have been a good wake-up call," she says. "People are trying to figure out how they're going to adapt."
Reposted with permission from Ensia.
- Marine Heat Waves Could Threaten Dolphin Survival, Study Suggests ›
- Marine Heatwaves Destroy Ocean Ecosystems Like Wildfires ... ›
- Ocean Heat Waves Are Twice as Common as Previously Thought ›
Scientists from the German University of Halle observed conditions on Saturday at an experimental concert in the eastern city of Leipzig, where they hope to learn more about the risk of infection at large events.
- Airborne Coronavirus Transmission Must Be Taken Seriously, 239 ... ›
- Here's Why COVID-19 Can Spread So Easily at Gyms and Fitness ... ›
Trending
Trump Greenlights Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, but Will Oil Companies Show Up?
By Scott L. Montgomery
The Trump administration has announced that it is opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas development – the latest twist in a decades-long battle over the fate of this remote area. Its timing is truly terrible.
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="acfdbc74ce6214af4b64f1f77bd82b45"><iframe lazy-loadable="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bTdOrHxIto4?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
Years of Debate
<p>ANWR is inarguably an ecological treasure. With 45 species of mammals and over 200 species of birds from six continents, the refuge <a href="https://www.amnh.org/explore/science-bulletins/earth/documentaries/reading-the-rocks-the-search-for-oil-in-anwr/essay-northern-alaska-rich-in-wildlife-and-oil/" target="_blank">is more biodiverse</a> than almost any area in the Arctic.</p><p>This is especially true of the 1002 <a href="https://www.fws.gov/refuge/arctic/wildlife_habitat.html" target="_blank">coastal plain portion</a>, which has the largest number of polar bear dens in Alaska. It also supports <a href="https://theconversation.com/scientist-at-work-tracking-muskoxen-in-a-warming-arctic-70378" target="_blank">muskoxen</a>, Arctic wolves, foxes, hares, migrating waterfowl and Porcupine caribou, which calve there. Most of ANWR is designated as wilderness, which puts it off-limits for development. But this <a href="https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33872.pdf" target="_blank">does not include the 1002 Area</a>, which was recognized as a promising area for energy development when the refuge was created in 1980 and left that way after a 1987 study confirmed its potential.</p><p>Climate change is causing <a href="https://theconversation.com/100-degrees-in-siberia-5-ways-the-extreme-arctic-heat-wave-follows-a-disturbing-pattern-141442" target="_blank">especially rapid warming in the Arctic</a>, with probable negative effects for many of these species. Environmental advocates argue that fossil fuel production in ANWR will <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/protect-arctic-national-wildlife-refuge" target="_blank">add to this process</a>, damaging habitat and impacting the <a href="https://www.alaskapublic.org/2019/07/02/in-arctic-village-gwichin-leaders-say-the-fight-to-stop-drilling-in-the-arctic-refuge-isnt-over/" target="_blank">Indigenous people who rely on the wildlife</a> for subsistence. But the situation is complex: There are also <a href="https://www.ktoo.org/2019/07/02/in-the-alaska-village-where-anwr-is-the-backyard-many-see-drilling-as-an-opportunity/" target="_blank">Indigenous groups who support ANWR development</a> for the jobs and income it would bring.</p><p>Energy companies' interest in ANWR, meanwhile, has risen and fallen over time. The discovery of oil at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prudhoe_Bay_Oil_Field" target="_blank">Prudhoe Bay</a> in 1968, followed by <a href="https://www.cfr.org/timeline/oil-dependence-and-us-foreign-policy" target="_blank">two oil shocks in the 1970s</a>, sparked support for exploration and production in the region. But this enthusiasm faded in the late 1980s and '90s in the face of fierce political and legal opposition and years of low oil prices.</p>A majority of Americas of all political leanings believe the U.S. should develop alternative energy sources rather than expanding production of oil, coal and natural gas. Pew Research Center, CC BY-ND
Is ANWR Oil Worth It?
<p>Today the oil industry is facing its greatest set of challenges in modern history. They include:</p><ul><li>A collapse in oil demand and prices due to the global pandemic, with a sluggish and <a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/oil-market-report-august-2020" target="_blank">uncertain recovery</a></li><li>Companies canceling and reducing activity worldwide, with bankruptcies in the U.S. shale industry and <a href="https://energynow.com/2020/08/u-s-oil-gas-rig-count-falls-to-record-low-for-14th-week-baker-hughes/" target="_blank">drilling rig counts</a> falling back to 1940 levels</li><li>New uncertainty about future global oil demand as climate concerns push public interest and government policy toward electric vehicles, and automakers respond with new EV designs</li><li>The growing possibility of Democratic victories in the November 2020 elections, which would likely lead to policies reducing fossil fuel use</li><li>Increasing <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-barclays/barclays-pressured-by-shareholders-to-cut-fossil-fuel-financing-idUSKBN1Z700F" target="_blank">investor pressure</a> on banks and investment firms to reduce or eliminate support for fossil fuel projects.</li></ul><p>All of these factors compound the challenges of leasing and drilling in ANWR. Well costs there would be among the highest anywhere onshore in the U.S. Only one well has ever been drilled in the area, so new drilling would be purely exploratory and have a lower chance of success than in better-studied areas. Under these conditions, it would make more sense for companies that are active on Alaska's North Slope to pursue sites they currently have under lease, which pose much lower risk.</p>Alaska's North Slope outside of ANWR remains rich in oil, according to the latest U.S. Geological Survey assessment. USGS
<p>What's more, as I have <a href="https://theconversation.com/large-scale-fracking-comes-to-the-arctic-in-a-new-alaska-oil-boom-75683#comment_1264055" target="_blank">argued previously</a>, it's not clear that there's a need to drill in ANWR. Energy companies have made new discoveries elsewhere south and west of Prudhoe Bay – most recently, the <a href="https://www.rigzone.com/news/pantheon_resources_makes_alaska_north_slope_discovery-13-apr-2020-161730-article/" target="_blank">Talitha Field</a>, which could yield 500 million barrels or more.</p><p>Companies that pursue leases in ANWR also will have to weigh the prospects of litigation, investor anger and a tarnished brand – especially large firms with public name recognition. Shell's experience in 2015, when it <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/09/28/shell-backtracks-on-controversial-arctic-drilling-plan/" target="_blank">abandoned plans to drill offshore in the Arctic</a> under heavy pressure, indicate what other companies can expect.</p><p>If Trump is voted out of office, I expect that a Biden administration would quickly move to <a href="https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/06/most-trump-environmental-rollbacks-will-take-years-to-be-reversed/" target="_blank">reverse</a> the directive for leasing in ANWR. In my view, this contested area will have far more meaning and value as a wildlife refuge in a warming world that is starting to seriously move away from hydrocarbon energy.</p>

