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reasonsforhope · 5 months

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No paywall version here.

"Two and a half years ago, when I was asked to help write the most authoritative report on climate change in the United States, I hesitated...

In the end, I said yes, but reluctantly. Frankly, I was sick of admonishing people about how bad things could get. Scientists have raised the alarm over and over again, and still the temperature rises. Extreme events like heat waves, floods and droughts are becoming more severe and frequent, exactly as we predicted they would. We were proved right. It didn’t seem to matter.

Our report, which was released on Tuesday, contains more dire warnings. There are plenty of new reasons for despair. Thanks to recent scientific advances, we can now link climate change to specific extreme weather disasters, and we have a better understanding of how the feedback loops in the climate system can make warming even worse. We can also now more confidently forecast catastrophic outcomes if global emissions continue on their current trajectory.

But to me, the most surprising new finding in the Fifth National Climate Assessment is this: There has been genuine progress, too.

I’m used to mind-boggling numbers, and there are many of them in this report. Human beings have put about 1.6 trillion tons of carbon in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution — more than the weight of every living thing on Earth combined. But as we wrote the report, I learned other, even more mind-boggling numbers. In the last decade, the cost of wind energy has declined by 70 percent and solar has declined 90 percent. Renewables now make up 80 percent of new electricity generation capacity. Our country’s greenhouse gas emissions are falling, even as our G.D.P. and population grow.

In the report, we were tasked with projecting future climate change. We showed what the United States would look like if the world warms by 2 degrees Celsius. It wasn’t a pretty picture: more heat waves, more uncomfortably hot nights, more downpours, more droughts. If greenhouse emissions continue to rise, we could reach that point in the next couple of decades. If they fall a little, maybe we can stave it off until the middle of the century. But our findings also offered a glimmer of hope: If emissions fall dramatically, as the report suggested they could, we may never reach 2 degrees Celsius at all.

For the first time in my career, I felt something strange: optimism.

And that simple realization was enough to convince me that releasing yet another climate report was worthwhile.

Something has changed in the United States, and not just the climate. State, local and tribal governments all around the country have begun to take action. Some politicians now actually campaign on climate change, instead of ignoring or lying about it. Congress passed federal climate legislation — something I’d long regarded as impossible — in 2022 as we turned in the first draft.

[Note: She's talking about the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Act, which despite the names were the two biggest climate packages passed in US history. And their passage in mid 2022 was a big turning point: that's when, for the first time in decades, a lot of scientists started looking at the numbers - esp the ones that would come from the IRA's funding - and said "Wait, holy shit, we have an actual chance."]

And while the report stresses the urgency of limiting warming to prevent terrible risks, it has a new message, too: We can do this. We now know how to make the dramatic emissions cuts we’d need to limit warming, and it’s very possible to do this in a way that’s sustainable, healthy and fair.

The conversation has moved on, and the role of scientists has changed. We’re not just warning of danger anymore. We’re showing the way to safety.

I was wrong about those previous reports: They did matter, after all. While climate scientists were warning the world of disaster, a small army of scientists, engineers, policymakers and others were getting to work. These first responders have helped move us toward our climate goals. Our warnings did their job.

To limit global warming, we need many more people to get on board... We need to reach those who haven’t yet been moved by our warnings. I’m not talking about the fossil fuel industry here; nor do I particularly care about winning over the small but noisy group of committed climate deniers. But I believe we can reach the many people whose eyes glaze over when they hear yet another dire warning or see another report like the one we just published.

The reason is that now, we have a better story to tell. The evidence is clear: Responding to climate change will not only create a better world for our children and grandchildren, but it will also make the world better for us right now.

Eliminating the sources of greenhouse gas emissions will make our air and water cleaner, our economy stronger and our quality of life better. It could save hundreds of thousands or even millions of lives across the country through air quality benefits alone. Using land more wisely can both limit climate change and protect biodiversity. Climate change most strongly affects communities that get a raw deal in our society: people with low incomes, people of color, children and the elderly. And climate action can be an opportunity to redress legacies of racism, neglect and injustice.

I could still tell you scary stories about a future ravaged by climate change, and they’d be true, at least on the trajectory we’re currently on. But it’s also true that we have a once-in-human-history chance not only to prevent the worst effects but also to make the world better right now. It would be a shame to squander this opportunity. So I don’t just want to talk about the problems anymore. I want to talk about the solutions. Consider this your last warning from me."

-via New York Times. Opinion essay by leading climate scientist Kate Marvel. November 18, 2023.

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ecoamerica · 6 months

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Last call: It's the final week to apply for the American Climate Leadership Awards for High School Students! Apply by Friday, December 15, at midnight PT!

ANNOUNCING: American Climate Leadership Awards has a new category for high school students working towards local climate solutions! @ecoamerica is awarding $125K in cash prizes to student climate leaders. Apply by 12/15: https://ecoamerica.org/american-climate-leadership-awards-high-school-2024/

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politijohn · 11 months

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Source

#climate change #climate crisis #politics #us politics #government #capitalism #climate news #news #current events #environmetalists #environmental justice #progressive #the left #twitter post #activism #important

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ratinatrap · 1 year

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LMFAOOOO????

#twitter #meme #jeff bezos #climate news #climate change

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anarchywoofwoof · 6 months

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well

here's the headline some of us collapse-aware folks have been dreading becoming mainstream for a long time now.

this is in a vice article. not some fringe website. this isn't fearmongering. this is reality.

so this isn't a small sample size. this a plea from 163 of of the 195 countries on the entire planet to act.

we have seriously broken something. and badly.

you people literally can't even take someone blocking traffic and making you late for brunch. you shit on Greta Thunberg. you shit on Just Stop Oil. you shit on anyone who tries to make any kind of meaningful difference. and then you say "we need movements." every movement that any radical with good intentions has tried to start in the 1st world on the left has been stomped out by the police time and time again. give me a fucking break.

trapped, is what they mean.

trapped in an unlivable wasteland with no food, no water, and no chance of survival.

millions of people are being forced back into half hour-hour commutes in the name steadying of corporate real estate prices. because a profitable business is more important than a habitable planet to the people with wealth who actually own the means of production.

the fact of the matter is that the rich and powerful will never, ever let you vote their power away and they will never agree to give away by choice. we can sing this song in a million different tunes, but it always has the same words. you gotta eat the rich.

[vice news]

#fuck capitalism #climate change #climate crisis #collapse #important #climate news #anti capitalist #anti capitalism #anarchy #anarchism #anarchist

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smarmy-yet-satisfying · 11 months

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Anyone else ever feel like bludgeoning oil executives and politicians to death with a rusty pipe over what they’ve doomed us all to?

Capitalism is a death sentence for the human race

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ecopunktranny · 11 days

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PLEASE SIGN! IT TAKES 20 SECONDS!

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iww-gnv · 3 months

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Lots of people feel refreshed after a three-day weekend. How about having one every week? Almost 200 companies around the world have completed six-month trials of a four-day workweek, with no reductions in employee pay. So far, the results are promising.

#news #labor news #climate news #four day work week

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renthony · 2 months

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From the article:

Christine Louis-Jeune knew she was home when she saw ash falling from the sky and onto her windshield. She hadn’t been back to her central Florida hometown of Belle Glade in six months. She was both exhausted after a six-plus hour drive from Tallahassee and excited to tell her parents about her first semester at Florida A&M University. But as she saw the dark clouds of smoke, all she could think about was how to get out of the car without getting ash on her clothes or in her lungs. She looked for extra masks in her glove compartment. She began to worry about her family, and hoped they were safely at home with all the windows shut. Her homecoming had been darkened by what Belle Glade residents call “black snow” —ash and soot that fall on the low-income communities south of Lake Okeechobee (also known as the Glades) during the six-month sugarcane burning season. Every year from October to March, farmers in South Florida set fire to over 400,000 acres of sugarcane fields in preparation for their harvest. Residents of the surrounding, predominantly Black towns have long complained of the accompanying smoke, and research has indicated adverse impacts on health. Community organizers and environmental experts propose green harvesting as an alternative to this widespread and controversial practice.

#florida news #climate news #environmental racism

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alexxahope · 6 months

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Instead of watching American Climate Leadership, watch me for free. And give yourself a good pleasure 🥵🥵

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reasonsforhope · 2 months

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"A century of gradual reforestation across the American East and Southeast has kept the region cooler than it otherwise would have become, a new study shows.

The pioneering study of progress shows how the last 25 years of accelerated reforestation around the world might significantly pay off in the second half of the 21st century.

Using a variety of calculative methods and estimations based on satellite and temperature data from weather stations, the authors determined that forests in the eastern United States cool the land surface by 1.8 – 3.6°F annually compared to nearby grasslands and croplands, with the strongest effect seen in summer, when cooling amounts to 3.6 – 9°F.

The younger the forest, the more this cooling effect was detected, with forest trees between 20 and 40 years old offering the coolest temperatures underneath.

“The reforestation has been remarkable and we have shown this has translated into the surrounding air temperature,” Mallory Barnes, an environmental scientist at Indiana University who led the research, told The Guardian.

“Moving forward, we need to think about tree planting not just as a way to absorb carbon dioxide but also the cooling effects in adapting for climate change, to help cities be resilient against these very hot temperatures.”

The cooling of the land surface affected the air near ground level as well, with a stepwise reduction in heat linked to reductions in near-surface air temps.

“Analyses of historical land cover and air temperature trends showed that the cooling benefits of reforestation extend across the landscape,” the authors write. “Locations surrounded by reforestation were up to 1.8°F cooler than neighboring locations that did not undergo land cover change, and areas dominated by regrowing forests were associated with cooling temperature trends in much of the Eastern United States.”

By the 1930s, forest cover loss in the eastern states like the Carolinas and Mississippi had stopped, as the descendants of European settlers moved in greater and greater numbers into cities and marginal agricultural land was abandoned.

The Civilian Conservation Corps undertook large replanting efforts of forests that had been cleared, and this is believed to be what is causing the lower average temperatures observed in the study data.

However, the authors note that other causes, like more sophisticated crop irrigation and increases in airborne pollutants that block incoming sunlight, may have also contributed to the lowering of temperatures over time. They also note that tree planting might not always produce this effect, such as in the boreal zone where increases in trees are linked with increases in humidity that way raise average temperatures."

-via Good News Network, February 20, 2024

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ecoamerica · 6 months

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Last call: It's the final week to apply for the American Climate Leadership Awards! Apply by Friday, December 15, at midnight PT!

Calling all climate leaders! 2024 marks 5 years of @ecoamerica’s American Climate Leadership Awards, and applications are open now! Your efforts toward climate solutions can earn a share of $175,000! You may be awarded $1,000 just for qualifying as a semifinalist. Apply here for your chance: https://ecoamerica.org/american-climate-leadership-awards-2024/

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politijohn · 10 months

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Some alarming climate news as of June 2023

Antarctica, which is in the dead of winter, has unexpectedly failed to reform its winter sea ice. This is an exceptional deviation from the norm that has left scientists dumbfounded.

The entire NE Atlantic Ocean is experiencing its most significant marine heatwave ever…by far. That area had never been a full 1°C above the 1951-1980 average. It has suddenly jumped to 1.7°C above that average.

A powerful heatwave has overtaken southern North America for weeks on end, with places like Texas and northern Mexico breaking daily record high temperatures.

In the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico, sea surface temperatures are extremely high. Water temperatures are in the *90s* by the Florida coast, Miami keeps breaking daily record heat index values, and a major coral bleaching event will soon be underway.

The Canadian 2023 Wildfire Season will not let up, with nearly all annual records falling before we even reach the midpoint of the season. No Canadian wildfire season had ever produced 12 terawatts (TW) of fire radiative power. 2023 has produced 18TW.

Dramatic flood events have begun striking various countries around the world simultaneously this week.

El Niño has rapidly developed in recent months as sea surface temperatures across the equatorial east Pacific skyrocket. As of yet, El Niño has not impacted global weather conditions. That will change in a few months.

All of these events have culminated in June 2023, easily being the hottest June in Earth’s recorded history. Likely the hottest June in 115k-120k years when Earth was last this hot.

#important #current events #news #environment #climate #climate change #climate justice #environmentalism #environmental justice #global warming #activism #climate crisis #climate news

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troythecatfish · 8 months

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#threads #threads app #threads account #threads an instagram app #good news #good climate news #climate news #enviromental #environment #save the environment #ecofriendly #ecosystem #ecology #a step in the right direction #threads post

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anarchywoofwoof · 2 months

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not much left to say at this point. february 2024 had an anomaly of almost 2 degrees. the climate has hit some sort of major tipping point. exponential growth is a real thing and everyone is about to get a crash course on it. again. (see: covid)

#climate science #climate #climate crisis #climate news #climate change

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smarmy-yet-satisfying · 5 months

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So having a fossil fuel executive as the president of the UN Climate Summit is going about as well as expected

Fossil fuel companies and the politicians they employ are murderers. And they should be treated as such.

Abolish billionaires. Ban private jets & mega yachts. Invest in renewable energy and stop listening to politicians and corporations over scientists.

#cop28 #climate change #capitalism #eat the rich #climate crisis #wealth inequality #late stage capitalism #us politics #climate emergency #climate activism #joe biden #climate science #fossil fuels #climate justice #climate news #climate solutions #tax the rich #abolish billionaires

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