NOAA Names 2020 Second-Hottest Year on Record; NASA Says It Tied for Hottest Ever
15 January
Climate
Wildfires within the Arctic Circle in Alaska on June 4, 2020. Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data processed by Pierre Markuse. CC BY 2.0
By Jeff Masters, Ph.D.
Earth had its second-warmest year on record in 2020, just 0.02 degrees Celsius (0.04°F) behind the record set in 2016, and 0.98 degrees Celsius (1.76°F) above the 20th-century average, NOAA reported January 14.
<p><a href="https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v4/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">NASA</a> and the <a href="https://climate.copernicus.eu/copernicus-global-november-temperatures-reached-record-high-while-europe-experienced-its-warmest" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">European Copernicus Climate Change Service</a> rated 2020 as tied with 2016 as the warmest year on record (NASA rates the margin of error at .05 degrees C); the <a href="https://ds.data.jma.go.jp/tcc/tcc/products/gwp/temp/nov_wld.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Japan Meteorological Agency</a> rated 2020 as the warmest year on record. Minor differences in rankings often occur among various research groups, the result of different ways they handle data-sparse regions such as the Arctic.</p>
<p>Global ocean temperatures in 2020 were the third-warmest on record, global land temperatures the warmest on record. Global satellite-measured temperatures in 2020 for the lowest eight kilometers of the atmosphere were the second-warmest or warmest in the 42-year record, according to the University of Alabama, Huntsville and Remote Sensing Solutions, respectively.</p><p>The Northern Hemisphere had its warmest year on record in 2020 and the Southern Hemisphere its fifth-warmest. By continent, here are the 2020 temperature rankings:</p><p>Europe: first warmest<br>Asia: first warmest<br>South America: second warmest<br>Africa: fourth warmest<br>Australia (and Oceania): fourth warmest<br>North America: 10th warmest</p><p>As detailed in a January 12 post at <a href="https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2021/01/hurricanes-wildfires-and-heat-dominated-u-s-weather-in-2020/" target="_blank">this site</a> by Bob Henson, 2020 for the U.S. was the fifth-warmest year in history going back to 1895. Ten states had their second-warmest year on record and four had their third-warmest year. None of the contiguous 48 states was below-average in temperature in 2020.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTQ1OTQ5OS9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzMzIwNDk3M30.go-eShbJt_FePHwnZhlSFiknsgGrSy-EsznNYrynmio/img.png?width=980" id="b8e38" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a4933e877b2e372b62762614d4ee7d9b" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="974" data-height="717" />
Figure 1. Departure of temperature from average for 2020, the second-warmest year the globe has seen since record-keeping began in 1880, according to NOAA. Record-high annual temperatures over land and ocean surfaces were measured across parts of Europe, Asia, southern North America, South America, and across parts of the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific oceans. No land or ocean areas were record cold for the year. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information
<p>The remarkable global warmth of 2020 means that the seven warmest years on record since 1880 were the most recent seven years — 2014 through 2020. The near-record global warmth in 2020 is all the more striking since it occurred during the minimum of the weakest solar cycle in more than 100 years and during a year without a strong El Niño. Record-warm global temperatures typically occur during strong El Niño events and when the solar cycle is near its maximum. The warmth of 2020 is a testament to how significantly human-caused global warming is heating the planet.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTQ1OTUwNS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1MDkwMTY0M30.G7_nUNl5YT4mDUvTPkRi1wiNcE7RYgJYwuK6dhYJles/img.jpg?width=980" id="6744d" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f4a37c32117691ae2b858335bfc11d3a" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="974" data-height="496" />
Figure 2. Total ocean heat content (OHC) in the top 2000 meters from 1958-2020. Cheng et al., Upper Ocean Temperatures Hit Record High in 2020, Advances in Atmospheric Sciences
<h4>Warmest Year on Record for Total Ocean Heat Content</h4><p>Despite the presence of a prominent La Niña event that began in August, the total heat content of the world's oceans in 2020 was the warmest in recorded human history, according to a January 13, 2021 paper by Cheng <em>et al.</em>, <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00376-021-0447-x" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Upper Ocean Temperatures Hit Record High in 2020</a>, published in <em>Advances in Atmospheric Sciences</em>. In the uppermost 2,000 meters of the oceans, there were 211 to 234 zettajoules more heat in 2020 than the 1981-2010 average, and 2020 had 1 to 20 zettajoules more ocean heat content than in 2019 (a zettajoule is one sextillion joules — ten to the 21st power). For comparison, in 2010, humans <a href="https://twitter.com/johncarlosbaez/status/1216783686957297672?lang=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">used</a> a total of 0.5 zettajoules of energy.</p><p>More than 90% of the increasing heat from human-caused global warming accumulates in the ocean because of its large heat capacity. The remaining heating manifests as atmospheric warming, a drying and warming landmass, and melting land and sea ice. Increasing ocean heat content causes sea-level rise through thermal expansion of the water and melting of glaciers in contact with the ocean. It also produces stronger and more rapidly intensifying hurricanes; causes more intense precipitation events that can lead to destructive flooding; contributes to "marine heat waves" that damage or destroy coral reefs; and disrupts atmospheric circulation patterns.</p>
<h4>A Slew of Heat Records in 2020</h4><p>International records researcher <a href="https://twitter.com/extremetemps" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Maximiliano Herrera</a> keeps the pulse of the planet in remarkable detail, and he logged 11 nations or territories that set or tied their all-time heat records in 2020. That total fell far short of the record of 24 such records in 2019. No nations or territories set or tied an all-time cold record in 2020. Here are the all-time heat records set in 2020:</p><p>Colombia: 42.6°C (108.7°F) at Jerusalem, February 19 (tie);<br>Ghana: 44.0°C (111.2°F) at Navrongo, April 6;<br>Cuba: 39.2°C (102.6°F) at Palo Seco, April 10; broken again April 11 with 39.3°C (102.7°F) at Veguitas, and again on April 12 with 39.7°C (103.5°F) at Veguitas;<br>Mayotte, France department: 36.4°C (97.5°F) at Trevani, April 14;<br>Taiwan: 40.5°C (104.9°F) at Taimali Research Center, July 16;<br>Lebanon: 45.4°C (113.7°F) at Houche Al Oumara, July 27;<br>United States: 54.4°C (129.9°F) at Death Valley, California, August 16;<br>Japan: 41.1°C (106.0°F) at Hamamatsu, August 17;<br>Dominica: 35.7°C (96.3°F) at Canefield Airport, September 15;<br>Puerto Rico (U.S. territory): 37.8°C (100.0°F ) at Aguirre, September 17; and<br>Paraguay: 45.5°C (113.9°F ) at Pozo Hondo, September 26.</p><p>Among global weather stations having at least 40 years of record-keeping, Herrera documented 348 that exceeded their all-time heat record in 2020; only eight stations with a long-term period of record set an all-time cold record in 2020. For comparison, 632 stations set their all-time heat record in 2019 and 11 their all-time cold record.</p>
<h4>Notable Global Heat and Cold Records for 2020</h4><p>Hottest temperature in the Northern Hemisphere: 54.4°C (129.9°F) at Death Valley, U.S., August 16;<br>Coldest temperature in the Northern Hemisphere: -66.0°C (-86.8°F) at Summit, Greenland, January 2;<br>Hottest temperature in the Southern Hemisphere: 48.9°C (120.0°F) at Penrith Lakes, Australia, January 4;<br>Coldest temperature in the Southern Hemisphere: -80.8°C (-113.4°F) at Dome Fuji, Antarctica, August 16;<br>Highest 2020 average temperature worldwide: 31.5°C (88.7°F) at Yelimane, Mali, and Matam, Senegal; and<br>Highest 2020 average temperature in the Southern Hemisphere: 29.8°C (85.6°F) at Surabaya Airport, Indonesia, and Wyndham, Australia.</p><p>Earth's record for hottest yearly average temperature was 32.9°C (91.2°F) at Makkah, Saudi Arabia, in 2010 and 2016.</p>
<h4>126 Additional Monthly National/Territorial Heat Records Beaten or Tied</h4><p>In addition to the 11 all-time national heat records, 126 other national monthly heat records were set in 2020, for a total of 137 national monthly heat records:</p><p>– January (13): Norway, South Korea, Angola, Congo Brazzaville, Dominica, Mexico, Indonesia, Guinea Bissau, Gambia, Sao Tome and Principe, Cuba, British Indian Ocean Territory, Singapore;<br>– February (12): Spain, Antarctica, Azerbaijan, Costa Rica, The Bahamas, Switzerland, Maldives, Gambia, Russia, Seychelles, Dominican Republic, U.S. Virgin Islands;<br>– March (7): Paraguay, Cabo Verde, Mozambique, Seychelles, United States, Thailand, Northern Mariana Islands;<br>– April (14): Paraguay, Niger, St. Barthelemy, Honduras, Guernsey, Haiti, Congo Brazzaville, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, China, Saba, Northern Mariana Islands, U.S. Virgin Islands, Dominican Republic;<br>– May (10): Niger, Greece, Saba, Cyprus, Solomon Islands, Turkey, Haiti, Kazakhstan, Chile, Uzbekistan;<br>– June (6): Maldives, Thailand, U.S. Virgin Islands, Saba, Kenya, Ghana;<br>– July (7): Mozambique, U.S. Virgin Islands, Laos, Myanmar, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Northern Mariana Islands;<br>– August (6): Solomon Islands, Mexico, Australia, Cocos Islands, Paraguay, U.S. Virgin Islands;<br>– September (18): Laos, Taiwan, Japan, Turkey, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, Cyprus, Mexico, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Botswana, St. Barthelemy, Mayotte, Argentina, Brazil, British Indian Ocean Territory;<br>– October (11): Algeria, Brazil, Tunisia, Turkey, Cyprus, Jordan, Peru, Myanmar, Northern Marianas Islands, Botswana, Maldives;<br>– November (11): Luxembourg, Finland, Nepal, Mexico, Aland Islands, Sweden, Maldives, Northern Marianas, Taiwan, Swaziland, Sudan; and<br>– December (11): Mexico, Ghana, Pakistan, Algeria, Qatar, Maldives, Niger, Taiwan, Dominica, Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the Sandwich Islands.</p>
<h4>One Monthly National/Territorial Cold Record Beaten or Tied in 2020</h4><p>– April: St. Eustatius.<br></p><p>An October monthly record reported in Aruba was judged to be unreliable.</p>
<h4>Hemispherical and Continental Temperature Records in 2020</h4><p>– Highest minimum temperature ever recorded in the Northern Hemisphere in January: 29.1°C (84.4°F) at Bonriki, Kiribati, January 17;<br>– Highest maximum temperature ever recorded in North America in January: 42.0°C (107.6°F) at Vicente Guerrero, Mexico, January 21;<br>– Highest temperature ever recorded in continental Antarctica and highest February temperature ever recorded in Antarctica plus the surrounding islands: 18.4°C (65.1°F) at Base Esperanza, February 6;<br>– Highest minimum temperature ever recorded in February in Antarctica: 7.6°C (45.7°F) at Base Marambio, February 9;<br>– Highest minimum temperature ever recorded in February in the Northern Hemisphere: 32.0°C (89.6°F) at Yelimane, Mali, February 23;<br>– Highest minimum temperature ever recorded in April in the Southern Hemisphere: 31.1°C (88.0°F) at Argyle, Australia, April 2;<br>– Highest minimum temperature ever recorded in May in Europe: 30.1°C (86.2°F) at Emponas, Greece, May 17;<br>– Highest minimum temperature ever recorded in May in North America: 35.0°C (95.0°F) at Death Valley, California (U.S.), May 28;<br>– Highest temperature ever recorded in the polar regions: 38.0°C (100.4°F) at Verkhoyansk, Russia, June 20;<br>– Highest reliable temperature ever recorded on Earth: 54.4°C (129.9°F) at Death Valley, California, August 16;<br>– Highest reliable minimum temperature ever recorded in August in North America: 40.0°C (104.0°F) at Death Valley, California (U.S.), August 17;<br>– Highest temperature ever recorded in Australia and Oceana in August: 40.7°C (105.3°F) at Yampi Sound, Australia, August 22; beaten again with 41.2°C (106.2°F) at West Roebuck, Australia, on August 23; and<br>– Highest temperature ever recorded in the Northern Hemisphere in November: 44.8°C (112.6°F) at San Francisco and Tubares, Mexico, November 5.</p>
<h4>December 2020: Earth's Eighth-Warmest December on Record</h4><p>December 2020 was the eighth-warmest December since global record-keeping began in 1880, NOAA's <a href="https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/202007" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">National Centers for Environmental Information</a> reported January 14. NASA and the <a href="https://climate.copernicus.eu/monthly-climate-bulletins" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">European Copernicus Climate Change Service</a> rated the month as the sixth-warmest December on record, and the <a href="https://ds.data.jma.go.jp/tcc/tcc/products/gwp/temp/nov_wld.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Japan Meteorological Agency</a> rated it as the tenth-warmest. Again: Minor differences in rankings often occur among various research groups, the result of different ways they handle data-sparse regions such as the Arctic.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTQ1OTU2OS9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxNTk0NDM2Nn0.3r2cwf3HoC4VpfY55HWUNmWLkkQbi7P1FFJaKRd9sso/img.png?width=980" id="90900" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="cb409e32a162eab1ecacd24986b35566" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="768" data-height="384" />
Figure 3. Departure of sea surface temperature from average in the benchmark Niño 3.4 region of the eastern tropical Pacific (5°N-5°S, 170°W-120°W). Sea surface temperature were approximately one degree Celsius below average over the past month, characteristic of moderate La Niña conditions. Tropical Tidbits
<h4>A Moderate La Niña Event Continues</h4><p>La Niña conditions remained in the moderate range during December and early January, prompting NOAA to continue its <a href="https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/ninonina.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">La Niña</a> advisory in a January 14 <a href="https://iri.columbia.edu/our-expertise/climate/forecasts/enso/current/?enso_tab=enso-cpc_update" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">monthly discussion</a> of the state of the El Niño/Southern Oscillation, or ENSO.</p><p>Over the past month, sea surface temperatures in the benchmark Niño 3.4 region of the eastern tropical Pacific (5°N-5°S, 170°W-120°W) have been approximately 1 degree Celsius below average. The threshold for "strong" La Niña conditions is 1.5 degrees Celsius below average; "moderate" La Niña conditions are 1.0-1.5 degrees below average.</p><p>Forecasters at NOAA and at Columbia University's International Research Institute for Climate and Society <a href="https://iri.columbia.edu/our-expertise/climate/forecasts/enso/current/?enso_tab=enso-cpc_plume" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">expect La Niña conditions</a> will continue through the winter (95% chance during January-February-March), and potentially transition to "neutral" during the spring (55% chance during April-May-June). About half of all La Niña events continue into a second year, but fewer than 20% of the ENSO models predicted that La Niña conditions would last into the summer of 2021.</p>
<h4>Arctic Sea Ice: Third-Lowest December Extent on Record</h4><p>Arctic sea ice extent during December 2020 was the third-lowest in the 42-year satellite record, behind 2016 and 2017, according to the <a href="http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">National Snow and Ice Data Center</a>. <a href="https://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Antarctic sea ice extent</a> in December 2020 was near-average.</p>
<h4>Notable Global Heat and Cold Marks for December 2020</h4><p>– Hottest temperature in the Northern Hemisphere: 41.5°C (106.7°F) at Matam, Senegal, December 2;<br>– Coldest temperature in the Northern Hemisphere: -57.5°C (-71.5°F) at Oymykon, Russia, December 29;<br>– Hottest temperature in the Southern Hemisphere: 48.7°C (119.7°F) at Birdsville, Australia, December 5; and<br>– Coldest temperature in the Southern Hemisphere: -44.9°C (-48.8°F) at Dome A, Antarctica, December 3.</p>
<h4>Major Weather Stations' New All-Time Heat or Cold Records in December 2020</h4><p>Among global stations with a record of at least 40 years, two stations set all-time cold records in December, and no stations set an all-time heat record:</p><p>Hamamasu (Japan) min. -21.5°C (-6.7°F), December 31; and<br>Bibai (Japan) min. -26.5°C (-15.7°F), December 31.<br></p><p><em>Statistics courtesy of <a href="http://www.mherrera.org/temp.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Maximiliano Herrera</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2021/01/noaa-names-2020-second-hottest-year-on-record-nasa-says-it-tied-for-hottest-ever/" target="_blank">Yale Climate Connections</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
- NASA and NOAA: Last Decade Was the Hottest on Record - EcoWatch ›
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Scientists Warn Humanity in Denial of Looming 'Collapse of Civilization as We Know It'
13 January
Climate
bennymarty / iStock / Getty Images Plus
By Jessica Corbett
In an example to the rest of the scientific community and an effort to wake up people — particularly policymakers — worldwide, 17 scientists penned a comprehensive assessment of the current state of the planet and what the future could hold due to biodiversity loss, climate disruption, human consumption and population growth.
<p>"Ours is not a call to surrender — we aim to provide leaders with a realistic 'cold shower' of the state of the planet that is essential for planning to avoid a ghastly future," according to the perspective paper, co-authored by experts across Australia, Mexico, and the United States, and <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcosc.2020.615419/abstract" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">published</a> in the journal Frontiers in Conservation Science.</p>
<p>Co-author Paul R. Ehrlich of Stanford University's Center for Conservation Biology — who has raised alarm about overpopulation for <a href="https://climateone.org/audio/population-bomb-50-years-later-conversation-paul-ehrlich" target="_blank">decades</a> — told Common Dreams his colleagues "are all scared" about what's to come.</p><p>"Scientists have to learn to be communicators," said Ehrlich, citing James Hansen's warning about the consequences of "<a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0703220" target="_blank">scientific reticence.</a>" Hansen, a professor at Columbia University's Earth Institute and former director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/06/23/30th-anniversary-famous-climate-testimony-james-hansen-called-paul-revere-we" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">testified</a> to Congress about the climate crisis in 1988.</p><p>Ehrlich was straightforward about how "extremely dangerous things are" now and the <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/06/04/existential-risk-climate-crisis-could-lead-civilizational-collapse-2050-warns-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">necessity</a> of a "World War II-type mobilization" to prevent predictions detailed in the paper: "a ghastly future of mass extinction, declining health, and climate-disruption upheavals (including looming massive migrations), and resource conflicts."</p><p>"What we are saying might not be popular, and indeed is frightening. But we need to be candid, accurate, and honest if humanity is to understand the enormity of the challenges we face in creating a sustainable future," said co-author Daniel T. Blumstein of the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at the University of California, Los Angeles, in a statement about the paper.</p><p>"By scientists' telling it like it is, we hope to empower politicians to work to represent their citizen, not corporate, constituents," he said in an email to Common Dreams.</p><p>The paper, Ehrlich and Blumstein pointed out, comes in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic — which, <a href="https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">according to</a> Johns Hopkins University, has killed nearly two million people. Over the past year, the Co-19 crisis has <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/06/03/jane-goodall-warns-humanity-will-be-finished-after-covid-19-without-ending-absolute" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">provoked</a> calls for humanity to end its destruction of the natural world to <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/10/29/seismic-shift-worlds-approach-land-use-wildlife-and-climate-action-needed-avoid-new" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">prevent</a> future public health catastrophes.</p><p>"We're all seeing the shocks to our global systems now from Covid and the rise of authoritarian leaders," Blumstein said. "Because our current ways of life are ecologically unsustainable (we're living in an ecological Ponzi scheme), we fully anticipate more — and more deadly — pandemics in the future. We expect civil unrest, wars, and famines. We are all shaken by the likelihood of the collapse of civilization as we know it."</p>
<div id="25da8" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="bf8a63f9cc8cc4813996d6e1fbd213fa"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1349181889240854540" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">From extreme hurricanes to droughts to wildfires, the climate crisis killed 262 people and cost $95 billion last ye… https://t.co/RwowWVlBZ9</div> — Friends of the Earth (Action) (@Friends of the Earth (Action))<a href="https://twitter.com/foe_us/statuses/1349181889240854540">1610505003.0</a></blockquote></div><p>The new warning from scientists, Blumstein noted, cites over 150 other papers "documenting the diverse and shocking decline in biodiversity and planetary 'health' and their consequences." Among the cited sources is a World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) report that in September <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/09/10/nature-unraveling-new-wwf-report-reveals-alarming-68-plummet-wildlife-populations" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">revealed</a> an "average 68% decrease in population sizes of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and fish between 1970 and 2016."</p><p>"In the midst of a global pandemic, it is now more important than ever to take unprecedented and coordinated global action to halt and start to reverse the loss of biodiversity and wildlife populations across the globe by the end of the decade, and protect our future health and livelihoods," WWF International director general Marco Lambertini said at the time.</p><p>The co-authors — including William J. Ripple of Oregon State University, who last year led thousands of scientists in <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/11/05/warning-untold-human-suffering-over-11000-scientists-around-world-declare-climate" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">declaring</a> a climate emergency and earlier this month led a <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/01/07/one-year-after-declaring-climate-emergency-scientists-say-massive-scale-mobilization" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">call</a> for "a massive-scale mobilization to address the climate crisis" — echoed Lambertini's message while also underscoring the importance of increasing awareness about what's actually needed.</p><p>"Humanity is causing a rapid loss of biodiversity and, with it, Earth's ability to support complex life. But the mainstream is having difficulty grasping the magnitude of this loss, despite the steady erosion of the fabric of human civilization," the paper says.</p>
<div id="c7dd4" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="309107b64c42fab5e69a1c0bace9d47b"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1347817383919022080" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Biodiversity is the thread of life on Earth.
🦠️🦩🐜🍄🌱🦧🌽🍂🥦🐦🌺🐇🐝🌴🦒🌿🐋🌏
Learn more about what #biodiversity is and why… https://t.co/I5kht3RYnj</div> — UN Biodiversity (@UN Biodiversity)<a href="https://twitter.com/UNBiodiversity/statuses/1347817383919022080">1610179680.0</a></blockquote></div><p>"In fact, the scale of the threats to the biosphere and all its lifeforms is so great that it is difficult to grasp for even well-informed experts," said lead author Corey Bradshaw of Australia's Flinders University in a statement. "The problem is compounded by ignorance and short-term self-interest, with the pursuit of wealth and political interests stymieing the action that is crucial for survival."</p><p>The paper explains that "while suggested solutions abound, the current scale of their implementation does not match the relentless progression of biodiversity loss and other existential threats tied to the continuous expansion of the human enterprise." According to its authors, "That we are already on the path of a sixth major extinction is now scientifically undeniable."</p><p>"With such a rapid, catastrophic loss of biodiversity, the ecosystem services it provides have also declined," the paper explains. Consequences include "reduced carbon sequestration, reduced pollination, soil degradation, poorer water and air quality, more frequent and intense flooding and fires, and compromised human health."</p><p>Highlighting estimates that the human population will near 10 billion by 2050, the scientists lay out how "large population size and continued growth are implicated in many societal problems," from food insecurity, soil degradation, biodiversity loss, and an increased chance of pandemics, to crowding, joblessness, deteriorating infrastructure, and bad governance.</p><p>The paper also details the planetary impacts of dirty energy and carbon-intensive food production, and says that "while climate change demands a full exit from fossil fuel use well before 2050, pressures on the biosphere are likely to mount prior to decarbonization as humanity brings energy alternatives online."</p><p>A section on failed international goals declares that "stopping biodiversity loss is nowhere close to the top of any country's priorities, trailing far behind other concerns such as employment, healthcare, economic growth, or currency stability."</p><p>"The dangerous effects of climate change are much more evident to people than those of biodiversity loss, but society is still finding it difficult to deal with them effectively," the scientists note, while decrying "utterly inadequate" efforts by governments to even try to meet the targets of the landmark Paris climate agreement.</p><p>They further decry the recent rise of right-wing, anti-environment agendas in countries including Australia, Brazil, and the United States — which recently denied President Donald Trump a second term. Ehrlich expressed hope that President-elect Joe Biden will work to <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/01/08/no-more-excuses-senate-majority-reclaimed-progressives-demand-bold-agenda-biden" target="_blank">deliver</a> on the climate promises he made as a candidate.</p><p>Biden's vow to rejoin the Paris agreement "is positive news," but "it is a minuscule gesture given the scale of the challenge," Ehrlich said in a statement.</p><p>The president-elect "is moving in the right direction," Ehrlich told Common Dreams, pointing to the <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/11/23/alarming-red-flag-something-we-can-work-campaigners-respond-kerry-biden-climate" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="">selection</a> of former Secretary of State John Kerry as his climate envoy. However, "the Paris goals are increasingly looking inadequate," and "Biden's political opportunities to do anything major may be greatly constrained," he added.</p>
<div id="0ea0e" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="eb14cb1c288cecbbf85ec2be96b17c28"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1349123864245239811" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">What can Joe Biden do on climate change once he takes office?
@DashaBurns looks into what he can accomplish with e… https://t.co/wBn29Ms1UX</div> — NBC News NOW (@NBC News NOW)<a href="https://twitter.com/NBCNewsNow/statuses/1349123864245239811">1610491169.0</a></blockquote></div><p>Blumstein stressed that "recycling, using less plastic, eating less meat, taking public transportation, and flying less, while all important, will simply not create the rapid change we need now to save much of the Earth's biodiversity and our lives."</p><p>According to Blumstein, "We need rapid political change."</p><p>He urged voters to elect leaders who will end fossil fuel use as well as "eliminate perpetual economic growth and properly price externalities so that the environmental costs are built into the price of a product." He also emphasized the importance of access to education and reproductive control, and the need to rein in corporate lobbying and enact campaign finance reform so politicians serve citizens' needs.</p><p>"Ultimately," Blumstein added, "we must focus on making equity and well-being society's goals — not the constant accumulation of more junk."</p><p>In their paper, the UCLA scientist and his 16 co-authors "contend that only a realistic appreciation of the colossal challenges facing the international community might allow it to chart a less-ravaged future."</p><p>It is "incumbent on experts in any discipline that deals with the future of the biosphere and human well-being to eschew reticence, avoid sugar-coating the overwhelming challenges, ahead and 'tell it like it is,'" they conclude. "Anything else is misleading at best, or negligent and potentially lethal for the human enterprise at worst."</p><p><span></span><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/01/13/dire-assessment-scientists-warn-humanity-denial-looming-collapse-civilization-we" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>. </em></p>
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Like many other plant-based foods and products, CBD oil is one dietary supplement where "organic" labels are very important to consumers. However, there are little to no regulations within the hemp industry when it comes to deeming a product as organic, which makes it increasingly difficult for shoppers to find the best CBD oil products available on the market.
<p>Here you can learn about the importance of organic hemp oil, why it's better for the environment, and which CBD companies actually make trustworthy products with sustainable farming processes. origins which weigh heavily on many consumers who want to buy a product that's produced in the best way possible for not only themselves to ingest, but for the environment as well through sustainable farming methods. </p><h2>What Is CBD Oil?</h2><p>First things first, CBD stands for cannabidiol, and it's a cannabinoid found within cannabis sativa plants. This plant compound is believed to have many potential benefits, and it is primarily derived from hemp plants via a CO2 extraction process. </p><p>Since CBD is extracted from industrial hemp, which contains only trace amounts of THC (the psychoactive component in cannabis plants), this means that CBD won't make you feel high like marijuana, which has much higher levels of THC that causes psychoactive effects. Instead, the effects of CBD are much more subtle and promote a general sense of calm and relaxation in most users.</p><h2>What Makes a CBD Oil Organic?</h2><p>In terms of organic labels, perhaps the most important (and prominent) certification comes from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). This government organization has been labeling foods as "organic" for many years, but what exactly does this certification entail? Essentially, a label indicating that a product is "USDA Organic" or "Certified Organic" means that at least 95% of the ingredients are obtained from organic sources.</p><p>For a crop to be considered organic by the USDA, it must be grown without the use of industrial solvents, irradiation, genetic engineering (GMOs), synthetic pesticides, or chemical fertilizer. Instead, farmers rely on natural substances and <a href="https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2012/03/22/organic-101-what-usda-organic-label-means" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">mechanical, physical, or biologically based farming</a> techniques to cultivate healthy and organic crops.</p><p>Before the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill, no hemp-derived products could be dubbed as "certified organic" since the hemp plant and its extracts were still categorized as a Schedule I Controlled Substance. However, it's still difficult for CBD companies to obtain a USDA certified organic label for their products due to the legal grey area that still surrounds CBD extracts. </p><p>Because of these challenges, and due to the fact that industrial hemp has only recently become an agricultural crop, very few CBD oils are USDA certified organic. Rather, many CBD products contain hemp extracts from plants that were grown in organic conditions but may not be federally certified.</p><h2>What are the Best Organic CBD Oil Brands?</h2><p><em>Each product featured here has been independently selected by the writer. If you make a purchase using the links included, we may earn commission.</em></p><em><br></em>
<h2>Why Organic Hemp Oil Matters</h2><p>Hemp is a unique plant, not only for its rich cannabinoid content, but also for its ability to absorb a wide variety of components in soil. But this trait poses great risks when it comes to the creation of CBD products derived from hemp.</p><p>Because hemp has a high capacity for compound uptake, this means that the plants can retain <a href="https://www.remedyreview.com/industry/lab-test-results/" target="_blank">harmful chemicals like pesticides</a>, heavy metals, and other residual solvents. This is especially true when it comes to synthetic chemicals that are more toxic to humans, and difficult to remove once they have been absorbed by the hemp plant.</p><p>Organic farming practices help reduce the risk of hemp crops absorbing harsh chemicals that may later end up in CBD oil after extraction. When you're taking CBD as a wellness supplement to help alleviate your symptoms or improve your overall well-being, the last thing you want is to ingest compounds that might negatively outweigh the benefits of CBD. This is an important reason to look for third party lab test results when shopping for CBD products since these certificates of analysis can show the full cannabinoid and terpene profile of a hemp extract, as well as test results that search for the presence of any residual solvents.</p><p>In addition to creating a better end product, organic farming practices are also better for the environment. Sustainable and organic farming methods may <a href="https://www.helpguide.org/articles/healthy-eating/organic-foods.htm" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">reduce pollution, conserve water, reduce soil erosion, increase soil fertility, and use less energy</a>. The use of natural pest deterrents as opposed to chemical pesticides is also better for nearby animal populations and ecosystems.</p><h3>Organic vs. Natural</h3><p>While there are only a select few companies offering certified organic ingredients in their products, almost every brand in the CBD market creates "natural" products. The term "all-natural" or "plant-based" does not mean that a product is organic, and since hemp oil is a natural derivative of hemp plants, these products are often referred to as all-natural. However, there are some synthetic CBD oils that should be avoided because they are chemically constructed and may produce unwanted side effects that are not caused by naturally derived CBD extracts.</p><h2>What are the Benefits of Organic CBD Oil?</h2><p>There's a long list of potential CBD oil health benefits, and some of the most common wellness advantages include:</p><ul class="ee-ul"><li><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2503660/" target="_blank">Chronic pain relief</a></li><li><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4604171/" target="_blank">Anti-anxiety effects</a></li><li>Better sleep</li><li><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/inner-source/201901/cbd-oil-mental-health-should-you-take-it-too" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Improvements in mood</a></li><li>Internal balance and regulation</li></ul><p>When dealing with pain, inflammation, sleep issues, and mental health struggles, it can be hard to find sufficient treatment options. The use of certain prescriptions can cause unwanted side effects, yet they are often the only solution for patients with these medical conditions. In search of other therapies, people have started to flock towards CBD oil as an alternative remedy for a variety of conditions. However, it should be noted that CBD products are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and you should seek your doctor's advice before using CBD if you have a serious medical condition.</p><h2>Look at the Labels Before You Buy CBD Oil</h2><p>When you go online to buy CBD oil, you'll quickly realize there is an overwhelming number of brands that are saturating the market. It can be difficult to determine which products are truly as good as they make themselves out to be. Always look for up-to-date third-party lab tests so you know you are getting a great product, and don't hesitate to contact the brand if you have any additional questions. And if you're intent on purchasing 100% organic CBD oil, it's best to look for certified products or brands that are held to strict regulatory standards.</p><p><strong>Melena Gurganus </strong>is the Reviews Editor at EcoWatch. She is passionate health and wellness and her writing aims to help others find products they can trust. Her work has been featured in publications such as Health, Shape, Huffington Post, Cannabis Business Times, and Bustle.<br></p>
Spruce
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDY4NjI3OC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyOTM2NzgzOX0.axY0HjeqRctJsR_KmDLctzDpUBLBN-oNIdqaXDb4caQ/img.jpg?width=980" id="774be" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8379f35b1ca8a86d0e61b7d4bfc8b46e" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="spruce organic cbd oil" data-width="710" data-height="959" /><p>As one of the best brands in the business, Spruce CBD is well-known for its potent CBD oils that feature many additional beneficial phytocannabinoids. This brand works with two family-owned, sustainably focused farms in the USA (one located in Kentucky and one in North Carolina) to create its organic, small product batches. The max potency Spruce CBD oil contains 2400mg of full-spectrum CBD extract, but the brand also offers a lower strength tincture with 750mg of CBD in total.</p>
$89
CBDistillery
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDcwMjkzNC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyMTU4OTM4Nn0.ypRdeDSBcE87slYrFfVrRwtJ2qGIK6FD5jBB4pndTMo/img.jpg?width=980" id="b473b" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9930b53c9d58cb49774640a61c3e3e75" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="cbdistillery cbd oil" data-width="1244" data-height="1244" /><p>All of the products from CBDistillery are <a href="https://ushempauthority.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">U.S. Hemp Authority Certified</a>, and for good reason. The company only uses non-GMO and pesticide-free industrial hemp that's grown organically on Colorado farms. Its hemp oils are some of the most affordable CBD products on the market, yet they still maintain a high standard of quality. CBDistillery has a wide variety of CBD potencies across its product line (ranging from 500mg to 5000mg per bottle) and offers both full-spectrum and broad-spectrum CBD oils to give customers a completely thc-free option.</p>
$35
FAB CBD
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDY4NjIyNS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY2NDIwOTEyMn0.MlTjz096FJ0ev_-soK7_Z-FeQeJczWoeh9Qi9SSkHsY/img.jpg?width=980" id="04b26" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="76aa4862f44603242e318982acea6646" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="fab cbd oil" data-width="800" data-height="800" /><p>For an organic CBD oil that has it all, FAB CBD offers plenty of variety for any type of consumer. All of its products are made with zero pesticides and extracted from organically grown Colorado industrial hemp. FAB CBD oil comes in five all-natural flavors (mint, vanilla, berry, citrus, and natural) and is also available in four strengths (300, 600, 1200, and 2400mg per bottle).</p>
$39
NuLeaf Naturals
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDY4NjIxOS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1NzExNTgyMX0.D6qMGYllKTsVhEkQ-L_GzpDHVu60a-tJKcio7M1Ssmc/img.jpg?width=980" id="94e4a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="3609a52479675730893a45a82a03c71d" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="nuleaf naturals organic cbd oil" data-width="600" data-height="600" /><p>As an industry-leading brand, it comes as no surprise that NuLeaf Naturals sources its CBD extract from organic hemp plants grown on licensed farms in Colorado. The comany's CBD oils only contain two ingredients: USDA certified organic hemp seed oil and full spectrum hemp extract.</p><p>NuLeaf Naturals uses one proprietary CBD oil formula for all of its products, so you will get the same CBD potency in each tincture (60mg per mL), but can purchase different bottle sizes depending on how much you intend to use.</p>
$38.50
Charlotte's Web
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDcwMjk3NS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MzQ0NjM4N30.SaQ85SK10-MWjN3PwHo2RqpiUBdjhD0IRnHKTqKaU7Q/img.jpg?width=980" id="84700" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a2174067dcc0c4094be25b3472ce08c8" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="charlottes web cbd oil" data-width="1244" data-height="1244" /><p>Perhaps one of the most well-known brands in the CBD landscape, Charlotte's Web has been growing sustainable hemp plants for several years. The company is currently in the process of achieving official USDA Organic Certification, but it already practices organic and sustainable cultivation techniques to enhance the overall health of the soil and the hemp plants themselves, which creates some of the highest quality CBD extracts. Charlotte's Web offers CBD oils in a range of different concentration options, and some even come in a few flavor options such as chocolate mint, orange blossom, and lemon twist.</p>
$60
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An epaulette shark (Hemiscyllium ocellatum) on a reef in the South Pacific. Auscape / Universal Images Group via Getty Images
The future may be too hot for baby sharks, a study published Tuesday found.
<p><a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/oceans">Oceans</a> are warming as a result of global <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-change">climate change</a>, causing harm to aquatic ecosystems across the planet. In response, researchers from Australia's ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University and the University of Massachusetts asked: How will climate change affect species who rely on their environment to regulate their biological processes?</p><p>The researchers chose to study the epaulette shark to better understand how ectotherms, species that match their body temperatures to the environment's, will respond to climate change.</p>
<p>"The epaulette shark is known for its resilience to change, even to ocean acidification," Dr. Jodie Rummer, co-author of the study <a href="https://www.coralcoe.org.au/media-releases/future-too-warm-for-baby-sharks" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">told the ARC Centre in a statement</a>.</p><p>Epaulette sharks are only found in the Great Barrier Reef, Australia and are often the subject of climate change studies because they thrive in captivity and are considered of little concern in the wild, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-79953-0" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the study reported</a>. "So, if this species can't cope with warming waters then how will other, less tolerant species fare?" <a href="https://www.coralcoe.org.au/media-releases/future-too-warm-for-baby-sharks" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Rummer asked</a>.</p><p>The scientists examined how 27 epaulette shark embryos grew and developed in average summer temperatures, 27 degrees Celsius, and temperatures predicted for the middle and end of the century, 31 degrees Celsius.</p><p>"The hotter the conditions, the faster everything happened, which could be a problem for the sharks," Carolyn Wheeler, lead author of the study, <a href="https://www.coralcoe.org.au/media-releases/future-too-warm-for-baby-sharks" target="_blank">said</a>.</p>
<p>In hotter temperatures "the creatures hatched earlier, were born smaller, and needed to feed straight away, but lacked energy," <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/12/australia/baby-shark-climate-intl-scli-scn/index.html" target="_blank">CNN reported</a>, and emerged from their egg cases after 100 days, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/12/baby-sharks-emerge-from-egg-cases-earlier-and-weaker-in-oceans-warmed-by-climate-crisis" target="_blank">The Guardian added</a>. But in the normal temperatures, the sharks emerged from the egg cases after 125 days.</p><p>Sharks could respond to warming temperatures in three likely ways, Rummer said, according to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/12/baby-sharks-emerge-from-egg-cases-earlier-and-weaker-in-oceans-warmed-by-climate-crisis" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>. The first case is the sharks find colder temperatures, but only if they find the right habitat.</p><p>The second is the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sharks">sharks</a> could genetically adapt to warmer temperatures. But this is improbable because the sharks like the epaulette grow slowly and reproduce at low rates compared to other fishes, the ARC Centre wrote in a <a href="https://www.coralcoe.org.au/media-releases/future-too-warm-for-baby-sharks" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">statement</a>.</p><p>And the last case would be for the sharks to "disappear off the planet," Rummer told <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/12/baby-sharks-emerge-from-egg-cases-earlier-and-weaker-in-oceans-warmed-by-climate-crisis" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Guardian</a>.</p>
<p>Since 1910, the Great Barrier Reef has warmed by 0.8 degrees Celsius. This warming impacts more than a species' biological processes, according to <a href="https://www.gbrmpa.gov.au/our-work/threats-to-the-reef/climate-change/sea-temperature#:~:text=Sea%20surface%20temperatures%20in%20the,Celsius%20in%20the%20same%20period." target="_blank">Australia's Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority</a>, impacting a fish's swimming abilities and behavior.</p><p>Why does this matter?</p><p>"When sharks change their behaviour it affects the whole ecosystem," <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-will-sharks-respond-to-climate-change-it-might-depend-on-where-they-grew-up-150460" target="_blank">The Conversation reported</a> in an article that analyzed how the Port Jackson shark, a bullhead shark living in Southern Australia, responds to climate change.</p><p>Generally the top of the food chain, sharks play a critical role in ecosystem management.</p><p>"Port Jackson sharks, for example, are predators of urchins, and urchins feed on kelp forests — a rich habitat for hundreds of marine species. If the number of sharks decline in a region and the number of urchins increase, then it could lead to the loss of kelp forests," <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-will-sharks-respond-to-climate-change-it-might-depend-on-where-they-grew-up-150460" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Conversation reported</a>.</p><p>Similarly, "Sharks are important as predators because they take out the weak and injured and keep the integrity of the population strong," Rummer told <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/12/baby-sharks-emerge-from-egg-cases-earlier-and-weaker-in-oceans-warmed-by-climate-crisis" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Guardian</a>.</p>
<p>The future of healthy ecosystems for baby sharks and other marine species seems grim. So what can be done?</p><p>Research on how individual species are impacted by climate change is a step in the right direction, <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-will-sharks-respond-to-climate-change-it-might-depend-on-where-they-grew-up-150460" target="_blank">The Conversation</a> wrote, which can determine unknown resilience within species and highlight new populations at great risk.</p><p>Emphasizing "the importance of curbing our reliance on fossil fuels because climate change is affecting even the toughest little sharks," should come next, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/12/baby-sharks-emerge-from-egg-cases-earlier-and-weaker-in-oceans-warmed-by-climate-crisis" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Rummer remarked</a>. "Our future ecosystems depend us taking urgent action to limit climate change," <a href="https://www.coralcoe.org.au/media-releases/future-too-warm-for-baby-sharks" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">she added</a>.</p>
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The Charley Fire northeast of Phoenix, Arizona was started by a lightning strike in 2012. Nic Leister / Moment / Getty Images
As the planet's temperature warms, the frequency of lightning strikes is expected to grow with it, Environmental Journal reported.
<p>Currently, lightning strikes the earth's surface nearly eight million times a day. This number is expected to dramatically increase as global temperatures rise, according to a <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/346/6211/851.abstract" target="_blank">study published by Science</a>. The U.S., for example, could experience a 50 percent increase in the number of lightning strikes by the end of the century, if greenhouse gas emissions are not curbed.</p><p>"The distribution of lightning is directly linked to the Earth's climate," Nathan Neal, a marketing director at Biral, <a href="https://environmentjournal.online/articles/the-future-is-not-forecast-how-lightning-is-affected-by-climate-change/" target="_blank">wrote</a>. "The daily and seasonal heating of the continental landmasses results in large temperature fluctuations, which influences atmospheric stability and the development of thunderstorms."</p>
<p>But lightning is more than just a symptom of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-change">climate change</a>. It also directly impacts the global climate, <a href="https://eos.org/science-updates/lightning-a-new-essential-climate-variable" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Eos reported</a>. When lightning strikes, it produces nitrogen oxides, a strong greenhouse gas.</p><p>In the fastest-warming part of the planet, the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/arctic">Arctic</a> has reported an increase in lightning over the past decade. A<a href="https://www.essoar.org/doi/10.1002/essoar.10504658.1" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> recent study suggests</a> that the number of annual summertime lightning strikes above a latitude of 65° North rose from around 35,000 in 2010 to nearly 250,000 in 2020, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03561-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Nature reported</a>.</p><p>These results are a "symptom of global climate change," Robert Holzworth, an atmospheric physicist at the University of Washington in Seattle and leader of the study, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03561-1" target="_blank">said</a> in reference to the Arctic's two-year record for the largest area of land burnt by <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wildfires">wildfires</a>, some of which were ignited by lightning.</p>
<p>The Arctic is not alone in experiencing an increase in lightning strikes and resulting wildfires.</p><p>In August, 20,203 lightning strikes were recorded in California within just four days. Part of what CalFire called the "fire siege," the four-day event recorded more than half of the month's typical lightning total. More than 700 new wildfires followed, burning an area larger than the state of Delaware, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/08/28/heres-how-californias-worst-ever-wildfire-siege-occurred/?arc404=true" target="_blank">The Washington Post reported</a>.</p>
<p>So, how will the increase of lightning strikes cause future climate damage?</p><p>Unfortunately, monitoring lightning for climate science remains limited, <a href="https://environmentjournal.online/articles/the-future-is-not-forecast-how-lightning-is-affected-by-climate-change/" target="_blank">Nathan Neal wrote</a>.</p><p>"But it must not be forgotten that lightning is hazardous; it can strike and kill people, trigger potentially devastating wildfires, play a part in destructive floods and in the case of the U.S. can lead to the creation of tornados," he added.</p>
<p>Lightning, in relation to wildfires, is also an uncommon topic in public discourse, John Abatzoglou, an associate professor in management of complex systems at the University of California, Merced, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/23/climate/west-lightning-wildfires.html#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20U.S.%20Forest,the%20most%20recent%20data%20available" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">told The New York Times</a>. "We want to personify these fires. We want to blame somebody. But lightning doesn't have a face," he said.</p><p>Regardless of how climate change will impact lightning frequency, the resulting impacts of lightning strikes will grow more severe as the planet grows warmer and drier.</p><p>"Even if there were no changes in lightning frequency, the impact of warmer and drier conditions associated with climate change help make lightning more effective at igniting wildfires," Nina S. Oakley, a research scientist at the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/23/climate/west-lightning-wildfires.html#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20U.S.%20Forest,the%20most%20recent%20data%20available" target="_blank">told The New York Times.</a> "With drier vegetation, there is a greater likelihood of a lightning strike igniting a fire, and greater opportunity for that fire to grow."</p>
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The Parc del Fòrum, a public open space with a massive solar panel in Barcelona, Spain. Enrique Díaz / 7cero / Getty Images
By Francesco Starace and Jean-Pascal Tricoire
Why is it so important to decarbonize cities? And how can we do it?
<p>The first question is easy to answer: The cities in which more than half of us live account for nearly two-thirds of the CO2 emissions that lie at the root of our planet's looming <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-crisis">climate crisis</a>. Skyscrapers in megalopolises, shopping malls, SUVs in the streets, air conditioners in a growing number of places throughout the globe – all consume a vast amount of high CO2-content energy.</p><p>The answer to the second question is to take an integrated approach: leveraging clean electrification and digital technology to harmonize urban energy systems, while also thinking beyond individual projects to consider their impact within the surrounding communities and the built environment.</p>
<p>In fact, urban energy, transport and building infrastructures are gradually becoming greener: There are <a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2020" target="_blank">more electric vehicles on city streets</a>, better water treatment and recycling schemes, and more <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/solar">solar</a> panels on rooftops around the globe. According to <a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/renewables-2020?utm_content=buffer061dd&utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin-Birol&utm_campaign=buffer" target="_blank">International Energy Agency estimates</a>, renewables like solar and wind are set to become the largest source of electricity generation worldwide by 2025, supplying one-third of the world's electricity and ending coal's decades-long dominance of the global power mix.</p><p>All this is, of course, welcome.</p><p>But with climate change accelerating, we need more comprehensive decarbonization actions on three fronts. First, we need even more energy to come from <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/renewable-energy/">renewable</a> sources. Second, we need more cars, heating and other activity to be powered by clean electricity. Third, we need everything from factories, to office buildings, homes, transport systems and consumer devices to become more energy-efficient.</p>
<p>This third lever might not as headline-grabbing as the rise of solar panels or electric vehicles. But it is a big piece of the decarbonization puzzle, with an even larger potential enabled by digital technologies.</p><p>Consider, for example, the technologies that make buildings more energy-efficient, by automatically adapting the amount of cooling, heating or lighting to occupancy levels at any given moment. Or digital tools that allow the operators of a manufacturing site in Sweden or a public utility in India to run their operations or distribution systems more efficiently and even remotely, rather than in person (a feature that has proved critical in these times of social distancing and lockdowns).</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTQzNDUzNy9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxNzEwMDEwN30.PFj06PUl54BGCMlbb0etzgnp-P2-zB1a3v5RNcG2BYw/img.png?width=980" id="57d4e" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8cdbcd37ddf921991f9393f268d33296" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1526" data-height="986" />
<p>Imagine how much more we could achieve if we digitally integrate ultra-efficient buildings, public services – e.g. transport or lighting – and electric vehicle charging stations into a wider, highly efficient urban system, delivering better quality services for citizens and accompanying benefits such as local job creation, health, and well-being. Integration and interaction between assets are the key to disrupt the traditional equation of energy and efficiency in cities. An EV battery can store power not only for just one car, but, while a car is not in use, also for the surrounding community thanks to smart-charging infrastructures. Excess power generated by an office building's or warehouse's rooftop solar panels might be used to help power the wider neighborhood.</p>
<p>The technologies, digital tools and data analytics capabilities to enable this efficient urban system already exist, as do concrete examples of such an integrated approach. Therefore, integration and collaboration of systems and stakeholders are the fundamental drivers to accelerate and scale the transition in cities.</p><p>Integration of energy, buildings and mobility requires cross-cutting industry collaboration, ranging from utilities and real estate, to technology companies and financial institutions. City- and state-level administration can enable and facilitate such collaboration through public-private cooperation. The public sector can drive on governance, policy and licensing, while the private sector provides agility, technology and resources. This cooperation can share and balance risks and liability between stakeholders for mutual gains and value creation for the broader community.</p>
<p>All of this comes against a backdrop of great urgency. Epidemics, climate and economic pain have all created unique challenges in 2020. But combating climate change must remain top of mind. Cities lie at the heart of this fight and have now the chance to build back better. We have joined the World Economic Forum in the effort to promote dialogue and mobilize action together with a group of global leaders. As co-chairs of the <a href="https://www.weforum.org/projects/systemic-efficiency" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Net Zero Carbon Cities initiative</a>, our ambition is to accelerate a sustainable transition in cities, supporting mayors in creating value for their communities. It is up to all of us to ensure we become part of the solution rather than part of the problem.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/01/cities-climate-decarbonize-integrated/" target="_blank">World Economic Forum</a>.</em><br/></p>From Your Site Articles
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An illustration depicts a megalodon shark swimming after a pod of striped dolphins. Corey Ford / Stocktrek Images
The megalodon, or megatooth shark, was such a fearsome prehistoric predator that it continues to inspire horror films roughly 3.6 million years after its extinction.
<p>Adult megalodons (<em>Otodus megalodon) </em>could grow to be about 50 feet in length. Now, new research published in <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08912963.2020.1861608" target="_blank">Historical Biology</a> on Monday shows that the sharks were fear-inducing from the moment they were born, as baby megalodons could be more than six-and-a-half-feet long.</p><p>"It is quite possible that they represent the largest babies in the shark world," Kenshu Shimada, a vertebrate paleontologist at DePaul University in Chicago and lead study author, told <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/10/science/megalodons-baby-shark.html" target="_blank">The New York Times</a>.</p><p>Megalodons dominated prehistoric seas, where they lived between 15 and 3.6 million years ago, according to <a href="https://newsroom.taylorandfrancisgroup.com/megalodon-shark-gave-live-birth-to-large-newborns-that-likely-grew-by-eating-unhatched-eggs-in-womb/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Taylor & Francis</a>. In addition to their length, they also weighed as much as 110,000 pounds, The New York Times reported.</p><p>"They could pretty much do whatever they wanted, swim wherever they wanted, eat whatever they wanted," Jack Cooper, a Swansea University shark researcher who was not involved with the study, told The New York Times.</p>
<p>Despite their dominance of the prehistoric <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/ocean" target="_self">ocean</a> and contemporary imaginations, megalodons are less prominent in the fossil record. That's because megalodons, like all sharks, have skeletons made of cartilage, which is less likely to last than bone, <a href="https://www.livescience.com/megalodon-babies-human-size.html" target="_blank">Live Science explained</a>. So megalodons are mostly known to us from their teeth.</p><p>One exception to this is a collection of 150 megalodon vertebrae whose cartilage had mineralized. The specimen was discovered in Belgium in the 1860s, The New York Times reported, and is now housed at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels, according to the study. The authors wrote that it was the "only reasonably preserved vertebral column of the species in the entire world."</p><p>The researchers then took advantage of the fact that megalodon vertebrae have growth rings that function similarly to tree rings, Taylor & Francis explained. Researchers were able to use CT scans of the vertebrae to determine that the specimen was 46 years old and around 30 feet long when it died. By calculating what its body length would have been when each ring was formed, the researchers were able to pinpoint its birth size at around 6.6 feet.</p><p>"My students and I examine spiny dogfish shark anatomy in class and to think that a baby megalodon was nearly twice as long as the largest adult sharks we examine is mind-boggling," study co-author Matthew Bonnan of Stockton University told Taylor & Francis.</p>
<p>The baby megalodon's large size led the scientists to conclude that it had likely feasted on its siblings in the womb. That's because such a large baby would need to be born live, requiring a lot of energy from the mother.</p><p>"Oophagy — egg-eating — is a way for a mother to nourish its embryos for an extended period of time," Shimada told Live Science. "The consequence is that, while only a few embryos per mother will survive and develop, each embryo can become quite large at its birth."</p><p>The baby that survived would then be ready to ward off many ocean predators, The New York Times reported. A healthy appetite might have also contributed to the shark's growth.</p><p>The researchers also shed light on the megalodon's later growth, and calculated that it grew an average of 6.3 inches a year, according to the study. Researchers also compared the specimen's growth rate with the largest known megalodon sizes in order to calculate that megalodons had a potential life expectancy of 88 to 100 years, Live Science reported.</p><p>Shimada told Live Science that the life-expectancy calculations were still theoretical and required more research. Even so, the findings help scientists learn more about megalodons and the prehistoric ocean.</p><p>"As one of the largest carnivores that ever existed on Earth, deciphering such growth parameters of <em>O. megalodon</em> is critical to understand the role large carnivores play in the context of the evolution of marine ecosystems," Shimada told Taylor & Francis.</p>
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Smoke rises from a fire amid a heatwave in the Metn district of Mount Lebanon, Lebanon on Oct. 9, 2020. AFP via Getty Images
2020 capped off Earth's hottest recorded decade and tied with 2016 for the hottest year, according to data released today by the Copernicus Climate Change Service, a program of the European Commission.
<p>Average global temperatures were about 2.25°F (1.25°C) above the preindustrial average. That 2020 tied 2016 alarmed <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-crisis">climate</a> scientists because the 2016 high was fueled in part by a largely natural El Niño cycle, which features above-average equatorial sea surface temperatures across the Pacific and adds more heat to the atmosphere, while 2020 featured a cooling La Niña cycle. </p>
<p>This means, in essence, human-caused global warming overwhelmed the planet's natural cooling cycle. "I'm not sure how extreme things have to get for the message to get across that we're heading into a climate emergency unless we take some ambitious and immediate action to control global climate change," Sue Natali, a climate researcher who directs the Arctic program at the Woodwell Climate Research Center, told The Washington Post.</p>
<p>NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will each issue their year-end global temperature data Jan. 14 and are expected to rank 2020 as either the first or second-warmest based on slight differences in measuring.<br></p>
<p>As reported by <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/01/08/2020-hottest-year-earth/?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=105782603&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--qpYDnKpScfRal7F7i_d2PyaRbOpRFrimf_jUkUiecNKN54ewiO49kyYRtEQsBMxGx8NqpDVPUYEQmaSmdqUR7KUBnsg&utm_content=105782603&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">The Washington Post</a>:</p><blockquote>If one pictures global warming as a car rolling down a hill, El Niño acts as a gas pedal, speeding the descent, whereas La Niña serves as a modest application of the brakes.<br></blockquote><blockquote>What's happening now, scientists say, is that even La Niña years are setting global temperature records, due to the overpowering influence of human-caused warming from decades of greenhouse gas emissions. It's as if the climate system reached for the brake and found it doesn't work, so the car kept accelerating down the hill.</blockquote>
<p><strong>For a deeper dive: </strong></p><p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/01/08/2020-hottest-year-earth/?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=105782603&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--qpYDnKpScfRal7F7i_d2PyaRbOpRFrimf_jUkUiecNKN54ewiO49kyYRtEQsBMxGx8NqpDVPUYEQmaSmdqUR7KUBnsg&utm_content=105782603&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">The Washington Post</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/08/climate/hottest-year-ever.html?searchResultPosition=3&utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=105782603&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8uSrMxDRqApqKKB-Qujoo5U2ManDLfyPWV2U8uVAWfxMoLUikWq6Ot8m77iIpZBd7ofcFIwdEPjXMlj_l6mc6b5VdlTA&utm_content=105782603&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">The New York Times</a>, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/international-news-europe-climate-climate-change-bf0978915352ceea13822938367d9cc2?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=105782603&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9u14DAyRAeZE_AfYaJamziXkyAiGRkOgbBUyUY32jNZTipoO2-Z1ggoFlEpuHs2w9vsYx_aRTLbFO6WH5dBDKYMrvZMw&utm_content=105782603&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">AP</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/08/climate-crisis-experts-2020-joint-hottest-year-ever-recorded?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=105782603&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_znsiK2WZU7DIHi2fVDBZjt2qPnvzj7IH5YDNoIwdyfdDXK1r2gVRwUgQc-zw915a_VHrW-SxONitjghB4msQpBm6nfg&utm_content=105782603&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-temperature/2020-ties-with-2016-as-worlds-hottest-year-on-record-eu-climate-change-service-says-idUSKBN29D0QQ?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=105782603&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--ZBDMnj31BwCUyp5Rxuhv_mbvZmM66s_M7jq53Qg3lwSDuCY-mPgfpC-6YutBrJKJqrhrl5NlwbwKgpV3xtl4jD0SoUA&utm_content=105782603&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">Reuters</a>, <a href="https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2021/01/08/stories/1063722055?_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8exCAcmkzHFQ5Etu0I_M-2bJKSCIclU63KCZF_F9x7e9HYHE8Kq9mD1wG8aNgtjMMMW081QRBQmPSWhFdAdgMYcLOQ4g&_hsmi=105782603&utm_campaign=Hot+News&utm_content=105782603&utm_medium=email&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">E&E</a>, <a href="https://www.euractiv.com/section/climate-environment/news/2020-hottest-year-in-europe-and-on-par-with-hottest-year-globally/?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=105782603&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9t2M2vb9Liq7zk6Aw7uLPTMM4xkwhMpvgdww4Q0m-MTLzWpyplT7a74jO6S01fj93QVogpLoFW9nmRhi_y0DFe76zXIA&utm_content=105782603&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">Euractiv</a>; <span style="background-color: initial;">Climate</span> Signals background: <a href="https://hottest-decade.climatesignals.org/2010-2019?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=105782603&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8ZEei0pMjiLDoevl_rN4gSH6LZuLOzrwPjw_oWwgHxeVVgLiZX1Y5VJFkOQP3WzaxUlrADDVbElulqEY9Ohr5IIAflTA&utm_content=105782603&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">Hottest Decade</a><br/></p><p><em>For more </em><a href="http://ecowatch.com/climate-change-news/" target="_blank"><em>climate change</em></a><em> and </em><a href="http://ecowatch.com/business/renewables/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>clean energy</em></a><em> news, you can follow Climate Nexus on </em><a href="https://twitter.com/ClimateNexus" target="_blank"><em>Twitter</em></a><em> and </em><a href="https://www.facebook.com/ClimateNexus/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Facebook</em></a><em>, sign up for daily </em><a href="https://www.linktrack.live/hot-news-sign-up" target="_blank"><em>Hot News</em></a><em>, and visit their news site, </em><a href="https://nexusmedianews.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Nexus Media News</em></a><em>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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A crocodile jumps in the Adelaide River, Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia. "Amateur photographer'"/ Moment / Getty Images
By Max Stockdale
One of the most enduring tropes about crocodiles is to describe them as "living fossils." They are cold, slow moving and scaly, so they look like how one might picture a dinosaur. Like many clichés, there is an element of truth to this comparison. The crocodiles from 200 million years ago look surprisingly like the ones we know today.
<p>But why have the modern crocodilians, including crocodiles, alligators and caimans, changed so little over such an immense span of time? <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-020-01561-5" target="_blank">In new research</a>, published today, we have attempted to answer this question using advanced evolutionary modeling.</p><p>Relatives of crocodiles have been around for an extraordinary length of time, their <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1671/0272-4634%282002%29022%5B0593%3ACVANCF%5D2.0.CO%3B2" target="_blank">fossil remains</a> having been found in rocks from the early Jurassic period, around 200 million years old. Stranger still, these crocodiles from the age of the dinosaurs often look surprisingly like the crocodilians of today. All modern forms have long snouts, powerful tails, armoured skins and a sprawling gait, and many fossil forms are extremely similar.</p>
<p>This lack of change over such a long time is highly unusual, especially considering the immense diversity of modern animals that has accumulated in a much shorter time interval.<br></p><p>For example, the true birds first appear in the fossil record <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00114-003-0416-5" target="_blank">many millions of years after</a> the first crocodiles, yet today they number around <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-019-1078-9" target="_blank">10,000 species</a>, ranging from hummingbirds to ostriches. The crocodilians have <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/pala.12419" target="_blank">only 25 species</a>, and besides some variation in the shape of their skull they all look fairly similar.<br><br>However, this lack of modern diversity is deceptive, and there are many more exotic and unfamiliar crocodilian relatives known in the fossil record. This has included <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-71975-y" target="_blank">fast runners</a>, <a href="https://academic.oup.com/zoolinnean/article-abstract/189/2/483/5588829" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">ocean-going swimmers</a>, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1671/039.029.0409" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">burrowers</a>, <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2005.3426" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">bipeds</a> and <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02724634.2010.532674" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">herbivores</a>.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTI2NjI1NC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0NDY2Njk2MH0.3I34FD6v6Gl755aBPtnSK0IKsGmD0P5hbqICTlgjNR8/img.jpg?width=980" id="ac006" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="349ef63ad1ef41411efa01562da90e9f" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1200" data-height="828" />
The Philippine crocodile is one of 24 species of crocodilian alive today. Wikimedia, CC BY 3.0
<p>We developed an evolutionary model for our analysis by comparing body size data from crocodile fossils. This data, combined with the evolutionary relationships between each species, enabled us to calculate the trajectory of body size evolution through time. We could then calibrate this trajectory with the dates of the fossils, giving us a measure of body size change per unit time – their evolutionary rate.<br></p><p>These calculations yielded a measure of evolutionary rate for each species in our study, and the distribution of these rates revealed a new insight into how the crocodiles evolved. The majority of the species we looked at were only evolving very slowly, with a handful of species evolving more quickly. The more rapidly evolving species didn't appear independently, instead tending to emerge together when the climate was warmer.<br></p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTI2NjI1Ny9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyMjA5OTM2MH0.It8joYoI26Po2l3QjykD0O4o0-qFjP-r75irE-I9f8k/img.jpg?width=980" id="b0d9f" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="1d2d003eeace458f999d440da865e63d" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1200" data-height="676" />
Unfamiliar crocodiles from prehistory. Author provided
<h2>Stop-Start Evolution</h2><p>This pattern of low evolutionary rates interrupted by occasional bursts of activity is known as "punctuated equilibrium." This is what we would expect to see in cases where evolution is being driven by external factors like mass extinctions or climate change, rather than intrinsic forces like sexual selection or the arms race between predators and prey. Punctuated equilibrium means that organisms will find an optimum state and remain in that state, until the environment forces them to adapt to new conditions. This results in a stop-start pattern.</p><p>It is not clear why some animals follow this model of punctuated equilibrium and others do not. There might be a few different factors at play. Modern crocodilians are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gr.2020.08.003" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">not able to control their body temperature</a>, so they may be more sensitive to changes in the climate than perhaps a mammal or a bird would be.</p><p>Conversely, modern crocodilians are <a href="https://www.rswa.org.au/publications/Journal/94(2)/Semeniuketal.pp.407-416.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">able to survive without eating</a> for very long periods, making them more resilient in times of hardship. This punctuated equilibrium model is certainly not peculiar to crocodiles, and a promising avenue of research would be to try and detect it in other groups of similar antiquity, such as turtles.</p>
<p>Our research strongly suggests crocodilians have remained unchanged for such a very long time because they have landed upon an equilibrium state that does not require them to change often. When crocodilian evolution does happen at pace, it is likely that this is because the environment has changed and has forced them to adapt. This may also explain why the crocodilians' more unusual kin became extinct.</p><p>Temperature does seem to have been important, but there is plenty of scope for other environmental factors to have played a role. The next step for us will be to examine how rates of body size evolution interact with variables other than temperature, like rainfall or sea level. We would also like to find out if characteristics other than body size follow this same pattern of punctuated equilibrium, for example skull shape.</p>
<p>
<em>Max Stockdale is a teaching associate in vertebrate macroevolution and palaeoecology at the University of Bristol.</em><br/>
</p><p>
<em>Disclosure statement: Max Stockdale receives funding from the Natural Environment Research Council.</em>
</p><p>
<em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://theconversation.com/crocodiles-today-look-the-same-as-they-did-200-million-years-ago-our-study-explains-why-152635" target="_blank">The Conversation</a>.</em>
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Groundbreaking Court Case Argues U.S. Climate Denial Policy Violates Americans’ Right to Be Free
07 January
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People's Climate Solidarity March crossing the Mississippi in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on April 15, 2017. Fibonacci Blue / Flickr
By Carter Dillard
In 2019 a study linked climate change and hotter weather to early childbirth in the United States. "That's enough to take somebody from what's considered to be a pretty healthy pregnancy into a 'we are somewhat worried' pregnancy," said Alan Barreca, a UCLA professor of environment and human health and lead author of the study.
<p>Prior to this, several studies showed that the most effective way to mitigate the climate crisis, in terms of individual behavior, was to choose a <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/janetwburns/2017/07/20/scientists-say-family-planning-is-our-best-bet-to-reduce-climate-change/#480ee30d40f5" target="_blank">smaller family, and have fewer children than one normally would</a>.</p><p>That means the best thing we can do to protect our kids is to change the way we plan families. If you think about that statement, it makes sense: Planning ahead is much <a href="https://havingkids.org/fair-start-research/" target="_blank">more effective</a> than simply reacting to a situation. But as the <a href="https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2018/01/15/biodiversity-climate-change/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">climate crisis kills off nature</a> and <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/state-of-the-climate-2020-set-to-be-first-or-second-warmest-year-on-record" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">superheats the planet at an accelerating rate</a>, pregnancies give us a beautiful window to see the interconnection in one stark way — at the nexus between the human world and the nonhuman world and the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/16/world/africa/comoros-climate-change-rivers.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">environment we are overrunning</a> — and to consider the best solution to the problem.</p>
<p>There's something hidden in this question that could be preventing the world from taking the effective action necessary to deal with the climate crisis, and <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-inquiry/the-pandemic-is-not-a-natural-disaster" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">related crises like the COVID-19 pandemic</a>. What do we mean by the environment? What are we protecting from the climate crisis, and wish to have in the future? This is called the normative baseline problem, and it halts progress on policy and action as we struggle at the crossroads of different ways to go, between <a href="https://www.ourchildrenstrust.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">more anthropogenic</a> and <a href="https://foundationforclimaterestoration.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">less anthropogenic</a> choices.<br></p><p>The baseline problem tends to linger when we consider things in terms of human welfare. If we switch to a framework of human freedom, our preference should become clear. Should infants be free of the ravages of an anthropogenic climate? How can we be free from others without restoring nature, or adhering to <a href="https://www.law360.com/articles/1259151/virus-highlights-nature-s-right-to-be-left-alone" target="_blank">the highest environmental baseline possible</a>? Freedom from the power of <a href="https://digitalcommons.pace.edu/pelr/vol29/iss3/5/" target="_blank">others is contingent upon restoring nature</a> and the wild — or a baseline based on the absence of human power — and pursuing the highest form of environmental protection. Freedom from others logically starts with the nonhuman world or the rewilding of our planet.</p>
<h3>The Baseline Problem</h3><p>There is a <a href="https://www.simplypsychology.org/cognitive-dissonance.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">cognitive dissonance</a> prevalent in our species of evaluating something without thinking through the normative baselines, or the things against which we are making the evaluation. For example, I might think that — relative to how I will feel in a minute's time — it is a good idea to gorge on doughnuts right now. If I had really considered how I would feel later, and <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/how-your-brain-stops-you-from-taking-climate-change-seriously" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">especially in the long run</a>, and if I keep making the same decision, I would realize that I should have thought beyond the short term, or made the decision at a later point of time.</p><p>The baseline problem <a href="https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=2143&context=wmlr" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">has dogged environmentalism</a> forever. It is a problem Cass Sunstein, former president Obama's regulatory czar, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Risk-Reason-Safety-Law-Environment/dp/0521016258" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">has tried to address</a> in his book <em>Risk and Reason</em>.</p>
<p>The world made the baseline mistake in developing environmental policy decades ago, choosing to treat nature as a resource for humans. The baseline was too low and allowed policies that fell short;<a href="https://mashable.com/article/climate-change-2020-records/" target="_blank"> indeed, it is</a> <a href="https://mashable.com/article/climate-change-2020-records/" target="_blank">one of the reasons our planet continues to superheat</a>. We are <a href="https://tinyurl.com/y6fv4fyx" target="_blank">making that same mistake now with regard to COVID-19</a>, by <a href="https://www.aspca.org/news/alarmingly-covid-19-relief-funds-prop-factory-farming" target="_blank">financially stimulating factory farming</a> and other forms of ecocide that degrade the buffer (or social distancing) between people that our pre-<a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/anthropocene/" target="_blank">Anthropocene</a> environment offered. Degrading that "natural buffer" <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/climate-change-coronavirus-linked/" target="_blank">exacerbates the risk of pandemics</a> and <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/28/social-distancing-is-a-privilege/" target="_blank">determines how we can react to them</a>. As the New Republic reported, the next pandemic <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/157129/next-pandemic-hiding-arctic-permafrost" target="_blank">could be hiding in the Arctic permafrost</a>.</p><p>Solving the baseline problem will allow us to trace these calamities — <a href="https://earther.gizmodo.com/its-horrific-climate-change-is-killing-the-great-barri-1842728096" target="_blank">like the unfolding death of the Great Barrier Reef</a> — and help us back to an ultimate source, and, perhaps, to a solution. We can no longer use a baseline for environmental policy that treats nature or the nonhuman world as a human resource. This is the baseline most environmentalists use, and the one that created the Anthropocene era in which we find the world today. A much higher baseline would view nature as something that ought to be a nonhuman habitat or the homes of sentient species who have a right to survive and thrive. This would be <a href="https://foundationforclimaterestoration.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a restorative baseline</a>, and the one more consistent with animal liberation. Such a baseline would be most protective against things like climate change and the pandemics it drives. A policy based on this baseline would revolve around ensuring our children have the only environment proven — over millennia‚ that allows humans and all species to thrive. It would seek to eliminate the way the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-38094186" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">absence of nature in our lives is degrading our psyches</a>.</p>
<p>In other words, what should our environment be like? What environment do our kids deserve? Do we want to raise kids <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/26/world/expensive-car-drivers-study-scli-scn-intl/index.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twCNN&utm_term=link&utm_content=2020-02-26T13%3A35%3A36" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">with antisocial personalities</a> who will plague their future generations with the same issues? Can we avoid doing so? Our choices to answer that question are being cut off as corporate and government forces convert nature into profits for the uber-wealthy. Our freedom to choose, our freedom through nature, is being taken away from us.</p><p>Whether we and our children have a right to that higher baseline and environment — what our future ought to look like — underlies the climate debates and the culture wars over how we respond to COVID-19. In this context, the debate centers around whether we should <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/uhenergy/2019/12/06/how-much-is-a-climate-change-solution-worth/#4f19d231f560" target="_blank">prioritize economic growth over preserving nature</a>, and <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/03/social-distancing-culture/609019/" target="_blank">the protection of human life</a>. The debate is between those who favor a lower environmental baseline and economic growth and those who favor a higher baseline and human rights, like the right of the most vulnerable groups to survive the pandemic.</p>
<p>It is a debate that is now being <a href="https://www.law360.com/articles/1259151/virus-highlights-nature-s-right-to-be-left-alone" target="_blank">fought out in federal court</a>. The case will determine a lot about what it means to be free in America — for us and for our kids.</p><p>Here is the key to that case, something many people miss. In order for us to be free, wilderness — or the relative absence of human domination over nature — has to remain and be protected as a potential baseline against the imposition of human power. Without it, we will lose our point of orientation to know what it means to be free from others. Or as Senator Frank Church of Idaho <a href="https://www.britannica.com/explore/savingearth/freedom-at-malheur" target="_blank">said</a> in helping to pass the Wilderness Act of 1964, that "without wilderness this country will become a cage." Consider this, and the uber-wealthy class: People like Elon Musk <a href="https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2020/1/7/21003272/space-x-starlink-astronomy-light-pollution" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">insert themselves between us and nature in order to overrun it</a> and promote <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/30/elon-musk-jack-ma-biggest-problem-world-will-face-is-population-drop.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">increased population growth to accelerate that process</a>. They envision a future in which the world is one big market, or a place they can dominate as the alternative — <a href="https://www.walden.org/quotation-category/government-and-politics-2/freedom/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">or the free world of Thoreau</a> — recedes into extinction.</p>
<p>It's hard to think outside of the box when there is no outside, when there is no alternative to a man-made, human-dominated world. Anti-environmental groups who wish to convert the entire <a href="https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/worlds-billionaires-have-more-wealth-46-billion-people" target="_blank">world into a market that is owned by a powerful few</a>, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/06/trump-executive-order-on-us-space-resources-and-mining-policy.html" target="_blank">who are now even eyeing the resources in space</a>, know and exploit this fact. When I am in nature, in the wild, I can see the box or cage from the outside. I am free because I have that perspective, point of orientation, or baseline. Shouldn't we ensure that our kids have the same choice, and can see from that perspective?</p><p>The founders of this country thought so. They understood how crucial it was to have a baseline that could be used to judge and orient ourselves against human power, and wrote it into the Declaration of Independence, <a href="https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/yhrdlj/vol10/iss1/1/" target="_blank">using the concept of wilderness and nature as the foundation</a> upon which to build the latticework of the American social contract. They understood that human rights and democracy are <em>objective</em> values and should orient around an external and objective point like nature. In the Declaration, they explicitly assured it to our progeny.</p>
<h3>No Freedom Without Nature</h3><p>In the case, which is now on appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the <a href="https://aldf.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Animal Legal Defense Fund</a> and <a href="https://seedingsovereignty.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Seeding Sovereignty</a>, two nonprofits, allege that the federal government's policy of ignoring the climate crisis — and in many cases knowingly exacerbating it — violates Americans' right to be free because it is destroying our environment relative to the higher, or restorative baseline. The concept of constitutional freedom can be complex but one way to unpack it is by dividing it into positive and negative freedoms — or the right to be <em>free from</em> the nonconsensual impact other people have on you, and the <em>freedom to</em> choose how to live your life. The plaintiffs allege our government is violating both these freedoms.</p><p>Consider the impact of the climate crisis on pregnant women, as the baseline environment, which generations of American mothers have enjoyed, and is now being degraded. Not only are <a href="https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/c-change/subtopics/climate-change-and-pregnancy-low-birth-weight/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the mothers and their babies subject to the disastrous and long-term impacts of the crisis</a>, but their choices and opportunities in life are being cut off by such long-term impacts. Instead of addressing this issue, the government's policies internationally have shifted the benefits to polluters, who use the wealth to minimize the harm of the crisis upon themselves and expand their own choices in life by ensuring poorer health, additional costs of care, etc. This case argues that because we have the right to be free from others and to live our lives as we choose, such government policies violate the Constitution, which protects us from these and similar intrusions. How can we have a right to be free from relatively nonintrusive things like <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-supreme-court-just-struck-a-blow-against-mass-surveillance/2018/06/25/1b5ee510-7653-11e8-b4b7-308400242c2e_story.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">government surveillance</a>, as the Supreme Court has always held, but not be free from life-threatening ecological impacts? We do have such a right — a right to a natural and restorative environmental baseline, or the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-52066238" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">highest possible standard of environmental protection</a>, which stands as a wall between us and those who would use nature for their own profits, and prevents from further endangering pregnant women and their children, and exacerbating pandemics in the future. Having that right is what it means to be free.</p>
<h3>Taking a Revolutionary Perspective and Acting on It</h3><p>The case of <em>Juliana v. United States</em>, which was filed in 2015 by 21 youth and organizational plaintiff Earth Guardians, is powerful and differs significantly from <a href="https://www.ourchildrenstrust.org/juliana-v-us" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">other constitutional litigations regarding the climate crisis</a> as it is focused on anthropocentric standards for environmental protection, and relies on the role of nature, and wilderness, in particular, in the American Revolution and the founding of the country. Could the Founding Fathers have imagined that Americans would one day be so impacted by others, that nature would be so degraded, that our own environment threatened pregnancy? How would they have wanted us to react to that threat and our rights to be free from others, and free to live our lives as we see fit, relative to the environmental baseline they enjoyed <a href="https://www.earthisland.org/index.php/advocates/suit/rewilding" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">and extolled as a necessary condition of freedom</a>? This country is built on a promise to our progeny and we know the people who are making it impossible to keep that promise.</p><p>This is not about fealty to our Founding Fathers or some other form of nationalism masquerading as liberalism. If we don't orient our political systems around the absence of human power and <a href="https://foundationforclimaterestoration.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the restoration of nature</a>, we are adopting a concept of freedom that is incoherent. That, in turn, <a href="https://lsolum.typepad.com/legaltheory/2020/07/dillard-on-legitimacy.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">poses serious legitimacy problems for any form of governance</a>, making consensual political association physically impossible. In other words, without the absence of human power — or nature or the nonhuman world — <a href="https://digitalcommons.pace.edu/pelr/vol29/iss3/5/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">it becomes impossible to consent to human power</a>. We cannot allow ourselves to simply embrace — and foist upon future generations — a world where we cannot be free from others' harmful influence, in which freedom from the power of others does not exist and political liberty is replaced <a href="https://www.consumerfreedom.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">by a degrading form of consumerist freedom</a>. In such a world, freedom is more economic than political, and the average person's role is reduced to being a buyer and seller in a world market rather than that of an empowered citizen in free democracies surrounded by nature. Those promoting such an emaciated form of freedom, and blocking family planning reforms that would ensure people are <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/02/24/humanitys-survival-on-earth-starts-with-having-smaller-families_partner/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">empowered as truly free and equal</a> might be thought of as pre-constitutional, but it is preventing the intergenerational constituting or coming together of people as truly self-determining.</p>
<p>The move away from a lower or resource-based baseline has begun, in part, with the recognition <a href="https://tinyurl.com/y3zg9aqm" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">that humans and the environment are inextricably linked</a>, which is a partial move away from the view of nature as a resource <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674368224" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">and separate from humanity</a>. The next steps involve understanding exactly what we mean by the concept of nature and why we value it, and moving from the descriptive realm to the normative or evaluative realm — the realm of law and human rights — where we can articulate exactly how nature should be part of us and part of <em>who we as a species should be</em>. And when it comes to taking action, a useful perspective would be understanding that the fight for nature involves liberating <a href="https://tinyurl.com/mra52os" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the most vulnerable entities in the world — future generations and nonhumans</a>. This involves <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/02/24/humanitys-survival-on-earth-starts-with-having-smaller-families_partner/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">universal reform of our family planning system</a>. One effective option would be to liberate them by seizing the resources of those at the top of the power and population pyramid that Nobel laureate <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Chu" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Steven Chu</a> recognized and using those resources <a href="https://havingkids.org/its-not-about-population-its-about-an-intergenerational-revolution/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">to fund universal family planning programs that promote smaller and more equitable families</a>. And while we have been taught that countries like the United States were "constituted" by god-like wealthy white men in the past, new scholarship argues that this idea is nonsense and that if we assume political power derives from actual people, <a href="https://lsolum.typepad.com/legaltheory/2020/07/dillard-on-legitimacy.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">we are constantly either constituting legitimate democracies or deconstituting into illegitimate "pre-constitutional" political states</a>, depending on the family planning systems at play.</p>
<p>Do you think the idea of linking equity and a universal ethic of smaller families to population and family planning sounds far-fetched? Others, like <a href="https://mashable.com/video/michael-moore-planet-of-the-humans/" target="_blank">Michael Moore</a> and <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2020/04/24/david-brooks-who-is/" target="_blank">David Brooks</a>, are already making the connection in the mainstream.</p><p>The war on nature has turned into a war against us and our kids. We cannot afford to make the baseline mistake in the face of threats like the climate crisis, COVID-19, mass extinction and many other interrelated catastrophes. That is what the case is about: arguing that our fundamental human rights include a right and responsibility to nature, which in essence means <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/B-qdco0jAFa/" target="_blank">seeing ourselves as guests of nature</a>, and not its master. It is an argument that completely gels with changes around the country to <a href="https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/0195150163.001.0001/acprof-9780195150162" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">limit destructive and mythical property rights</a>, such as those over animals and over specific parts of our environment, in favor of a form of personhood that would protect the most vulnerable entities in the world.</p><p>And whether courts recognize that right to be free in nature or not, the tide of those willing to fight for the highest standard of environmental protection, and to protect those most vulnerable will continue to rise all the way up to the doorsteps of our oppressors — specifically those who push for a lower environmental baseline and economic growth over our right and responsibility to nature.</p>
<p><em>Carter Dillard is the founder of <a href="https://havingkids.org/" target="_blank">HavingKids.org</a>. He served as an Honors Program Attorney at the United States Department of Justice and served with a national security law agency before developing a comprehensive account of reforming family planning for the Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal. He has begun to implement the transition to child-centric "Fair Start" family planning, both as a member of the Steering Committee of the Population Ethics and Policy Research Project, and as a visiting scholar of the Uehiro Center, both at the University of Oxford.</em></p><p><em><span></span>This article was produced by </em><a href="https://independentmediainstitute.org/earth-food-life/" target="_blank"><em>Earth | Food | Life</em></a><em>, a project of the Independent Media Institute.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Researchers estimate that a likely total of 2.3 degrees Celsius of warming is now locked in. DuKai photographer / Getty Images
Existing greenhouse gases will eventually push the climate into more than two degrees of warming, according to a study published in Nature Climate Change on Monday.
<p>That number puts the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/paris-agreement" target="_self">Paris agreement</a> goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels out of reach, says Andrew Dessler, study coauthor and Texas A&M University climate scientist. Still, he warned against "climate doomers," <a href="https://apnews.com/article/climate-climate-change-pollution-3f226aed9c58e36c69e7342b104d48bf" target="_blank">The Associated Press</a> reported.</p><p>"While I would not categorize this as good news, it is not game over for the climate," Dessler said in a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LV9aCiyui18&feature=youtu.be" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">video</a> explaining the paper.</p>
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<p>So what exactly does the study say?</p><p>Dessler worked with colleagues at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab (LLNL) and Nanjing University in China to analyze what is called "committed warming," or the amount of warming that would occur if atmospheric greenhouse gases were paused at their current concentrations.</p><p>Previous estimates had put committed warming at around 1.4 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, Dessler said in the video. But those estimates were based on faulty assumptions about Earth's climate system, the paper authors argued.</p><p>"Typically, committed warming is estimated assuming that changes in the future will pretty much follow changes in the past," Mark Zelinka, coauthor and LLNL atmospheric scientist, said in a <a href="https://www.llnl.gov/news/paying-emissions-weve-already-released" target="_blank">press release</a>. "But we now know that this is a bad assumption."</p>
<p>Specifically, the researchers pointed to the regions of the planet that have not yet warmed, such as the Southern Ocean. The temperatures of these regions cause clouds to form that reflect sunlight and further cool the planet. But eventually those regions will warm too, dispersing the clouds and further raising temperatures.</p><p>"After accounting for this effect, the estimated future warming based on the historical record would be much higher than previous estimates," lead author Chen Zhou of Nanjing University said in the press release.</p><p>The researchers estimated that a likely total of 2.3 degrees Celsius of warming is now locked in, about a full degree above the previous estimate.</p><p>The good news is that this warming could take centuries to occur, provided the world acts now to reduce emissions.</p>
<p>"If we continue to emit greenhouse gases at the rate we currently are, then we will blow through the 1.5 and two degree Celsius limits possibly within a few decades," Dessler said in the video. "This means that our work is consistent with the conclusion that we need to reduce emissions as quickly as possible."</p><p>Climate scientist Zeke Hausfather, who was not involved with the research, called the study fascinating on <a href="https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1346160314924974081" target="_blank">Twitter</a>.</p><p>"I don't think this paper fundamentally changes our understanding of committed warming, and pattern effects are still an area of active research. But it should make us a bit cautious about being too confident in predictions of zero warming after emissions reach net-zero," he concluded.</p>
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Former coal lobbyist and current EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler looks at a pamphlet about Superfund sites at EPA's New York City office on March 4, 2019. Drew Angerer / Getty Images
Former coal lobbyist and current U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Andrew Wheeler is expected to announce on Tuesday a rule tobacco consultants devised as an "explicit procedural hurdle" to protecting public health.
<p><br/></p>
<p>The rule — sometimes called the 'Secret Science' rule — will require EPA to give less credence to scientific studies that take into account individuals' medical histories and other data that cannot be made public. Such studies have served as the foundation for a half-century of clean air and clean water protections. </p>
<p>"It's as absurd as it sounds," Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) said in a statement. Had the rule been in place, the EPA would have been unable to require mercury pollution cuts from coal-fired power plants because it would have been unable to show how mercury impairs brain development. It could also effectively bar EPA from relying on foundational research — including findings that lead paint dust harms children and that <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/air-pollution">air pollution</a> causes premature deaths — when existing public health protections come up for renewal. </p>
<p>"The people pushing it are claiming it's in the interest of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/science/">science</a>, but the entire independent science world says it's not," Chris Zarba, a former director of the EPA's Science Advisory Board, told The Washington Post. </p>
<p>As reported by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/04/climate/trump-epa-science.html?searchResultPosition=1&utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=105370693&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8qJY58DWP-Gm8kwHc3MMIG57TY-2oSKqhlW6DmWJBvdGWumU4AJcwSlquFCcnZKbIthK9SGP5hEvDIUGcS6X9idFP5Mg&utm_content=105370693&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">The New York Times</a>:</p><blockquote>"Right now we're in the grips of a serious public health crisis due to a deadly respiratory virus, and there's evidence showing that air pollution exposure increases the risk of worse outcomes," said Dr. Mary Rice, a pulmonary and critical care physician who is chairwoman of the environmental health policy committee at the American Thoracic Society.</blockquote><blockquote>"We would want E.P.A. going forward to make decisions about air quality using all available evidence, not just putting arbitrary limits on what it will consider," she said.</blockquote>
<p><strong>For a deeper dive:</strong></p><p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/04/climate/trump-epa-science.html?searchResultPosition=1&utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=105370693&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8qJY58DWP-Gm8kwHc3MMIG57TY-2oSKqhlW6DmWJBvdGWumU4AJcwSlquFCcnZKbIthK9SGP5hEvDIUGcS6X9idFP5Mg&utm_content=105370693&utm_source=hs_email" target="_blank">The New York Times</a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/01/04/epa-scientific-transparency/?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=105370693&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_hW0l4f96fpnvwIwQbGwvHMl0UX4egRCajABI8Wi7lfRIF7QzOnRds0fv5vManQ8locqm9Z-Nt_HuysTdXRKMatPRG7g&utm_content=105370693&utm_source=hs_email" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Washington Post</a>, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/politics-science-environment-e0c89b49e3ed2408731d49c6f0c88bcb?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=105370693&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8GTGbmC7w4yd6daKHOyK0Epnrj3NMFphHhGK99ZSeOyVV58996wTkEN_8vfYeroAZloXenCIarUTZUvTOHN3Yn6lxj7A&utm_content=105370693&utm_source=hs_email" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">AP</a>, <a href="https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2021/01/04/stories/1063721703?utm_campaign=Hot%20News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=105370693&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9Dmv8dCHnlINNver_qluMydevL4PV3sPYmn8vPEXkhg4xBqzPbHsg-AgAAIf-eFKud76nNGP2fhH8_-Uw51Posswb8Sg&utm_content=105370693&utm_source=hs_email" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">E&E</a>, <a href="https://login.politicopro.com/?redirect=https%3A%2F%2Fsubscriber.politicopro.com%2Farticle%2F2021%2F01%2Fepa-set-to-release-scientific-transparency-rule-2026812%3Futm_campaign%3DHot%2520News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=105370693&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9QZyI4nCYCCvkP314KHb6Bs_FiWu0JA-WDAXtVs_NceBazW6-rz9CXFcaD7pVvQfylNconVfxHaZ0YJcjAhQmWXns_0Q&utm_content=105370693&utm_source=hs_email" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">POLITICO Pro</a></p><p><a href="https://login.politicopro.com/?redirect=https%3A%2F%2Fsubscriber.politicopro.com%2Farticle%2F2021%2F01%2Fepa-set-to-release-scientific-transparency-rule-2026812%3Futm_campaign%3DHot%2520News&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=105370693&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9QZyI4nCYCCvkP314KHb6Bs_FiWu0JA-WDAXtVs_NceBazW6-rz9CXFcaD7pVvQfylNconVfxHaZ0YJcjAhQmWXns_0Q&utm_content=105370693&utm_source=hs_email" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"></a><em>For more </em><a href="http://ecowatch.com/climate-change-news/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>climate change</em></a><em> and </em><a href="http://ecowatch.com/business/renewables/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>clean energy</em></a><em> news, you can follow Climate Nexus on </em><a href="https://twitter.com/ClimateNexus" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Twitter</em></a><em> and </em><a href="https://www.facebook.com/ClimateNexus/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Facebook</em></a><em>, sign up for daily </em><a href="https://www.linktrack.live/hot-news-sign-up" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Hot News</em></a><em>, and visit their news site, </em><a href="https://nexusmedianews.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Nexus Media News</em></a><em>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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A Big COVID-19 Vaccination Problem: The Cold Supply Chain Can’t Reach Everywhere
04 January
Health + Wellness
Health workers take an ambulance boat to the remote riverside community of Galileia in Para, Brazil, on July 29, 2020. TARSO SARRAF / AFP via Getty Images
By Timothy Ford and Charles M. Schweik
To mitigate health inequities and promote social justice, coronavirus vaccines need to get to underserved populations and hard-to-reach communities.
<p>There are few places in the U.S. that are unreachable by road, but other factors – many rural hospitals <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/11/11/rural-hospitals-cant-afford-freezers-to-store-pfizer-covid19-vaccine/" target="_blank">can't afford ultralow-temperature freezers</a> or might not have reliable electricity, for example – present challenges. However, with government will and resources, these could be overcome.</p><p>That is not true for much of the rest of the world.</p>
<p>One of us, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=Cd3qQxAAAAAJ" target="_blank">Tim Ford, is a global health researcher</a> who has done a lot of international work on water and health where the cold supply chain cannot go, most recently in rural Haiti. The other, <a href="https://works.bepress.com/charles_schweik/" target="_blank">Charles Schweik</a>, studies how the spread of innovations – both digital and physical – can solve pressing societal problems and social inequities.</p><p>The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are a great start that should be celebrated, but they rely on a complicated supply chain of freezers and temperature-controlled shipping methods called the "cold chain." That reliance on the cold chain raises equity and social justice concerns, since many parts of the world cannot support one. Researchers are working hard on vaccines that can avoid the logistical and economic nightmare of cold chain delivery.</p>
<h2>Where the Cold Chain Doesn't Go</h2><p>In poorer areas, more remote parts of the world and in places where the mean daytime temperature is high and electricity is unavailable or spotty, there <a href="https://www.seforall.org/news/africas-cooling-challenge-heats-up-as-continent-warms" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">are no mechanisms to keep vaccines at low temperatures</a>. There may in fact be no roads – let alone airports – in many of these places either. And even if roads exist, they may be impassable at certain times of the year or inaccessible for political reasons or because of civil unrest.</p><p>Both the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines need to <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/11/17/935563377/why-does-pfizers-covid-19-vaccine-need-to-be-kept-colder-than-antarctica" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">be kept frozen</a> and must rely on the cold chain to get anywhere. Only large wealthy countries have the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-pandemics-immunizations-epidemics-united-nations-fc4c536d62c5ef25152884adb1c14168" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">resources to implement a well-developed cold chain</a>, and that means huge parts of the world currently can't get a COVID-19 vaccine.</p><p>This is bad for public health and fails to be equitable and just.</p>
<h2>Temperature-Stable Vaccines</h2><p>Vaccines are coming that do not require ultralow-temperature storage. Some companies, including <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/23/health/covid-vaccine-astrazeneca-johnson-and-johnson.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson</a>, are working on vaccines that need only refrigeration as opposed to storage at freezer temperatures. In late December, the AstraZeneca vaccine <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/30/world/europe/uk-covid-19-vaccine-oxford-astrazeneca.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">was authorized for use in the UK</a>. Both vaccines should be <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/14/more-vaccine-developers-fda-approval-445194" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">available to the global market the next couple of months</a> and could greatly expand vaccine reach.</p><p>Both companies are also working with the <a href="https://www.gavi.org/covax-facility" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">COVAX Facility</a>, which describes itself as "a global risk-sharing mechanism for pooled procurement and equitable distribution of eventual COVID-19 vaccines." The goal is to make vaccines available to all countries participating in the COVAX program, regardless of income levels. As of mid–December, <a href="https://www.gavi.org/news/media-room/covax-announces-additional-deals-access-promising-covid-19-vaccine-candidates-plans" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">92 low- and middle-income countries</a> have signed up.</p>
<p>Refrigeration is better than freezing, but for remote locations, room temperature is best, and researchers are working on thermostable COVID-19 vaccines that won't need refrigeration. Techniques that remove the need for a vaccine cold chain have been used for many decades with success. Freeze-dried vaccines are one such example. The first <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/s002217240000053x" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">thermostable vaccine</a> was developed for smallpox in 1955 and is credited in part with the ultimate elimination of the disease.</p><p>Today, researchers continue to look for innovative ways to stabilize viral vaccines: from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-44020-w" target="_blank">air-drying with low-cost sugar films</a> to <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1007%2Fs12250-020-00250-1" target="_blank">freeze-drying with different stabilizing agents</a>. Some researchers are also working on <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xphs.2019.02.017" target="_blank">stable liquid formulations</a>, in particular live attenuated flu viruses, that avoid the costly process of freeze-drying, which is not always easy for low- and middle-income countries to do. All these approaches could be applicable to live virus vaccines that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attenuated_vaccine#Attenuated_viruses" target="_blank">use an attenuated virus</a>, just like <a href="https://www.drugs.com/cdi/influenza-virus-vaccine-live-attenuated.html" target="_blank">the flu vaccine</a>, as well as both of the coronavirus vaccines under development by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/health/oxford-astrazeneca-covid-19-vaccine.html" target="_blank">AstraZeneca</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/23/health/covid-19-vaccine-johnson-and-johnson.html" target="_blank">Johnson & Johnson</a>.</p>
<h2>Hope for COVID-19 Vaccines?</h2><p>So far, this is mostly basic research, but progress in this area would greatly help meet global health needs.</p><p>To date, the most promising efforts toward temperature-stable COVID-19 vaccines come from groups in China and India. Chinese scientists have developed a method to <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.cell.2020.07.024" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">wrap an mRNA vaccine in lipid nanoparticles</a> that keep it fresh at room temperatures. Indian researchers are using an <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1074/jbc.RA120.016284" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">engineered protein fragment</a> that is tolerant of high temperatures. Most recently, a UK team has begun collaborating on a <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/enesi-pharma-and-imperial-college-london-collaborate-to-develop-thermostable-rna-vaccines-with-potential-to-eliminate-cold-chain-and-transform-global-vaccination-logistics-for-covid-19-301195362.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">polymer-stabilized, needle-free, solid-dose vaccine</a>.</p><p>Given the limitations of the cold chain, there are public health, moral and ethical obligations that require investment in vaccines that can be delivered using non-cold-chain approaches. For people in many places, that is the only way they will ever get a vaccine.</p>
<p>
<em>Timothy Ford is a professor and chair of biomedical and nutritional sciences at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.<br/>
<span style="background-color: initial;">Charles M. Schweik is a p</span>rofessor of environmental conservation at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.</em>
</p><p>
<em>Disclosure statement: The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</em>
</p><p>
<em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-cold-supply-chain-cant-reach-everywhere-thats-a-big-problem-for-equitable-covid-19-vaccination-152057" target="_blank">The Conversation</a>.</em><br/>
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