A mass methane release could begin an irreversible path to full land-ice melt. NurPhoto / Contributor / Getty Images
By Peter Giger
The speed and scale of the response to COVID-19 by governments, businesses and individuals seems to provide hope that we can react to the climate change crisis in a similarly decisive manner - but history tells us that humans do not react to slow-moving and distant threats.
<p>Our evolution has selected the "fight or flight" instinct to deal with environmental change, so rather like the metaphor of the frog in boiling water, we tend to react too little and too late to gradual change.</p><p>Climate change is often described as global warming, with the implication of gradual changes caused by a steady increase in temperatures; from heatwaves to melting glaciers.</p><p>But we know from multidisciplinary scientific evidence - from geology, anthropology and archaeology - that climate change is not incremental. Even in pre-human times, it is episodic, when it isn't forced by a human-induced acceleration of greenhouse gas emissions and warming.</p><p>There are parts of our planet's carbon cycle, the ways that the earth and the biosphere store and release carbon, that could trigger suddenly in response to gradual warming. These are tipping points that once passed could fundamentally disrupt the planet and produce abrupt, non-linear change in the climate.</p>
A Game of Jenga
<p>Think of it as a game of Jenga and the planet's climate system as the tower. For generations, we have been slowly removing blocks. But at some point, we will remove a pivotal block, such as the collapse of one of the major global ocean circulation systems, for example the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), that will cause all or part of the global climate system to fall into a planetary emergency.</p><p>But worse still, it could cause runaway damage: Where the tipping points form a domino-like cascade, where breaching one triggers breaches of others, creating an unstoppable shift to a radically and swiftly changing climate.</p><p>One of the most concerning tipping points is mass methane release. Methane can be found in deep freeze storage within permafrost and at the bottom of the deepest oceans in the form of methane hydrates. But rising sea and air temperatures are beginning to thaw these stores of methane.</p><p>This would release a powerful greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, 30-times more potent than carbon dioxide as a global warming agent. This would drastically increase temperatures and rush us towards the breach of other tipping points.</p><p>This could include the acceleration of ice thaw on all three of the globe's large, land-based ice sheets – Greenland, West Antarctica and the Wilkes Basin in East Antarctica. The potential collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet is seen as a key tipping point, as its loss could eventually <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/324/5929/901" target="_blank">raise global sea levels by 3.3 meters</a> with important regional variations.</p><p>More than that, we would be on the irreversible path to full land-ice melt, causing sea levels to rise by up to 30 meters, roughly at the rate of two meters per century, or maybe faster. Just look at the raised beaches around the world, at the last high stand of global sea level, at the end of the Pleistocene period around 120,0000 years ago, to see the evidence of such a warm world, which was just 2°C warmer than the present day.</p>Cutting Off Circulation
<p>As well as devastating low-lying and coastal areas around the world, melting polar ice could set off another tipping point: a disablement to the AMOC.</p><p>This circulation system drives a northward flow of warm, salty water on the upper layers of the ocean from the tropics to the northeast Atlantic region, and a southward flow of cold water deep in the ocean.</p><p>The ocean conveyor belt has a major effect on the climate, seasonal cycles and temperature in western and northern Europe. It means the region is warmer than other areas of similar latitude.</p><p>But melting ice from the Greenland ice sheet could threaten the AMOC system. It would dilute the salty sea water in the north Atlantic, making the water lighter and less able or unable to sink. This would slow the engine that drives this ocean circulation.</p><p><a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/atlantic-conveyor-belt-has-slowed-15-per-cent-since-mid-twentieth-century" target="_blank">Recent research</a> suggests the AMOC has already weakened by around 15% since the middle of the 20th century. If this continues, it could have a major impact on the climate of the northern hemisphere, but particularly Europe. It may even lead to the <a href="https://ore.exeter.ac.uk/repository/handle/10871/39731?show=full" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">cessation of arable farming</a> in the UK, for instance.</p><p>It may also reduce rainfall over the Amazon basin, impact the monsoon systems in Asia and, by bringing warm waters into the Southern Ocean, further destabilize ice in Antarctica and accelerate global sea level rise.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTUwNjQ0MS9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY2NTgwMjY2MX0.IvCzVigFTmY5avYrfi_Muh47dXM1TvLwTPFv5Zs95Pk/img.png?width=980" id="b580e" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="491f17ca2d159ebbc564d9c4a6771983" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1222" data-height="1324" />
The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation has a major effect on the climate. Praetorius (2018)
Is it Time to Declare a Climate Emergency?
<p>At what stage, and at what rise in global temperatures, will these tipping points be reached? No one is entirely sure. It may take centuries, millennia or it could be imminent.</p><p>But as COVID-19 taught us, we need to prepare for the expected. We were aware of the risk of a pandemic. We also knew that we were not sufficiently prepared. But we didn't act in a meaningful manner. Thankfully, we have been able to fast-track the production of vaccines to combat COVID-19. But there is no vaccine for climate change once we have passed these tipping points.</p><p><a href="https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-global-risks-report-2021" target="_blank">We need to act now on our climate</a>. Act like these tipping points are imminent. And stop thinking of climate change as a slow-moving, long-term threat that enables us to kick the problem down the road and let future generations deal with it. We must take immediate action to reduce global warming and fulfill our commitments to the <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Paris Agreement</a>, and build resilience with these tipping points in mind.</p><p>We need to plan now to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, but we also need to plan for the impacts, such as the ability to feed everyone on the planet, develop plans to manage flood risk, as well as manage the social and geopolitical impacts of human migrations that will be a consequence of fight or flight decisions.</p><p>Breaching these tipping points would be cataclysmic and potentially far more devastating than COVID-19. Some may not enjoy hearing these messages, or consider them to be in the realm of science fiction. But if it injects a sense of urgency to make us respond to climate change like we have done to the pandemic, then we must talk more about what has happened before and will happen again.</p><p>Otherwise we will continue playing Jenga with our planet. And ultimately, there will only be one loser – us.</p>
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Doug Emhoff, U.S. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, Jill Biden and President-elect Joe Biden wave as they arrive on the East Front of the U.S. Capitol for the inauguration on Jan. 20, 2021 in Washington, DC. Joe Raedle / Getty Images
By John R. Platt
The period of the 45th presidency will go down as dark days for the United States — not just for the violent insurgency and impeachment that capped off Donald Trump's four years in office, but for every regressive action that came before.
<p>It's been said that Trump was the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-worst-president-environment-2645034831.html" target="_self">worst environmental president in history</a>, and that's easy to see from his administration's record. They rolled back decades of environmental progress by slashing protective regulations, strangled the agencies tasked with enforcing the regulations that remained, pushed corporate agendas damaging to wildlife, human health and the climate, and stoked the flames of right-wing extremists — including people whose radical agendas often attack public-land protections or climate science.</p><p>That barely covers it all, of course. It would take an entire book — a whole library — to fully convey the environmental damage done under Trump.</p>
<p>And now it's up to a new administration — and the work of a lot of people on top of it — to undo the damage and hopefully make up for four lost years of potential progress.</p><p>President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, together with the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, have a tough task ahead of them.</p><p>Make that many tough tasks. They'll need to rebuild the ranks of government workforces while reinforcing the trust in government and the trust in America on the world stage. They'll need to pass and restore regulations that don't just return us to the status quo but radically improve on it — taking the world forward at a time when the effects of climate change and the extinction crisis continue to worsen. 2020 tied for the <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/08012021/2020-earth-hottest-year-temperatures/" target="_blank">hottest year on record</a>, and Trump <a href="https://earther.gizmodo.com/trump-has-listed-the-fewest-endangered-species-of-any-p-1845854952" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">added fewer species</a> to the Endangered Species Act than any other president while <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/08/12/750479370/trump-administration-makes-major-changes-to-protections-for-endangered-species" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">slashing protections</a> for those already on the list. They'll need to address environmental justice at a time when white supremacy is at its most vocal point in decades and firmly entrenched in some areas of government. They'll need to resist the usual corporate influence that could slow things down along the way.</p>
<p>And they'll need to do it all while helping the country stabilize and recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and Trump's botched response to the crisis, not to mention the continued threat from seditious domestic terrorists.</p><p>That's a lot on one plate, but they're already off to a good start. Biden and Harris ran on a strong climate platform and have assembled an experienced climate team. Neither the platform nor the team is perfect — progressives think they can do much better — but they're light years ahead of anything we saw under the previous administration.</p><p>And of course, now that the Democrats have won the Senate, Biden's cabinet picks are more likely to be confirmed and the country will no longer face the obstruction ever-present under the majority leadership of Mitch McConnell.</p>
<p>But at the same time, Republicans have risen to power in cities and state legislatures around the country, and many of them are <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/14/us/politics/trump-republicans.html" target="_blank">still fueled by MAGA Trumpism</a> and unhinged conspiracy theories. The right-wing media, meanwhile, continue to shape and mold millions with their unique brand of misinformation and discord. Both trends will present a barrier to progress at every level.</p><p>So what's the agenda for moving forward under the Biden-Harris administration? Below, you'll find a series of articles and expert commentaries from <em>The Revelator</em>'s archives addressing key steps the incoming team can take to restore the EPA, protect key species, address the COVID-19 pandemic in a just and climate-focused manner, and more.</p><p>We'll continue to add to these roadmaps as the administration gets its footing, and we invite any insiders and experts to <a href="https://therevelator.org/contact#write-for-us" target="_blank">contribute their own voices</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://therevelator.org/reform-blm-biden/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Reform the Bureau of Land Management: Biden Must Succeed Where Obama Failed</a></p><p><a href="https://therevelator.org/climate-new-deal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">For a Path Forward on Climate, Let's Learn From the Original New Deal</a></p><p><a href="https://therevelator.org/gray-wolf-biden-administration/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Gray Wolf Recovery and Survival Require Immediate Action by the Biden Administration</a></p><p><a href="https://therevelator.org/restoring-epa-biden/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Biden Can Restore the EPA, But It Will Require Steadfast Effort</a></p><p><a href="https://therevelator.org/biden-restore-rollbacks/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">How Biden Can Do More Than Just Restore Trump's Environmental Rollbacks</a></p><p><a href="https://therevelator.org/biden-climate-plan-trent/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Biden-Harris Climate Plan: 'Not Trump' Is Not Enough</a></p><p><a href="https://therevelator.org/biden-leadership-wildlife-crime/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Biden Must Take a Leadership Role Against Wildlife Crime</a></p><p><a href="https://therevelator.org/multisolving-covid-recovery/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Multisolving Our Way to COVID-19 Economic Recovery</a></p><p><a href="https://therevelator.org/biden-climate-farber/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Biden Can Leverage Larger Trends to Make Climate Progress</a></p><p><em>And here's a report from our parent organization, the Center for Biological Diversity:</em></p><p><a href="https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/report-50-critical-environmental-reforms-president-biden-can-enact-without-congress-2020-12-03/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">50 Critical Environmental Reforms President Biden Can Enact Without Congress</a></p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://therevelator.org/rebuilding-years/" target="_blank">The Revelator</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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A hazy Seattle skyline due to wildfire smoke is seen on September 11, 2020 in Seattle, Washington. Lindsey Wasson / Getty Images
Washington state residents are taking climate matters into their own hands. Beginning this month, 90 members of the public join the country's first climate assembly to develop pollution solutions, Crosscut reported.
<p>Randomly picked and representing every congressional district in the state, assembly members have until March to discuss climate pollution, reach a consensus and forward their recommendations to the state Legislature. </p><p>"It's going to hinge on getting people from different ideological perspectives to talk and be informed and come to some consensus," State Rep. Jake Fey, D-Tacoma, told Crosscut. "It's an experiment, but I'm supportive of this because I think that it could be more persuasive in furthering the different strategies that might be used to reduce carbon."</p><p>Crosscut reported that the group represents racial, income and gender diversity. Their views on the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-crisis" target="_blank">climate crisis </a>also vary, from whether it exists to whether people are responsible for it.</p><p>"One fact that has become clear is that the polarized nature of this debate harms us all. This issue cannot be another 'us versus them' issue, because it affects us all," Fey and three other Washington representatives wrote in <a href="https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/commentary-citizens-assembly-would-seek-consensus-on-climate/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Herald</a>.</p>
<p>Although environmental concern is growing across the country, a recent<a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2020/02/13/as-economic-concerns-recede-environmental-protection-rises-on-the-publics-policy-agenda/" target="_blank"> Pew Research Center study</a> found that the partisan gap on climate change has never been wider than in 2020,<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/02/20/climate/climate-change-polls.html" target="_blank"> The New York Times reported</a>.</p><p>While 78 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents list <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" target="_blank">climate change</a> as their top policy priority, just 21 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents do, according to the Pew Research Center's findings. </p><p>Republican State Senator Judy Warnick will sit on Washington's Climate Assemblies monitoring team. "It will be interesting for me — I haven't been involved in a lot of climate discussion," she told Crosscut. Warnick hopes to improve the air quality and forest health in her district.</p><p>Last year, Warnick's district, alongside others in the Central and Eastern Washington region, experienced devastating <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wildfires" target="_blank">wildfires</a>.</p>
<p>"This is an unprecedented and heartbreaking event," Washington's Gov. Jay Inslee said about the wildfires that roared through the state in the spring and summer, <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/wildfire-smoke-blows-into-western-washington-worsening-air-quality/" target="_blank">The Seattle Times</a> reported. "We're living in a new world. This is not the old Washington."</p><p>Although Washington's Climate Assembly is the first in the U.S., a similar assembly took place in the UK.<br></p><p>At the beginning of last year, UK citizens were selected at random, asked to listen to experts and come up with a list of recommendations on how their country could reach net-zero emissions by 2050,<a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/qa-how-the-climate-assembly-says-the-uk-should-reach-net-zero" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> CarbonBrief reported</a>. Their consensus was published in a report where they listed changes to a range of sectors, from meat and dairy consumption to electricity generation. </p>
<p>"The first weekend changed me really. I thought, 'Oh my God, [climate change] is really going to happen,'" Sue Peachey, one of the 108 people who took part in the UK assembly, told<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/31/its-awakened-me-uk-climate-assembly-participants-hail-a-life-changing-event" target="_blank"> The Guardian</a>. "It made me want to learn and to live my life greener."</p><p>The report is a tool to push the UK toward net-zero emissions, CarbonBrief noted. But it could do more than recommend climate policy. </p><p>"The report shatters the illusion that ordinary people will not accept stronger climate policies and are incapable of making difficult decisions about our collective future," Graham Smith, a politics professor at the University of Westminster, wrote for <a href="https://theconversation.com/citizens-assembly-what-weve-learned-about-the-kind-of-climate-action-the-public-wants-to-see-146161" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Conversation</a>.</p><p>Citizen assemblies on climate change could bring the public together to form agreements on an issue that has largely divided it. "It's all about building relationships, listening to each other's ideas," Warnick told Crosscut. "That's what has me the most optimistic."</p>
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Boletus mushrooms such as these are on the menu at ONA restaurant in Arès, France. Jarry / Tripelon / Gamma-Rapho / Getty Images)
For the first time ever, a vegan restaurant in France has been awarded a coveted Michelin star.
<p>The French edition of the Michelin guide, published Monday, awarded a star to <a href="https://www.clairevallee.com/" target="_blank">ONA</a>. The name stands for Origine Non-Animale, or animal-free origin, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55717253" target="_blank">BBC News reported</a>. The restaurant is located in Arès, near Bordeaux in southwestern France, and was started by chef Claire Vallée, a 41-year-old former archeologist who became a vegan after a trip to Thailand.</p><p>"[T]his star is mine, it is yours, it is that of the impossible," Vallée wrote in an <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CKMBEB5gvqI/" target="_blank">Instagram post announcing the win</a>. "It brings Vegetable Gastronomy definitively into the closed circle of French and Global Gastronomy."</p><p>The Michelin Guide <a href="https://guide.michelin.com/en/about-us" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">started in France</a> in the late nineteenth century as a road guide published by the Michelin tire company. Over time, it evolved into a highly respected restaurant review guide, thanks to reviewers who secretly visited them. The hierarchy of one, two or three stars became established by 1936. The Michelin system has since spread abroad, and currently rates more than 30,000 restaurants in at least 30 territories. The guide has awarded stars to vegan restaurants in other countries, BBC News reported, but never before in its place of origin. In addition to the Michelin star, ONA also won a green star, a recognition of ethical practices.</p><p>"It felt like I got hit by a train," Vallée told AFP of the win, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/19/michelin-awards-star-to-vegan-restaurant-for-the-first-time-in-france" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">according to an AFP story published in The Guardian</a>.</p>
<p>Vallée and ONA had a winding road to success. Her first requests for a loan were denied by traditional French banks, who were skeptical of both her chosen location and her menu.<br></p><p>"They said the outlook for veganism and plant-based food was too uncertain," she told AFP.</p><p>Undeterred, Vallée crowdfunded her restaurant, and also obtained a loan from a bank called Le Nef, which funds ethical projects.</p><p>"This goes to show that nothing is impossible," she told AFP.</p>
<p>ONA opened its doors in 2016, according to BBC News. The restaurant offers a seven-dish gourmet menu that uses ingredients such as fir tree, boletus mushrooms and celery. However, it is currently closed because of the coronavirus pandemic.</p><p>Coronavirus restrictions also made it difficult to publish this year's Michelin guide, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/france-michelin-stars/michelin-guide-offers-crumb-of-comfort-to-frances-covid-hit-chefs-idINKBN29N1ID" target="_blank">Reuters reported</a>, as inspectors only had a few weeks to visit restaurants in between lockdowns. The annual guide also comes at a tough time for restaurants.</p><p>"For people who get their first star, in the period that we're suffering through, this will be at least a comfort for them," chef Sylvain Sendra of Paris restaurant Fleur de Pave told Reuters.</p>
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Samples of chocolate, strawberry and taro ice cream in the Chinese city of Tianjin tested positive for coronavirus. Alex Lau / Conde Nast via Getty Images
Ice cream samples in the Chinese municipality of Tianjin have tested positive for traces of the new coronavirus.
<p>The virus showed up in samples of chocolate, strawberry and taro ice cream produced by the Tianjin Daqiaodao Food Company that were submitted for inspection, Chinese media reported Friday, <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ice-cream-tianjin-covid-19_n_600215fbc5b697df1a05b059" target="_blank">according to HuffPost</a>.</p><p>"If you have recently purchased this product, please contact the community to report," a government press release read, as <a href="https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ice-cream-covid19/" target="_blank">Snopes.com reported</a>. "At present, the traceability of the source of the virus is still in progress."</p>
<p>The press released obtained by Snopes was released on Jan. 15 by the Tianjin Municipal People's Government. It stated that the company had been temporarily shuttered and all of its employees were in quarantine. As of Jan. 14, 700 of the 1,662 employees had tested negative for the virus and the rest were still awaiting their results.</p><p>In total, there were more than 4,800 boxes of contaminated ice cream. Around 2,090 were still in storage, but 2,750 had already shipped. Of those, more than 930 stayed in Tianjin while around 1,800 were sent outside the city, which is close to Beijing.</p>
<p>Government officials said they were working to locate all of the ice cream sold in Tianjin, The Associated Press reported. They also informed authorities in other municipalities where the ice cream was sold. So far, there is no evidence that anyone has been infected by the ice cream.</p><p>The ice cream was made with whey powder imported from Ukraine and milk powder imported from New Zealand.</p><p>University of Leeds virologist Dr. Stephen Griffin told <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-ice-cream-tests-positive-for-coronavirus-in-china-12188761" target="_blank">Sky News</a> that the positive test was probably not cause for alarm.</p><p>"It's likely this has come from a person, and without knowing the details, I think this is probably a one-off," he said.</p>
<p>Griffin speculated that the ice cream probably became infected during the production process or because of poor hygiene at the factory. The ice cream's cold temperature and fat content would then have allowed the virus to survive.</p><p>"We probably don't need to panic that every bit of ice cream is suddenly going to be contaminated with coronavirus," Griffin told Sky.</p><p>SARS, which is related to the new coronavirus, has been shown to survive as an infectious virus up to 28 days at around 39 degrees Fahrenheit, HuffPost pointed out. It also survived for an extended amount of time at colder temperatures.<br></p><p>The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said the risk of contracting the virus from food or food packaging is low. "Currently, there is no evidence that food is associated with spreading the virus that causes COVID-19," the CDC website <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/food-and-COVID-19.html#:~:text=Currently%2C%20there%20is%20no%20evidence%20that%20food%20is%20associated%20with,thought%20to%20be%20very%20low." target="_blank">reads</a>.</p>
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