Pexels
By Daisy Simmons
"It's not easy to watch."
That was a recurring introductory remark at screenings during the recent 2020 Wild & Scenic Film Festival. Held each year in the bucolic foothills of the Sierra, the five-day festival screens more than 140 environmental films, from artful meditations on the beauty of nature, to distressing stories of people on the frontlines of climate change.
<p>The latter category held enough short and feature documentaries to fill up an entire weekend — and more. Throughout these diverse pieces was a common probing of the disproportionate impacts of climate change on the health and wellbeing of indigenous communities, people of color, and economically disadvantaged individuals.</p><p>Several films shared intimate stories of people who have lost, or will soon lose, their homes and customs to rising seas and oil and gas development in coastal Louisiana.</p><p>Others examined hard-hit communities in fire-ravaged California, including how fire compounds other pressures of daily life for immigrant families. In one film, for example, a woman says some families she knows plan to evacuate who, in an upcoming mandatory evacuation, think they simply will drive to the coast, climb down the cliffs, and take their chances on the shoreline itself, rather than risk running into customs officers at a shelter.</p><p>Several films also criss-crossed the globe to reveal connections between, for instance, climate refugees in Bangladesh and air pollution in Texas.</p><p>But even the most sobering films contained glimmers of hope, a theme the festival organizers took great pains to nurture — from activist workshops held throughout the weekend, to simple action-oriented steps available at each screening and at booths outside, such as signing a petition.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/03/seven-of-the-best-new-documentaries-about-global-warming/" target="_blank">Yale Climate Connections</a>.</em></p>
Seven Films to Add to Your Climate Watchlist
<p>There were too many standouts at the 18th annual environmental film festival to list here, including several "Yuby Award" winners (named in honor of the Yuba River, which the festival was launched to help protect). Following are a few highlights that exemplify the human impact of climate change, in alphabetical order:</p>After the Fire (18 min. documentary, see trailer below)
<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/255336063" width="100%" height="480" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="0fd19d6b9ff2252b855909b406b4234c"></iframe><p>For some, Sonoma Valley is the glamorous wine-studded landscape we see in movies. But for real-world residents, it's just home – or, it used to be, before the recent fires destroyed their own homes. This film follows several locals as they try to rebuild not just a home but a life. For example, there's the young immigrant mom struggling to find work, because the restaurants where she'd normally work have no customers. There's the senior sculptor who's lost his life's work, along with all his family heirlooms. The only thing he has left from his mother is a potted hibiscus plant, which he nurtures tenderly. Skyrocketing rents plague both their efforts. The sculptor must move in with his daughter, and the young mother says she's had to choose between rent and food. Neither is alone: "We're all scared, whether or not we have our papers," says the mom. This is a story of loss, but also of resilience – as evidenced perhaps best by the hibiscus not just once, when it miraculously survives the fire, but again later when, with care, it begins to bloom again.</p>Blowout: Inside America’s Energy Gamble (79 min. documentary, see trailer below)
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="350d9c79032c3e3032e8ac460abb9e82"><iframe lazy-loadable="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VsqEw2NTf5g?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p>"We're the sacrifice zone," says a resident of Port Arthur, Texas, where soaring cancer rates have been linked to nearby oil, gas, and petrochemical development. From there, through the Panama Canal and across Asia, the film connects global oil and gas activity to human life around the world. From a family displaced by sea-level rise in Dhaka, Bangladesh, to one considering moving from hurricane-soaked Panama City, Florida, Blowout packs in data of rising emissions and temperatures without sacrificing the human side of the equation.</p><p>Available to watch online at Amazon Prime, Fire TV, Roku, Vizio, and Apple TV.</p>The Condor and the Eagle (82 min. documentary, see trailer below)
<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/359405536" width="100%" height="480" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="26cbdafacf8c3d5f17874b62c39ba2dd"></iframe><p>Punctuated by vivid animation and music, this film opens with an old prophecy, one that's been recorded by indigenous communities across the Western hemisphere: "When the eagle of the North and the condor of the South fly together, the spirit of the land will reawaken." Now, as the 21st century unfolds, we see four indigenous environmental leaders helping bring this prophecy to life, working to reduce the impacts of oil and gas production across great distances, from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, to the Amazonian jungles of Ecuador. They come together at global climate summits and marches, returning with new insight to work in their own communities. Their work ranges from crusading against "environmental genocide" in the Amazon, to fighting toxic emissions in a Texas town where too many kids are growing up with asthma and leukemia. It's an onerous journey, but by sharing traditional wisdom and conviction, these leaders offer hope to communities well outside their own domain.</p>Last Call for the Bayou: Five Stories from Louisiana’s Disappearing Coastline (53 min. documentary, see trailer below)
<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/323350759" width="100%" height="480" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="1b58fc4a363ae53a8ee51f7a29f79b15"></iframe><p>Shot on location in the Louisiana delta, this film boasts a diverse crew of real-life characters, from the self-proclaimed "Duck Queen" fighting for wetland preservation and the mud-tasting scientist (yes, he actually nibbles mud as part of his testing), to the third generation shrimper who's running out of work, and the aerial photographer documenting environmental change. Each in their own way is grappling with Louisiana's diminishing wetlands — every hour an area the size of a football field is lost. Can they find a way to restore the coastline without sacrificing the local economy? Together, their stories show how sea-level rise is already threatening livelihoods. As the photographer ponders, hovering a thousand feet above the shrinking barrier islands in a jetpack, "One major hurricane and we'll all be looking for a new place to live."</p>Lowland Kids (22 min. documentary, see trailer below)
<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/282694564" width="100%" height="480" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="45ec52f42c8f810244a89cdd4ca91294"></iframe><p>Coastal Louisiana's Isle de Jean Charles is sinking, creating the first climate refugees in the U.S. mainland. To go behind the headlines, the filmmakers introduce Howard and Juliette, aka "the last teenagers" on the island, and their uncle, who's raised them here since they were small children. They've each grown up enjoying freedom and peace here, from late-night alligator watching and water fights to quiet sunset conversations. And they're not looking forward to moving: The teenagers worry about what it will be like to have close neighbors. Chris, the uncle, has lived his whole life on the island, and mourns that "part of me will always be here, because this is where life began for me." Asked how he feels about being called one of the nation's first climate refugees, he says it's strange, and yet, with rising seas and the forced move upon him, admits he hasn't been able to find a better word.</p>Mossville: When Great Trees Fall (75 min. documentary, see trailer below)
<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/145085489" width="100%" height="480" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="ad483840dc14a7b1d98ea86945e7c841"></iframe><p>Winner of the festival's Spirit of Activism award, this film explores the deeply troubling impacts of industrial petrochemical development in Mossville, Louisiana — a community founded in 1790 by ex-slave Jack Moss. For generations, people of color lived here in peace, geographically insulated from the rest of the Jim Crow South. Today, however, the southwestern Louisiana community has been "erased," replaced by massive petrochemical plants, including the nearly complete new multi-billion-dollar project projected to produce more greenhouse gases than anywhere else in the state. The toll has already been dire, with mechanic and father Stacey Ryan reporting he's lost most of his family to cancer and other health impacts he blames on the plants' toxic emissions. But the losses aren't over. The company behind the new plant has forced most residents to move out, and Ryan is unwilling to budge. The audience sees his home become a surreal holdout in an increasingly decimated landscape: The neighbors are all gone, as are their houses. His fenced-in yard is suddenly dwarfed by sprung-from-nowhere industrial roads and buildings. We watch as his power and water are shut off, his mailbox eerily poking into relentless truck traffic. And we watch as his health and vitality slowly decline, all because he refuses to give up the home his grandparents built for a plant whose greenhouse gas emissions stand to threaten far more than the homes that once surrounded it.</p>The Story of Plastic (94 min. documentary, see trailer below)
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="5553e3cdc79672760b44a9baf19f2d96"><iframe lazy-loadable="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/krhZmrDVv_k?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p>When people think about plastic as a problem, they often think just about its end state: as waste carelessly strewn into the ocean, killing off seabirds and other creatures tragically having mistaken the inedible trash for food. But The Story of Plastic makes a strong case for rethinking that narrative. With global reporting, archival footage, and simple storyboard animation, this Yuby-winning film presents plastic as a primary contributor to climate change throughout its lifecycle, as a carefully orchestrated byproduct industry of oil and gas production. To lay out the global impact of plastic production, the film carries viewers across the U.S. South, to Belgium, Indonesia, India and China, exposing in each place the human and climate impacts of rapidly escalating plastic production and use.</p><p>Films about real-world people struggling with the effects of climate change may not be easy to watch. But as one filmmaker said in response to the comment that her film was sad, "I personally find these stories incredibly inspiring — there are a ton of people around the world working together to address these issues — and that gives me a lot of hope."</p><p><em>Note: Not all of the above films are available yet online. Keep an eye out for a local edition of the <a href="https://www.wildandscenicfilmfestival.org/on-tour/" target="_blank">Wild and Scenic On Tour</a> program, coming soon to roughly 250 events across the U.S.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Can We Reach 100% Renewable Energy in Time to Avoid Climate Catastrophe?
26 August 2019
Renewable Energy
PublicDomainPictures / Pixabay
By Daniel Ross
Ten years ago, two climate scientists, Mark Jacobson and Mark Delucchi, published a groundbreaking article in Scientific American outlining a road map for becoming 100 percent reliant on energy generated by water, wind and sun by 2030. This was something that needed to be done "if the world has any hope of slowing climate change," the researchers warned at the time.
<p>The article proved incendiary. "First of all, nobody believed it when we put out that paper in 2009," Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University, told Truthout. "It was a very pie-in-the-sky thought. There was a lot of criticism of it, and the negativity around the response was enough to make anybody depressed."</p><p>Jacobson is less depressed than he was a decade ago, despite the precarious position that climate change puts us in. Yes, Jacobson's timeframe has been modified. "We're shooting for this goal of 80 percent [renewables] by 2030 and 100 percent by 2050, or ideally before 2050." That said, "I'm actually more optimistic now that it can be done because a lot of things have come together, such as lower costs of renewables like wind and solar," as well as batteries and electric cars, he added.</p><p>Nevertheless, Jacobson's glass-half-full predictions still face enormous political, social, financial and regulatory obstacles that make the rapid adoption of renewables daunting, to say the least. Indeed, <a href="https://www.iea.org/newsroom/news/2019/may/global-energy-investment-stabilised-above-usd-18-trillion-in-2018-but-security-.html" target="_blank">the International Energy Agency</a> (IEA) reported in May that investment in energy efficiency and renewables had stalled in 2018, while capital spending on oil, gas and coal supply rebounded.</p><p>"We need a serious conversation about these issues to get there," said Sam Thernstrom, founder and CEO of the <a href="https://www.innovationreform.org">Energy Innovation Reform Project</a>, a nonprofit advanced energy technology advocacy group based in Arlington, Virginia, about the push for 100 percent renewables. "That conversation, it's starting to happen, but it is painfully slow and difficult."</p>
Where Are We Now?
<p>Last year's <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/" target="_blank">Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report</a> spelled out the dire environmental and humanitarian consequences should the Earth warm more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (1,5°C) over pre-industrial levels. <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/SR15_Chapter2_Low_Res.pdf" target="_blank">To prevent this from happening</a>, carbon emissions must be slashed to net zero by around 2050. The IPCC report lays out a series of scenarios in which the world is kept from warming over the 1.5°C threshold. In many of the scenarios where there is little to no overshoot, renewables must make up 70 to 85 percent of electricity by 2050.</p><p>According to the IEA, however, renewables generated only 24 percent of the electricity consumed in 2017, and by 2023, they're forecasted to meet only 30 percent of electrical demand.</p><p>What's more, according to the IEA, electricity accounts for only a fifth of global energy consumption. The share of renewables in the transportation and heating sectors, therefore, will have to similarly expand in the next few years and decades if the worst impacts from climate change are to be avoided — a challenge complicated by anticipated global population growth. The IEA's <a href="https://www.iea.org/renewables2018/" target="_blank">calculations</a> show that even if the share of renewables in global energy demand grows as expected by one-fifth over the next five years, it still will come out at barely more than 12 percent by 2023.</p><p>"I think this transition [to renewables] will happen," said Chris Smith, a research fellow in physical climate change at the University of Leeds, England. "The question is, will it happen fast enough? Personally, I think not. I don't think we're headed for 4 degrees [Celsius] of warming, but I'd be very surprised if we managed to limit it to one and a half."</p><p>When it comes to slashing carbon emissions to zero by mid-century, there are essentially two very broadly drawn camps. On one side are those who believe that renewables can be scaled up in time to meet the world's energy demands across the three main sectors (electricity, heating and transportation).</p><p>On the other are those who believe that renewables alone won't cut it if the world is to achieve zero net emissions by the middle of this century. They argue that, as we're weaned from fossil fuels, we'll still have to rely on things like nuclear power and <a href="https://www.salon.com/2018/10/20/carbon-capture-what-we-do-not-talk-about-when-we-talk-about-climate-change_partner/" target="_blank">carbon capture and storage</a> (CCS) to help buttress the power grid.</p><p>Looking at both sides is Mark Delucchi, co-author of the seminal <em>Scientific American</em> article 10 years ago, who is now a research scientist at the University of California at Berkeley. "If you're doing a cost-benefit analysis, which is a tool that I use to evaluate these things, you want to start with as broad a collection of options as possible," he said. "You don't decide <em>a priori</em> that every conceivable option will end up in the final highest net benefit solution."</p><p>Delucchi's <a href="https://steps.ucdavis.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/DELUCCHI-Cost-benefit-analysis-of-clean-energy-systems.pdf" target="_blank">recent cost analysis</a> of clean energy systems didn't include options like nuclear and CCS, as it was designed to look at the cost and technical feasibility of only those options that provide the highest environmental benefits and lowest risks; i.e., those with zero emissions and no catastrophic safety concerns, like wind and solar.</p><p>"This does not mean that they are the most socially beneficial, as we haven't done that broad analysis," he said. "I am proposing to do that broad analysis now."</p><p>So, where does the current scientific literature stand? Thernstrom co-authored a <a href="https://www.innovationreform.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/EIRP-Deep-Decarb-Lit-Review-Jenkins-Thernstrom-March-2017.pdf" target="_blank">review</a> of 30 studies and other review articles published since 2014, which found that "there is strong agreement in the recent literature" that reaching zero or near-zero carbon emissions is best achieved by harnessing a "diverse portfolio of low-carbon resources" such as nuclear, biomass, hydropower or CCS. In another literature review, none of the 24 studies purporting to model 100 percent renewable energy systems passed <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032117304495" target="_blank">this feasibility test</a>.</p><p>"We should be looking for renewables to add value to a decarbonized grid," said Thernstrom. "That should be the goal." One way that value could be harnessed is through improvements in energy storage — an issue that came into stark relief during the polar vortex that held the East Coast of the U.S. in its grip earlier this year. If, during that weather event, grid regions spanning New England to parts of the South had been 100 percent reliant on renewables, energy storage would have needed to increase from 11 gigawatts (as it is today) to 277.9 gigawatts for the lights to remain on, according to a <a href="https://www.woodmac.com/reports/power-markets-performance-review-nuclear-fossil-fuels-and-renewables-during-the-2019-polar-vortex-99948" target="_blank">report</a> by Wood Mackenzie, an energy consultancy based in Edinburgh, Scotland.</p><p>Globally, at the moment, <a href="https://www.hydropower.org/publications/the-world%E2%80%99s-water-battery-pumped-hydropower-storage-and-the-clean-energy-transition" target="_blank">94 percent of energy storage capacity</a> is in <a href="https://www.energy.gov/eere/water/pumped-storage-hydropower" target="_blank">pumped-storage hydropower</a>. Though more reliable than some other renewable sources, <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2018/04/25/1487016/0/en/New-Report-Identifies-Market-Regulatory-Challenges-to-Pumped-Storage-Hydropower-s-Growth.html" target="_blank">pumped hydropower faces significant market, regulatory and environmental challenges</a>. Nevertheless, Jacobson is encouraged by what he sees as advances that have already occurred, or are occurring, in other energy storage technologies. "This is a solvable problem," he said, highlighting how prognosticators are often unable to factor in unanticipated changes in energy markets.</p>Energy Storage
<p><a href="https://www.iea.org/renewables2018/" target="_blank">According to the IEA</a>, renewables in transportation — mainly in the form of electric cars, two- and three-wheelers, and buses — have the lowest contribution of all three major sectors, with their share expected to grow from 3.4 percent in 2017 to a forecasted 3.8 percent in 2023. But there's cause for optimism when it comes to long-distance transportation, like air travel and ships, thanks to the <a href="https://www.caixinglobal.com/2019-05-15/china-boosts-hydrogen-fuel-cell-investment-in-green-energy-push-101415765.html" target="_blank">recent investment</a> in <a href="https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/5-fast-facts-about-hydrogen-and-fuel-cells" target="_blank">hydrogen fuel cells</a>, for example.</p><p>Forecasts look better for renewable heat consumption, which is expected to increase 20 percent over the next four years, reaching 12 percent of the heating sector demand by 2023, <a href="https://www.iea.org/renewables2018/" target="_blank">according to the IEA</a>. That estimate, said Jacobson, need not be so conservative. "You don't need batteries for heating," he explained. Indeed, energy-efficient <a href="https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/heat-and-cool/heat-pump-systems" target="_blank">heat pump systems</a>, for example, move heat rather than generate it, helping to keep houses warm in winter and cool in the summer.</p><p>Small-scale programs offer an intriguing glimpse into the possible future. The <a href="https://www.dlsc.ca/" target="_blank">Drake Landing</a> community in Canada heats its homes by storing solar energy underground during the summer months and tapping into this energy reserve in winter months. During the 2015-2016 heating season, the system was 100 percent self-reliant.</p><p>"We can transform buildings, we can transform most industry," said Jacobson. "There's a long way in actual transition. But we have so much that we can transition right now, that's not what's slowing us down." Rather, what's slowing us down are regulatory, cultural and political obstacles.</p><p>One remedy, for example, to the problems posed by seasonal variability would involve the expansion over a vast geographic area of new interstate transmission lines, connecting grid regions with high seasonal variability to those with less interrupted sun and wind. However, "the hard part about interstate transmission is that there is no federal body that oversees that," explained Joshua Rhodes, a research analyst at the <a href="https://tinyurl.com/nvjaq9" target="_blank">Webber Energy Group</a> and <a href="https://energy.utexas.edu/" target="_blank">the University of Texas at Austin Energy Institute</a>. "You have a multi-body problem, and it's hard to get everybody at the table to agree to the same thing."</p><p>Until politicians and regulators get to that table, many experts are looking at more local solutions. Interestingly, oil-rich Texas is a case study for renewable energy success. About 15 years ago, <a href="https://www.oncor.com/en/Pages/CREZ.aspx" target="_blank">Texas introduced</a> a renewable energy integration program that has led to wind and solar making up 20 percent of the state's electricity supply, comparable to California. Other regions are playing catch-up. According to the <a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/ready-for-100/commitments" target="_blank">Sierra Club</a>, at least 131 cities and nine states, districts or territories across the U.S. have committed to 100 percent renewable energy goals within a certain timeframe. Six cities have already reached those goals.</p><p>But as the <a href="https://www.iea.org/newsroom/news/2019/may/global-energy-investment-stabilised-above-usd-18-trillion-in-2018-but-security-.html" target="_blank">latest IEA report proves</a>, pickup overall is too slow. Climate change forecasts widely demand the adoption of renewables on a much larger and more urgent scale, which is why many experts call for broadly encompassing ideas that recognize the scale of the problem.</p><div id="2cc40" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="GJ7T8A1576661559"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1165360630334812160" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Declining costs for renewable energy like wind and solar give some climate scientists optimism that society can mov… https://t.co/b50UWwMR10</div> — Truthout (@Truthout)<a href="https://twitter.com/truthout/statuses/1165360630334812160">1566678600.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p><em>Daniel Ross is a journalist whose work has appeared in Truthout, the Guardian, FairWarning, Newsweek, YES! Magazine, Salon, AlterNet, Vice and a number of other publications. He is based in Los Angeles. Follow him on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/1danross" target="_blank">@1danross</a>.</em></p><p><em>This article first appeared on <a href="https://truthout.org/articles/can-we-reach-100-percent-renewable-energy-in-time-to-avert-climate-catastrophe/" target="_blank">Truthout</a> and was produced in partnership with <a href="https://independentmediainstitute.org/earth-food-life/" target="_blank">Earth | Food | Life</a>, a project of the Independent Media Institute.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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UN Climate Panel: Emissions Must Fall Rapidly by 2030 to Prevent Catastrophic Climate Change
08 October 2018
Climate
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its highly anticipated report Sunday on what needs to be done to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The answer: social and technological change on a scale for which "there is no documented historic precedent," The Washington Post reported.
<p>The IPCC, a UN body formed to give policy makers accurate scientific information about <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-change" target="_self">climate change</a>, was asked to prepare the report as part of the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/paris-agreement" target="_self">Paris agreement</a>. The final draft included the work of 91 researchers from 40 countries and cited more than 6,000 scientific resources, the <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/ipcc-report_us_5bba177be4b0876eda9ef1d7" target="_blank">Huffington Post reported</a>. It was released following a summit in Incheon, South Korea.</p><p>The report offers a narrow window for rapid climate action: By 2030, emissions would have to fall to 45 percent below 2010 levels. By 2050, all or nearly all <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coal" target="_self">coal </a>burning must stop. </p><p>"It's like a deafening, piercing smoke alarm going off in the kitchen. We have to put out the fire," UN Environment Executive Director Erik Solheim told The Washington Post. </p><p>While the report laid out the difficulties of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees, it also reinforced the importance of doing so. Allowing the planet to warm a full 2 degrees, the upper limit set up by the Paris agreement, could have devastating consequences. </p><p>Limiting warming to 1.5 degrees instead of 2 would:</p><ul class="ee-ul"><li>Prevent 10 additional centimeters (approximately 4 inches) of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sea-level-rise" target="_self">sea level rise</a>.</li><li>Lower the chance of ice-free <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/arctic" target="_self">Arctic</a> summers from once-per-decade to once-per-century.</li><li>Prevent <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/permafrost" target="_self">permafrost</a> thaw in an Alaska-size chunk of the Arctic.</li><li>Limit the die-off of tropical <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coral-reefs" target="_self">coral reefs</a> to 70 to 90 percent instead of 99 percent.</li><li>Save hundreds of millions of people from climate risk and poverty by 2050.</li></ul><p>"1.5 degrees is the new 2 degrees," <a href="https://www.greenpeace.org/international/" target="_blank">Greenpeace International</a> Executive Director Jennifer Morgan told The Washington Post. </p><p>Limiting warming to 1.5 degrees would also require technological innovation. The percentage of electricity the world gets from <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/renewable-energy/" target="_self">renewable energy</a> would have to increase from the current 24 percent to 50 to 60 percent within the next decade. Transportation would have to rapidly increase its transition to <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/electric-vehicles" target="_self">electric vehicles</a> and fossil fuel plants would need to be equipped with carbon capture and storage technology to prevent greenhouse gas emissions from entering the atmosphere and then store them in the ground. </p><p>The report also calls for converting land from <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/agriculture" target="_self">agriculture</a> to <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/forests" target="_self">forests</a> for carbon storage, and an untested technology called bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, or BECCS, which works by growing crops for energy, then capturing the carbon and storing it underground. </p><p>Experts agree that ambitious negative emissions strategies require international cooperation on a massive scale.</p><p>"Even if it is technically possible, without aligning the technical, political and social aspects of feasibility, it is not going to happen," <a href="https://www.cicero.oslo.no/en" target="_blank">Center for International Climate Research</a> in Oslo Research Director Glen Peters told The Washington Post. "To limit warming below 1.5 C, or 2 C for that matter, requires all countries and all sectors to act."</p><p>But that kind of cooperation has been made more difficult by the decision of U.S. President <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/donald-trump" target="_self">Donald Trump</a> to withdraw the high-emitting country from the Paris agreement. </p><p>"Today the world's leading scientific experts collectively reinforced what mother nature has made clear—that we need to undergo an urgent and rapid transformation to a global clean energy economy," former U.S. Vice President and climate action advocate Al Gore told <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2018/10/07/world/climate-change-new-ipcc-report-wxc/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a>. "Unfortunately, the Trump administration has become a rogue outlier in its shortsighted attempt to prop up the dirty fossil fuel industries of the past. The administration is in direct conflict with American businesses, states, cities and citizens leading the transformation."</p>
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</p><div id="c46cf" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9IYA1H1576663239"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1032194714026561538" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">'We Are Climbing Rapidly Out of Humankind's Safe Zone': New Report Warns Dire #Climate #Warnings Not Dire Enough… https://t.co/o14qP3kOEP</div> — EcoWatch (@EcoWatch)<a href="https://twitter.com/EcoWatch/statuses/1032194714026561538">1534929371.0</a></blockquote></div>
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The Holy Fire burns on Aug. 10 near Lake Elsinore, California. Mario Tama / Getty Images
The Trump administration acknowledged the existence of climate change in an environmental impact statement released last month, The Washington Post reported Friday, but then used that acknowledgement to draw a surprising conclusion.
<p>The <a href="https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.dot.gov/files/documents/ld_cafe_my2021-26_deis_0.pdf" target="_blank">statement</a>, written by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), said that global warming would reach a disastrous seven degrees Fahrenheit (around four degrees Celsius) by 2100. It then went on to argue that an administration <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-fuel-efficiency-proposal-2592345279.html" target="_self">proposal to rollback </a>Obama-era fuel efficiency standards for cars and light trucks built after 2020 was justifiable because the greenhouse gas emissions prevented by the Obama standards would have been negligible in the grand scheme of total emissions. </p><p>"The amazing thing they're saying is human activities are going to lead to this rise of carbon dioxide that is disastrous for the environment and society. And then they're saying they're not going to do anything about it," <a href="https://www.globalchange.gov/" target="_blank">U.S. Global Change Research Program</a> senior scientist from 1993 to 2002 Michael MacCracken told The Washington Post. </p><p>The seven degree warming estimate is based on what scientists predict will happen if no meaningful action is taken to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. In a seven-degree warmer world, <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/ocean-acidification" target="_self">ocean acidification</a> would devastate <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coral-reefs" target="_self">coral reefs</a>, parts of Miami and New York City would be underwater and large parts of the world would regularly suffer from extreme <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/heat-wave" target="_self">heat waves</a>.</p><p>To avoid that worst-case-scenario, world leaders have signed the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/paris-agreement" target="_self">Paris agreement </a>to keep warming "well below" two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, but President Donald Trump <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trumps-withdraws-paris-climate-agreement-2429436831.html" target="_self">announced his decision</a> to pull the U.S. from that agreement last year.</p><p>The statement writes off the changes necessary to avoid this future as impossible, saying doing so "would require substantial increases in technology innovation and adoption compared to today's levels and would require the economy and the vehicle fleet to move away from the use of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fossil-fuels" target="_self">fossil fuels</a>, which is not currently technologically feasible or economically feasible."</p><p>While Trump has opted to deny climate change in the past, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-climate-change-hoax-2018812943.html" target="_self">famously calling it a Chinese hoax</a>, Eillie Anzilotti wrote for <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90243700/the-trump-admin-says-screw-it-the-world-will-burn-by-2100-no-matter-what" target="_blank">Fast Company</a> that the statement's findings are in keeping with his past business and policy decisions.</p><p>"The president, whether in his business dealings or throughout his tenure in office so far, has demonstrated a consistent strategy of prioritizing immediate profit over long-term sustainability. Permitting unmitigated burning of fossil fuels and easing up regulations on automakers will allow those businesses to continue to profit, and indeed, players in those industries are among the few condoning Trump's approach," Anzilotti wrote. </p><p>The Washington Post's finding comes in a year in which communities across the U.S. have suffered the effects of climate change first hand. The Carolinas are still recovering from <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/flooding" target="_self">flooding</a> from Hurricane Florence, which was projected to be <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/hurricane-florence-climate-change-2604839826.html" target="_self">50 percent wetter</a> due to climate change. And this summer the Western U.S. f<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/carr-wildfire-california-2591151650.html" target="_self">led the flames</a> and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/wildfires-choke-washington-states-air-2597595420.html" target="_self">choked on the smoke</a> from devastating <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wildfires" target="_self">wildfires</a> made worse by climate-change-induced <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/drought" target="_self">drought</a>.</p><p>"There is anger in my state about the administration's failure to protect us," Washington Governor Jay Inslee told The Washington Post. "When you taste it on your tongue, it's a reality."</p>
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Climate change is giving Arctic plants a growth spurt.
A study published in Nature Wednesday examined seven key plant characteristics over 30 years of warming at 117 locations in the Arctic or alpine tundra and found that plants were growing taller at all locations studied.
<p>The international team of scientists, led by Aarhus University in Denmark as well as researchers at the University of Edinburgh and the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Center in Frankfurt, also found that taller plant species like vernal sweetgrass, common in the European lowlands, are moving north to locations in Iceland and Sweden, according to a <a href="https://www.ed.ac.uk/news/2018/arctic-plants-grow-taller-amid-warming-climate" target="_blank">University of Edinburgh press release</a>. </p><p>"Quantifying the link between environment and plant traits is critical to understanding the consequences of climate change, but such research has rarely extended into the Northern hemisphere, home to the planet's coldest tundra ecosystems. This is the first time that a biome-scale study has been carried out to get to the root of the critical role that plants play in this rapidly warming part of the planet," University of Edinburgh School of GeoSciences researcher Isla Myers-Smith said in the press release. </p><p>Florida International University (FIU) ecologist Steven Oberbauer, who participated in the research, said the increased plant height had serious implications for the state of Arctic <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/soil" target="_self">soil</a>.</p><p>Arctic plants are historically small because the frozen soil does not release many nutrients, but as it thaws, it releases more plant food, as well as something much more dangerous.</p><p>"Cold and wet tundra soil holds large amounts of organic carbon as peat. But, as temperatures rise and the soil thaws, the organic matter decomposes, releasing the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane to the atmosphere, causing further warming," Oberbauer said in a FIU press release emailed to EcoWatch. "We're better off if things stay frozen."</p><p>Plant height could actually speed up as well as signal the warming process. Taller plants trap snow, which insulates the soil and prevents it from freezing as quickly, the University of Edinburgh press release said.</p><p>And the plants are only expected to grow taller as temperatures warm. </p><p>"If taller plants continue to increase at the current rate, the plant community height could increase by 20 to 60 percent by the end of the century," Anne Bjorkman of the Climate Research Center said in the University of Edinburgh press release. </p><p>The research comes as concern grows about the release of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/methane" target="_self">methane</a> from melting Arctic <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/permafrost" target="_self">permafrost</a>, which contains 30 to 50 percent of the world's soil carbon, according to the University of Edinburgh. </p><p>A study <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/thermokarst-permafrost-methane-emissions-2598738136.html" target="_self">published in August</a> found that greenhouse gas emissions from lakes formed from melting permafrost could more than double the estimate of how much carbon the Arctic thaw would release into the atmosphere.</p>
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</p><div id="c1c5f" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="FHWSQK1576662440"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="977870275156037635" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Will Climate Change Make Your Hometown Full of Palm Trees? https://t.co/QV8R7O2Cp7 @TheCCoalition @greenpowerplan</div> — EcoWatch (@EcoWatch)<a href="https://twitter.com/EcoWatch/statuses/977870275156037635">1521977416.0</a></blockquote></div>
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Lake Atescatempa in Guatemala has dried up due to drought and high temperatures. MARVIN RECINOS / AFP / Getty Images
Fifty two million years ago, crocodiles swam in the Arctic. Twenty thousand years ago, an ice sheet covered Manhattan. Earth's ecosystems have changed dramatically as the climate has shifted, and now scientists are trying to determine how they might respond to the current era of human-caused climate change.
<p>Forty-two scientists contributed to a study <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6405/920" target="_blank">published in Science</a> Friday that examined how land-based plants had responded to temperature changes of four to seven degrees Celsius since the height of the ice age in order to predict how land-based ecosystems might respond to similar temperature changes predicted for the future. </p><p>They found that, if we do not act quickly to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the earth's entire terrestrial biome is 75 percent likely to change completely, impacting <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/biodiversity" target="_self">biodiversity</a> and making life difficult for anyone whose livelihood is based around an ecosystem as it exists now.</p><p>"Having this kind of change occur at such a massive scale in such a short period of time is going to create unprecedented challenges for natural-resource management," study author and U.S. Geological Survey climate scientist Stephen Jackson told <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/08/how-climate-change-could-remake-every-biome-on-earth/569038/" target="_blank">The Atlantic</a>. </p><p>The researchers looked at 594 examples of ecosystem change over time to get an understanding of what sorts of changes we could expect from unmitigated global warming. </p><p>"Five miles from where I sit is the middle of the Sonoran Desert and Saguaro National Park," Jackson told The Atlantic from his desk in Tucson, Arizona. "Today, there's big saguaro cacti, mesquite trees, ironwood trees. If we were to roll back the calendar 20,000 years, and we went to the same place, we would find a woodland of evergreen trees."</p><p>Jackson gave another example of how the area around Washington, DC has changed from boreal forest like that found today in Canada to hardwood forest, featuring species like oak. </p><p>But while the period the researchers studied spanned around 21,000 years, similar temperature changes could occur within the next 100, and the speed of change could have a major impact. </p><p>"If you're a wildlife manager and your ecosystem changes, if you're a forest manager trying to respond to wildfires, if you're a water manager who is responsible for converting rainfall estimates into reservoir levels," Jackson told The Atlantic, "then the old rules are not necessarily going to apply."</p><p>Another study, published Thursday in <a href="https://www.cell.com/trends/ecology-evolution/fulltext/S0169-5347(18)30165-4?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0169534718301654%3Fshowall%3Dtrue" target="_blank">Trends in Ecology & Evolution</a>, looked at how the individual species within ecosystems might respond to these dramatic temperature changes. </p><p>The study, led by the Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate at the University of Copenhagen, looked to the past to see how plants and animals had responded to changes in their environment over the past million years.</p><p>"From fossils and other biological 'archives,' we have access to a nearly limitless number of case studies throughout Earth's history. This provides us with valuable knowledge of how climate changes of various rates, magnitudes and types can affect biodiversity," Jackson, who also co-authored the second study, said in a <a href="https://macroecology.ku.dk/media/news_list/2018/adapt-move-or-die-how-biodiversity-reacted-to-past-climate-change" target="_blank">University of Copenhagen press release</a>. </p><p>Scientists had previously believed species would simply migrate in response to changing climates, but the historical examples reviewed for this study showed they often adapted over time by changing their behavior or body color or shape.</p><p>However, researchers were concerned the pace of current climate change might be too fast for evolution to keep up. </p><p>"We know animals and plants have prevented extinction by adapt or migrate in the past. However, the models we use today to predict future climate change, foresee magnitudes and rates of change, which have been exceptionally rare in the last million years," co-author Francisco Rodriguez-Sanchez from the Spanish Research Council (CSIC) said in the university release. </p><p>Rodriquez-Sanchez said more research was needed to predict how species might respond to current climate change, but hoped the past examples of successful adaptation could help policy makers craft effective <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/conservation" target="_self">conservation</a> decisions.</p>
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</p><div id="3955f" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="WZIPC51576662730"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1009726406237020160" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Climate Change to Become ‘Greatest Pressure on Biodiversity’ by 2070 https://t.co/66WRNpdYsX @OneWorld_News @TheCCoalition</div> — EcoWatch (@EcoWatch)<a href="https://twitter.com/EcoWatch/statuses/1009726406237020160">1529572509.0</a></blockquote></div>
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In two recent studies, scientists have looked into the future and into the past to see what might happen to the global climate if we fail to curb greenhouse gas emissions in time. The results are frightening.
<p>A <a href="https://liverman.faculty.arizona.edu/sites/liverman.faculty.arizona.edu/files/2018-08/Steffen%20et%20al%202018%20Trajectories%20of%20the%20Earth%20System%20in%20the%20Anthropocene_0.pdf" target="_blank">study</a> published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences examined how, once a certain threshold was crossed, feedback loops could push the planet's climate towards a "Hothouse Earth." </p><p>The researchers expressed uncertainty as to whether limiting warming to the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/paris-agreement" target="_self">Paris agreement</a>'s upper limit of 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels would be enough to halt the impacts of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-change" target="_self">climate change</a>, or if feedback loops already in motion would accelerate the process regardless. </p><p>"We note that the Earth has never in its history had a quasi-stable state that is around 2C warmer than the preindustrial and suggest that there is substantial risk that the system, itself, will 'want' to continue warming because of all of these other processes—even if we stop emissions," study author Katherine Richardson from the University of Copenhagen told <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/aug/06/domino-effect-of-climate-events-could-push-earth-into-a-hothouse-state" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>. </p><p>Some of those other processes include the release of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/methane" target="_self">methane</a> from the thawing of the permafrost and the dieback of carbon sinks like the Amazon Rainforest.</p><p>When it comes to <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sea-level-rise" target="_self">sea level rise</a>, the scientists outlined how the melting of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/greenland" target="_self">Greenland</a>'s ice could disrupt the Gulf Stream current, lifting sea levels and warming the Southern Ocean, which would in turn melt more ice in <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/antarctica" target="_self">Antarctica</a>. </p><p>A "Hothouse Earth" would be four degrees warmer than pre-industrial levels, and the path towards reaching it would most likely flood deltas, increase the intensity of coastal storms, and kill off <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coral-reefs" target="_self">coral reefs</a> by the end of this century or sooner. </p><p>Currently, the Earth is around one degree Celsius warmer than pre-industrial levels, and that is already leading to more extreme impacts than would have been predicted, study author and executive director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre Johan Rockström told The Guardian. </p><p>"The heatwave we now have in Europe is not something that was expected with just 1C of warming," Rockström said. "Several positive feedback loops are already in operation, but they are still weak. We need studies to show when they might cause a runaway effect."</p><p>The paper concluded that to safely avoid a hothouse scenario, humans would have to change their relationship to the Earth. </p><p>"Collective human action is required to steer the Earth System away from a potential threshold and stabilize it in a habitable interglacial-like state. Such action entails stewardship of the entire Earth System—biosphere, climate and societies—and could include decarbonization of the global economy, enhancement of biosphere carbon sinks, behavioral changes, technological innovations, new governance arrangements, and transformed social values," the paper said. </p><p>Another paper published July 30 in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-018-0199-0" target="_blank">Nature Geoscience</a> looked millions of years into the past to see how hot an Earth with a carbon-dioxide-heavy atmosphere would really be.</p><p>The study used peat fossils to assess mid-level temperatures in the early Paleogene, 56 to 48 million years ago.</p><p>This was the period after the extinction of the dinosaurs that saw the rise of mammals, as well as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels of 1,000 parts per million, which is what they are predicted to reach by the end of this century if no action is taken, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/08/earths-scorching-hot-history/566762/" target="_blank">The Atlantic reported</a>.</p><p>The study found that during that time, average temperatures in what are now the UK, Germany and New Zealand averaged 23 to 39 degrees Celsius, 10 to 15 degrees warmer than now. </p><p>"Europe would look like the Everglades and a heat wave like we're currently experiencing in Europe would be completely normal. That is, it would be the everyday climate," study author and University of Bristol geochemist David Naafs told The Atlantic. </p><p>Naafs and his colleagues tried to assess temperatures in the tropics as well, but the ancient lignite samples from India they found turned up temperatures too hot for their method to accurately measure.</p><p>"Some climate models suggest that the tropics just became a dead zone with temperatures over 50 degrees Celsius like in Africa and South America," Naafs told The Atlantic. "But we have no data so we don't know."</p>
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State of the Climate Report Confirms Planet Has Entered 'New Neighborhood' of Global Temperatures
02 August 2018
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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released the results of what it calls the "annual checkup for the planet" Wednesday, and the patient is not doing well.
<p>The 28th annual <a href="https://www.ametsoc.net/sotc2017/StateoftheClimate2017_lowres.pdf" target="_blank"><em>State of the Climate</em></a> report, published by the <a href="https://www.ametsoc.org/index.cfm/ams/publications/bulletin-of-the-american-meteorological-society-bams/" target="_blank">Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society</a> and based on the work of more than 500 scientists in 65 countries, confirmed 2017 as the second or third warmest year on record, depending on the data set, and the warmest without a temperature-boosting El Niño event.</p><p>Since 2015 and 2016 are the other two warmest years in recorded history, NOAA climatologist and lead report author Deke Arndt said the report showed we have entered "a new neighborhood in terms of global temperature," <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/noaa-state-of-the-climate-report-2017_us_5b61eea7e4b0fd5c73d5a25f" target="_blank">The Huffington Post reported</a>.</p>
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<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xODI1MDcyOS9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1Nzg0NTY4MH0.EZUNiOuc_oEItwNESa__FK7mZT3AWWNeO_aalc0R__U/img.png?width=980" id="b0062" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="c79febb7588ac793361cb54113429e01" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">Surface temperatures in 2017 were 0.38–0.48° Celsius above the 1981 to 2010 average.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">NOAA</small></p>
<p>The report also had bad news for carbon dioxide levels, which reached 405 parts per million, the highest in at least 800,000 years.<br></p><p>The <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/oceans" target="_self">oceans</a> were especially hard hit, both in terms of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sea-level-rise" target="_self">sea level rise</a> and temperature. The report found that sea level rise broke a new record of around 3 inches above the 1993 average. Sea surface temperatures had an average slightly below 2016's, but continued their upward trend, and the heat contributed to continued <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coral-bleaching" target="_self">coral bleaching</a>. Between 2014 and 2017, more than 95 percent of the corals in some reefs died.</p>
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<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xODI1MDczMi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzOTE3MDg4Mn0.DWCL6a4won4gQGdgy1vuxISp0kRl7XIgBNcppztEIW8/img.jpg?width=980" id="117ef" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="b73321c984433b834ce7ed34b40ac2ad" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">Sea levels in 2017 were, on average, the highest in the satellite record. </small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">NOAA</small></p>
<p>NOAA oceanographer Greg Johnson told The Huffington Post that the feedback loops set in motion by <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-change" target="_self">climate change</a> would continue to impact the oceans for years, even if emissions stopped tomorrow.<br></p><p>"We've started to push them with greenhouse gases, and that freight train is now moving and actually it will continue to move," he said. "If we were to freeze greenhouse gases at the level they are today, the oceans would continue to warm and seas continue to rise for centuries to come."</p><p>2017 was also a perilous year for <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/arctic" target="_self">Arctic</a> and Antarctic <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sea-ice" target="_self">sea ice</a>. In the Arctic, maximum sea ice extent was the lowest since record-keeping began 38 years ago. In <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/antarctica" target="_self">Antarctica</a>, sea ice coverage fell on March 1 to 811,000 square miles, the lowest it has been since the satellite record began in 1978.</p>When it came to <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/extreme-weather" target="_self">extreme weather</a>, the number of tropical cyclones was slightly above average. Areas affected by <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/drought" target="_self">drought</a> dropped during the beginning of the year, but climbed back up to above average levels by the end.
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A deer stands on a road covered in flame retardant used to fight the Carr Fire. JOSH EDELSON / AFP / Getty Images
The Carr Fire, which blazed into the northern California town of Redding Thursday, has grown even larger and deadlier over the weekend, offering a fiery vision of California's future.
<p>"This is <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-change" target="_self">climate change</a>, for real and in real time. We were warned that the atmospheric buildup of man-made greenhouse gas would eventually be an existential threat," <a href="https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/editorials/article215669280.html" target="_blank">The Sacramento Bee</a> wrote in an editorial about the fire Friday. </p><p>The fire, which doubled in size Saturday and is only 5 percent contained, has burned 89,194 acres since it sparked a week ago and has lead to six deaths, <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2018/07/29/us/carr-fire-california/index.html" target="_blank">CNN reported Monday</a>. </p><p>Those fatalities included 70-year-old Melody Bledsoe and her great-grandchildren Emily and James Roberts.</p><p>The three had been declared missing when their home went up in flames Thursday, and their deaths were confirmed Saturday. </p><p>"With a heavy heart we are sad to inform you all that Mel and the great-grandbabies were confirmed to be in the home," surviving family members wrote <a href="https://www.gofundme.com/ed-bledsoe-and-family-lost-all" target="_blank">on a GoFundMe page</a>, as reported by CNN.</p><p>Another civilian was also found dead in a house and two people died fighting the fire: Redding fire department Jeremy Stoke and an unnamed bulldozer operator whose death was also reported by EcoWatch Friday.</p><p>"This fire is scary to us. This is something we haven't seen before in the city," Redding Police Chief Roger Moore told reporters Friday, according to CNN. </p><p>The fire has burned 517 structures and is being fought by 3,000 firefighters, CNN reported.</p><p>It has forced 38,000 to evacuate and President <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/donald-trump" target="_self">Donald Trump</a> has pledged federal aid to affected counties, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-45000242" target="_blank">BBC News</a> reported. </p><p>One factor that makes the Carr Fire particularly dangerous is the way that the flames are interacting with gail-force winds.</p><p>"This fire was whipped up into a whirlwind of activity" Cal Fire Chief Ken Pimlott told BBC News, "Uprooting trees, moving vehicles, moving parts of roadways."</p><p>These "firenado" conditions are similar to the ones that made <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/california-wildfires-air-2495879541.html" target="_self">last year's</a> October <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wildfires" target="_self">wildfires</a> in the northern Bay Area so deadly, <a href="https://www.sacbee.com/latest-news/article215674555.html#emlnl=Breaking_Newsletter" target="_blank">The Sacramento Bee reported Friday</a>. </p><p>Both fires were spurred on by high temperatures, high winds and dry vegetation. But while last year's fires were driven by winds of 60 miles per hour, the Carr Fire is driven by winds of 10 to 30 miles per hour, and the fire itself is creating its own stronger winds.</p><p>"These fire-induced winds were very strong and unpredictable and drove this fire from dry brush and trees into urban areas," University of Los Angeles climate scientist Daniel Swain told The Sacramento Bee.</p><p>The dry vegetation is one reason why the 2018 California wildfire season has seen the most acreage burnt by July 9 in ten years, <a href="https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/07/10/why-california-fire-season-is-off-to-worst-start-in-10-years/" target="_blank">The Mercury News reported</a>. </p><p>Dry vegetation is so plentiful because of all the plants killed by the 2012 to 2017 <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/drought" target="_self">drought</a>, as well as the fact that the winter of 2017-2018 was drier than normal. </p><p>"We are going to be dealing with the impacts of that drought for many years," Cal Fire Deputy Chief Scott McLean told The Mercury News. </p><p>Fire season, which used to begin in October, is also getting earlier and earlier because of global warming, The Sacramento Bee reported.</p><p>"We have these long, hot, dry summers that are getting progressively drier," Swain told The Sacramento Bee. "We're not at the end of summer yet."</p><p>In Friday's editorial, The Sacramento Bee urged the state to plan for this new normal by improving preparedness and evacuation warning systems, and by taking into account the way that fires are likely to exacerbate the state's housing shortage. </p><p>"California must plan now for these and other aspects of global warming, as more of the state becomes too hot, too dry, or too fire- or flood-prone to safely live in, and as more of the world braces for the era of climate refugees," the paper advised.</p>
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Men take a break from walking along the Brooklyn Bridge on a hot day in New York, June 29, 2018. Drew Angerer / Getty Images
As a summer of record high temperatures continues, a sobering new study suggests that more summers like this could have serious mental health consequences.
The study, published in Nature Climate Change Monday, found that, for every one degree Celsius increase in average monthly temperature, suicide rates go up by 0.7 percent in U.S. counties and 2.1 percent in Mexican municipalities, adding suicide to the list of deadly consequences of climate change.
<p>"It's sort of a brutal finding," study author and Stanford University earth science professor Marshall Burke told <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/07/high-temperatures-cause-suicide-rates-to-increase/565826/" target="_blank">The Atlantic</a>. </p><p>The researchers calculated that if nothing is done to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, the projected temperature increases would lead to an additional nine to 40 thousand suicides in the U.S. and Mexico by 2050. </p><p>That is more than the deaths that would be expected due to a one percent increase in unemployment due to recession, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jul/23/rising-temperatures-linked-to-increased-suicide-rates" target="_blank">The Guardian reported</a>. </p><p>In the U.S. alone, the researchers estimated that around 14,000 and as many as 26,000 would die by suicide by 2050. </p><p>Crucially, the study found that, if global warming continues unchecked, there isn't much that can be done to reduce the mental health risks of higher temperatures. When researchers controlled for the presence of air conditioners, they found they didn't mitigate the increased suicide rate linked to hotter temperatures outdoors. </p><p>The researchers also found that their results held true for everyone regardless of region, gender, month or access to guns.</p><p>It therefore counteracts the muted optimism of studies like a 2017 paper <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/356/6345/1362" target="_blank">published in Science</a> and highlighted by The Atlantic that found climate change would have economic benefits in some parts of the Pacific Northwest and New England. </p><p>"'Climate change is going to generate winners and losers'—this is a phrase you hear all the time," Burke told The Atlantic. "But for this outcome, it's all losers. There are no winners. We find these strong linear relationships everywhere when you crank up the temperature."</p><p>Because the researchers controlled for so many variables, it made their findings more rigorous. </p><p>"I found the results compelling and the methodology strong," University of Pennsylvania epidemiology and biostatistics professor Gregory Tasian, who was not involved with the research, told The Atlantic.</p><p>"It fits very well into the overall narrative about the effect of climate change and high temperatures on human health—and it incorporates another aspect of human health which is often neglected, which is mental health," he said. </p><p>The researchers also looked at social media posts during higher temperatures and found an uptick in words signalling depression, like alone, bleak, lonely and trapped, according to The Guardian. </p><p>One theory for why this might happen is that, as the body attempts to cool itself during higher temperatures, the way blood flows to the brain is changed.</p>If you or anyone you know is experiencing thoughts of suicide, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255.<p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
</p><div id="1118b" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="H8WB241576663380"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="973976404411985920" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Climate Change Harms Human Health https://t.co/ChUuuQVVOD @NRDC @YEARSofLIVING @greenpeaceusa @billmckibben @CleanAirMoms</div> — EcoWatch (@EcoWatch)<a href="https://twitter.com/EcoWatch/statuses/973976404411985920">1521049045.0</a></blockquote></div>
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Firefighters battle a blaze in a forest in western Sweden, the worst-hit country. Mats Andersson / Getty Images
There are currently 11 wildfires blazing in the Arctic circle, The Guardian reported Wednesday.
<p>While fires are also raging in Russia, Norway and Finland, Sweden has seen the most extensive Arctic fires, which have forced four communities to evacuate, according to The Guardian. </p><p>Two Italian water-bombing planes that answered Sweden's call for help will begin operating Wednesday, but Sweden's Civil Contingencies Agency has requested even more planes and helicopters from the EU, <a href="https://www.thelocal.se/20180718/sweden-asks-for-more-eu-water-bombers-to-combat-wildfires" target="_blank">The Local Sweden</a> reported. </p><p>"This is definitely the worst year in recent times for forest fires. Whilst we get them every year, 2018 is shaping up to be excessive," university researcher and Uppsula resident Mike Peacock told The Guardian. </p><p>This year's fires in Sweden cover a much larger area than fires in past years, The Guardian reported.</p><p>The fires come as a consequence of a <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/heat-wave" target="_self">heat wave</a> that is bringing unusually hot, dry weather to much of Europe, conflagrations far outside of Europe's Mediterranean firezone, EU officials said, according to The Guardian.</p><p>The European Forest Fire Information System has warned that fire conditions will persist in central and northern Europe over the next few weeks. </p><p>Scientists say the increase in northern fires is another sign of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-change" target="_self">climate change</a>. </p><p>"What we're seeing with this global heatwave is that these areas of fire susceptibility are now broadening, with the moors in north-west England and now these Swedish fires a consequence of that," professor of global change ecology at the Open University Vincent Gauci told The Guardian. </p><p>"Both these areas are typically mild and wet which allows forests and peatlands to develop quite large carbon stores," he said. "When such carbon-dense ecosystems experience aridity and heat and there is a source of ignition—lightning or people—fires will happen."</p><p>The European Arctic isn't the only part of the far north seeing increased fire activity. </p><p>Two fires that started Tuesday brought the total number of fires in Alaska's Galena Zone up to 35, <a href="https://brookvilletimes.com/dozens-of-wildland-fires-reported-across-alaskas-arctic/" target="_blank">The Brookville Times reported</a>. The fires have burned 44,000 acres to date. </p><p>The Alaskan fires and some of the Swedish fires were ignited by lightning strikes, which is in keeping with research published in 2017, which found that warmer temperatures were increasing thunderstorms over boreal forests and Arctic tundra, leading to more fires, <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/lightning-caused-fires-rise-in-arctic-as-the-region-warms/" target="_blank">Scientific American reported</a>. </p><p>This year's fires come a year after Europe had its worst fire season in recorded history, though 2017's most devastating fires were in the more typical countries of Italy, Portugal and Spain, where they burned thousands of hectares of agricultural land and forests into November. </p>
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An aerial view of flooded houses in Kurashiki, Okayama prefecture on July 8, 2018. STR / AFP / Getty Images
At least 109 people have died in Japan following historic flooding and mudslides over the weekend that prompted evacuation orders covering about five million people, The Guardian reported Monday.
The flooding was prompted by Japan's heaviest rainfall in decades. Parts of western Japan saw three times July's regular rainfall since Thursday, BBC News reported.
<p>"We've never experienced this kind of rain before," a weather official told BBC News.</p><p>What The Guardian labeled the country's worst weather disaster since 2011 is in line with government predictions for the impact of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-change" target="_self">climate change</a> on Japan. A 2012 <a href="https://www.env.go.jp/en/earth/cc/impacts_FY2012.pdf" target="_blank">report</a> found that global warming could increase the risk of flooding and landslide disasters due to heavy rain. </p><p>"The record rainfalls in various parts of the country have caused rivers to burst their banks, and triggered large scale floods and landslides in several areas," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2018/07/09/asia/japan-floods-intl/index.html" target="_blank">told CNN Sunday</a>.</p><p>Naoaki Ogawa, a 69-year-old from Hiroshima, told BBC News how a landslide trapped him in his car.</p><p>"I turned the car to the right, and saw another wave of mud ... sweep away three cars that were in front of me," he said. "I have lived here for more than 20 years, but there has never been something like this. I was so scared."</p><p>As rains dissipated Sunday, the search and rescue operation kicked off in earnest. </p><p>Prime Minister Shinzo Abe cancelled a trip planned this week to France, Belgium, Saudi Arabia and Egypt and dedicated more than 70,000 workers to relief efforts. </p><p>He said relief personnel were "working against time," according to BBC News.</p><p>"There are still many people missing and others in need of help," he said. </p><p>One such person was Shigeyuki Asano, a 79-year-old patient who was one of 170 evacuated from a hospital balcony in Kurashiki via paddle boat Sunday, according to The Guardian. </p><p>"I'm really grateful to the rescuers," Asano said. "I feel so relieved that I've been freed from such a bad-smelling, dark place."</p><p>The rains began with a typhoon last week, according to BBC News, and have been especially destructive in the southwest, including the city of Hiroshima, The Guardian reported.</p><p>The rains damaged thousands of homes and left nearly 17,000 without power, CNN reported.</p><p>There are now concerns that a <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/heat-wave" target="_self">heat wave</a> could further endanger those left without power.</p><p>"We cannot take baths, the toilet doesn't work and our food stockpile is running low," Yumeko Matsui told The Guardian.</p>While the weekend's floods were historic, they are part of a pattern in increased heavy rainfall that could be linked to climate change. The 2012 government study, <em>Climate Change and Its Impacts in Japan</em>, found that the number of days with one millimeter (approximately 0.04 inches) or more of rain had decreased while the number of days with 100 millimeters (approximately four inches) or more of rain had increased.
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The remains of a destroyed car stand infront of a destroyed home in the aftermath of the Holiday Fire on July 7, 2018 in Goleta, California. The fire destroyed a number of homes in the community during an intense heat wave which broke various records across Southern California. Mario Tama / Getty Images
Wildfires continued to burn across California this weekend, abetted by record high temperatures that caused power outages affecting thousands of customers in Los Angeles, CNN reported Sunday.
<p>"Friday's record-setting heat led to unprecedented peak electricity demand," the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power said, according to CNN. 34,500 customers lost power, about 2.5 percent of Los Angeles customers. </p><p>That 2.5 percent was forced to endure the record-breaking <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/heat-wave" target="_blank">heat wave</a> without air conditioning or fans.</p><p>Downtown Los Angeles hit 108 degrees Fahrenheit Friday, breaking its daytime temperature record of 94 degrees, set in 1992. University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) thermometers also recorded a record-breaking high of 111 degrees, according to CNN. The National Weather Service (NWS) also reported record highs on Friday of 114 at the Hollywood Burbank Airport, 117 at the Van Nuys Airport, 117 in Ramona and 114 in Santa Ana, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/07/us/california-wildfires-heat-wave.html" target="_blank">The New York Times reported</a>.</p><p>Further south, the San Diego NWS said Friday's temperature of 120 degrees in Chino might be the highest temperature ever recorded temperature by the Automated Surface Observing Systems (ASOS) in the valley or coastal areas of Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino or San Diego counties.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
</p><div id="f79db" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9D6NOG1576662922"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1015717776626016256" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">The 120 degree F temperature at Chino on July 6, 2018 may be the highest temperature ever recorded at an ASOS site… https://t.co/MC6EemFPeO</div> — NWS San Diego (@NWS San Diego)<a href="https://twitter.com/NWSSanDiego/statuses/1015717776626016256">1531000963.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p></p><p>The record temperatures were a break from historical patterns that usually see Southern California reach its highest temperatures in September and October, according to The New York Times.<br></p><p>"The overall trend over decades to more intense and more frequent heat waves is definitely a signal of global warming," UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain told The New York Times.</p><p>The heat wave did no favors for firefighters combating the dozens of wildfires that have broken out in the Western U.S.<br></p><p>A fire that broke out in Santa Barbara County Saturday burned almost two dozen homes and prompted Governor Jerry Brown to declare a state of emergency in the county, The New York Times reported. </p><p>On the California-Oregon border, one person died in the Klamathon Fire that started Thursday, the first person to die in this year's fire season, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-wildfire/heat-relief-on-the-way-for-california-firefighters-idUSKBN1JY05N" target="_blank">Reuters reported</a>.</p><p>The National Interagency Fire Center reported that as of Friday, fires had burned more than 2.9 million acres, already surpassing the national annual average of 2.4 million acres over the past 10 years, according to Reuters. </p><p>However, California firefighters should get some relief in the form of cooler temperatures this coming week.</p><p>"Starting Monday we're going to see a gradual cool down, as we shave just a few degrees off each day until about midweek it gets to something like normal, in the mid-90s (Fahrenheit) inland and 80s at the coast," Jim Hayes of the NWS Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland told Reuters. </p>
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