Vigorous action needed, and soon, on climate change (excerpt): Yale Climate Connections

"Our essays in this series have presented compelling scientific evidence about the warming of the planet, reviewed the evidence that human activity is its principal cause, and discussed the resulting economic and environmental damages.

Now comes the question of what we are going to do about it. The options are clear:

– Nations can work toward eliminating greenhouse gas emissions and reducing the scale of future warming.
– Governments and private actors can, and will, invest in measures to protect home and livelihood from effects of changes that cannot be prevented.
– Or human societies and natural ecosystems will suffer the severe harms of inaction.

The more they (really we) do now and in the near future, the smaller will be the residual damages imposed on ourselves, our children, and our grandchildren. The choice is ours.

The suffering is already here, of course. In some places, it is almost impossible to bear despite growing investments in adaptation. So what is missing? A commitment to emissions reductions appropriate to the special nature of the climate change threat. Fortunately, with a smart choice of policy measures, the emissions control challenge can still be met at a tolerable economic cost."

Go to complete Yale Climate Connections article 

 

Related: A nine-point plan for the UK to achieve net zero carbon emissions (excerpts): Guardian

 

economic impact, ecology, ecocide, greenhouse gas pollution, #globalheating, extreme heat, children,

Water wars: How conflicts over resources are set to rise amid climate change: World Economic Forum

Water shortages for one in four children in areas of extreme water shortage by 2040

   • From erratic rainfall to severe droughts, global warming is increasing competition for water around the world, with water-related conflicts on the rise.

 
  • According to the WRI, more than two billion people live in countries experiencing "high" water stress.

 
  • Conserving forests, wetlands and watersheds, including those around cities, can help absorb rainfall, helping stem crop losses from flooding and drought.

From Yemen to India, and parts of Central America to the African Sahel, about a quarter of the world's people face extreme water shortages that are fueling conflict, social unrest and migration, water experts said on Wednesday.

With the world's population rising and climate change bringing more erratic rainfall, including severe droughts, competition for scarcer water is growing, they said, with serious consequences.

"If there is no water, people will start to move. If there is no water, politicians are going to try and get their hands on it and they might start to fight over it," warned Kitty van der Heijden, head of international cooperation at the Netherlands' foreign ministry.

Map of baseline water stress for countries

One in four children worldwide will be living in areas of extremely high water stress by 2040, researchers estimated.

"It's threats like these that keep me up at night," the diplomat told a webinar hosted by the World Resources Institute (WRI), a U.S.-based research group.

African boy gathering muddy water

 According to the WRI, 17 countries face "extremely high" levels of water stress, while more than two billion people live in countries experiencing "high" water stress.

In terms of water availability, "at some point we are going to hit the wall, and that wall might be different in different places", Heijden said.

Climate change is compounding the challenge, she said, with cities such as India's Chennai and South Africa's Cape Town battling severe water shortages in recent years related in part to erratic rainfall.

Disputes over water have for millenia served as a flashpoint, driving political instability and conflict, the water experts said.

And "the risks of water-related disputes are growing .. in part because of growing scarcity over water", said Peter Gleick, co-founder of the California-based Pacific Institute, which jointly published the report with WRI and The Water, Peace and Security Partnership.

Drought affecting Central American farming

But as water scarcity grows, water systems are also increasingly becoming targets in other types of conflicts, said Gleick, whose institute has compiled a chronology of water conflicts that dates back 5,000 years.

In Yemen, years of fighting has destroyed water infrastructure, leaving millions without safe water to drink or grow crops. Wells and other water facilities also have been targets in Somalia, Iraq, Syria and other countries, he said.

Smarter irrigation

India is already hot

Recurring droughts in parts of Central America and the African Sahel in recent years have triggered migration as subsistence farmers, whose harvests have been decimated by low rainfall, seek refuge and jobs in other countries.

One key to tackling water scarcity is boosting investment in more sparing use of water in agriculture, an industry that absorbs more than two-thirds of the water used by people each year, the experts said.

Parents Share Emotional Bushfire Stories from Australian Black Summer 2019-20: Video

Australian Parents for Climate Action

Australian parents share heartbreaking experiences from the 2019-20 Black Summer, and demand government climate action to protect our children. 

 

 Ask your elected reps to support climate-positive COVID-19 recovery projects: www.ap4ca.org/the_covid_recovery 

 

Read our bushfire inquiry submissions: www.ap4ca.org/bushfires

 

See also: Preparing for catastrophic fire seasons

If I have no hope for the planet, why am I so determined to have this baby?

I wonder if my child will ever have the innocence I had two months ago, of not having to think about whether the air will kill you

Sitting, nauseous with morning sickness, on a park bench in the bright heat of an unusually hot spring day my partner and I watch children march past us, striking from school:
“What’s the point of an education if we have no future,” their signs say.

My heart relocates itself, sinking down somewhere around my ankles. They have 10 more years of habitable planet than the baby I am carrying.

In early summer of the same year, after a miscarriage, I find myself pregnant again in the week that megafires tear through the state. 

There are 70-metre flames producing their own weather systems, driving them further on across the countryside, through the bushland that relies on fire to stimulate new life, on to forests that have never before burnt.

Read Gemma Carey's article in The Guardian

Related: 

Climate change deniers’ new battle front attacked : The Guardian

Climate change is a health emergency, RACGP declares: News GP

..... ‘There is a substantive and compelling body of medical and scientific evidence supporting the position that this is a health emergency,’ she said.

‘In Australia, strong voices are calling for the mitigation of climate impacts on the health of current and future generations, including in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, rural and remote communities.

‘We acknowledge the serious threats posed to the health of children, older Australians and those in rural and remote communities. Climate change disproportionately affects the health of Australians with asthma, respiratory conditions and heart disease. The research demonstrates that women are at higher risk of death from climate change, in particular from climate-change-linked natural disasters.’

Dr Roeske said more deaths from heatwaves can be expected, with young generations likely to have their mental health affected.

Health impacts in Australia are also likely to include more deaths from the spread of infectious disease such as malaria and dengue, with diarrheal illnesses also expected to grow.

‘This is a signal to our members and to our patients and communities that GPs recognise climate change as a health emergency and are ready to respond to the multiple health challenges ahead,’ Dr Roeske said.

‘We believe the Australian Government should recognise and help address the health impacts of climate change.’

Read the original News GP article 

#criminales climáticos de la cárcel  #criminalesclimáticosdelacárcel

#jailclimatecriminals  #gaolclimatecriminals

#buyfromthebush 

Related:
Air pollution is much more harmful than you know: ...

Does climate change make it immoral to have kids? : The Guardian

The decision whether or not to have a child is one of the bigger ones a person will make in life – often the biggest.

I needed some strong convincing from my wife when it came time for us to make it. Most of my reluctance was self-interested: I liked my life well enough, and I didn’t want to change it. My wife talked about feeling a biological imperative, which I had no answer for. Who was I to stand in the way of something like that? I signed on. 

But there is a whole other potential person to consider, too – the new life that you are bringing into the world without asking first.
It’s not really fair. For while the world is a wonderful place, one we humans have made nicer for ourselves with wonderful inventions like books and record players, penicillin and pizza, it’s also a really awful place, one we’ve ravaged with deforestation and smog, nuclear weapons and mountains of pizza delivery boxes and other garbage. 

Read the Guardian article 

See also:

Climate Action: I don’t know jack shit about activism I need guidance

#criminales climáticos de la cárcel

#criminalesclimáticosdelacárcel

#jailclimatecriminals

#gaolclimatecriminals

How the Climate Kids Are Short-Circuiting Right-Wing Media: NYT

Young people like Greta Thunberg are participating in the culture wars while also managing to float above the fray.

The kids aren’t just all right — they’re scrambling the brains of their political enemies.

Last Friday, millions of people, many of them children and teenagers, took to the streets during the Global Climate Strike, a protest inspired by Fridays for Future, the international youth effort started by the 16-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg. The protesters’ call for broad action to combat global warming was powerful, as was the message sent by their numbers: Dynamic, frustrated young people are instilling in the climate movement a new urgency. 

Online, the climate kids’ impact can be measured in a different way — by how they’re short-circuiting the right-wing media ecosystem that’s partly responsible for the spread of climate skepticism. Since Friday’s strike, pro-Trump media and conservative cable news pundits have devoted significant resources to turning the children of the climate movement into Public Enemy No. 1.

Read the NYT article 

Related:

Sanders Vows, If Elected, to Pursue Criminal Charges Against Fossil Fuel CEOs for Knowingly 'Destroying the Planet': Common Deams

 

#jailclimatecriminals  #globalwarming  #climate catastrophe  #suethefossilfools

'It doesn't feel justifiable': The couples not having children because of climate change: SMH

"Morgan and Adam have always wanted children but fears over climate change are making them reconsider.

The committed pair, aged 36 and 35, are part of a growing trend for young couples to abandon plans for a family because of the climate crisis.

Millions of people around the world rallied for climate action over the past two days, including 300,000 in Australia on Friday, ahead of a United Nations climate action summit on Monday."

' "I feel so sad, it's such a hard thing to let go of," says Morgan, who works in logistics. "My conscience says, 'I can't give this child what I've enjoyed, I can't give them the certainty of a future where they can be all that they can be ... or have the things they should have, like breathable air and drinkable water'."'

Read the complete SMH article 

‘You did not act in time’: Greta Thunberg’s full speech to MPs: The Guardian

"Now we probably don’t even have a future any more.

Because that future was sold so that a small number of people could make unimaginable amounts of money. It was stolen from us every time you said that the sky was the limit, and that you only live once.

You lied to us. You gave us false hope. You told us that the future was something to look forward to. And the saddest thing is that most children are not even aware of the fate that awaits us. We will not understand it until it’s too late. And yet we are the lucky ones. Those who will be affected the hardest are already suffering the consequences. But their voices are not heard."

Read The Guardian article

Our leaders are ignoring global warming to the point of criminal negligence. It's unforgivable : The Guardian

"The problem – and it’s an existential threat both profound and perverse – is that those who lead us and have power over our shared destiny are ignoring global warming to the point of criminal negligence. Worse than that, their policies, language, patronal obligations and acts of bad faith are poisoning us, training citizens to accept the prospect of inexorable loss, unstoppable chaos, certain doom. Business as usual is robbing people of hope, white-anting the promise of change. That’s not just delinquent, it’s unforgivable."

"It’s time to make sharp demands of our representatives, time to remove those who refuse to act in our common interest, time to elect people with courage, ingenuity and discipline, people who’ll sacrifice pride, privilege and even perks for the sake of something sacred. Because there’s something bigger at stake here than culture wars and the mediocrity of so-called common-sense. It’s the soil under our feet, the water we drink, the air we breathe."

Read the complete Tim Winton article in The Guardian

Related: 

Climate change: Sir David Attenborough warns of 'catastrophe': BBC

Want to Build a Stronger Climate Movement? Integrate. :NexusMedia

"Dr. Robert Bullard, a professor of urban planning and environmental policy at Texas Southern University in Houston, believes that big green groups need to do more to support environmental justice groups, which treat pollution not as an isolated problem, but as part of a larger constellation of issues that includes poverty, discrimination and political marginalization."

"We saw that in Hurricane Katrina when we didn’t take care of the levees in the lowest-income communities. That’s obvious to many communities on the ground who are facing the ravages of climate right now. For them, it’s not a debate. It’s not theory. It’s real. For workers who work outside, they know it’s getting hotter. They know it’s more difficult to work outside, and they know that if it’s too hot to work, or if it’s raining every day, they can’t do their job, and they’re losing money. It’s not a matter of whether or not climate change is real. They know it’s real."

Read the original Nexus story 

Related: 

The World's Poor are Hurt Not Helped by Fossil Fuel Subsidies

 

#environmentaljustice   #environment   #workers   #climateactivism   #climatejustice   

What do I say to my daughter when she tells me climate change will end the earth in 12 years time?: Medium

My daughter is funny.

She’s intelligent, caring, stubborn. She knows her own mind and is a delight to be around.

But then I would say that, I’m her mum.

But what do I say to her when she sits me down, looks me in the eye and says, “ What’s the point in further education if the world is going to become uninhabitable in 12 years? Am I not better off going out there now and travelling before it’s all gone?”.

Can you imagine being 16, and knowing that the world is going to change, catastrophically, because the adults have royally fucked it up?

Read the article in Medium 

#human driven mass extinction  #children  #youth  #climate catastrophe  #climate despair

See also: 

Earth at 2° hotter will be horrific. Now here’s what 4° will look like. | David Wallace-Wells

 

The Age of Stupid revisited: what's changed on climate change?

Ten years after climate movie The Age of Stupid had its green-carpet, solar-powered premiere, we follow its director as she revisits people and places from the film and asks: are we still heading for the catastrophic future it depicted? 



Subscribe to The Guardian on YouTube ► http://is.gd/subscribeguardian


#climate catastrophe #2.0 degrees  #1.5 degrees  #carbon emissions  #youth  #children

Follow:  https://www.facebook.com/We-want-climate-action-now-2163414630643775/?modal=admin_todo_tour

Students Strike for Climate Action in Regional NSW

Students in Bellingen, NSW

"School strikes were held across Australia today, 15 March 2019, but it was the students, not the teachers, leading the charge. The strikes were held to demand more meaningful climate action from the government; something the organising students believe to be truly lacking." Student Edge

Bellingen Students

Bellingen student strike for climate action

Bellingen Student Strike for Climate Action in park

Adults supporting student strike for climate action

Grey Power supporting the student strike

Be careful who you vote for in the NSW state election

Climate change strikes across Australia see student protesters defy calls to stay in school: ABC NEWS

#climateaction #climatechange #climatecatastrophe #youth #students #globalheating

Students Marching in Coffs Harbour

March preparations in Kempsey

Does Climate Change Mean I Can’t Have Kids?

child

"Like a growing number of potential parents, I’m questioning the ethics of bringing children into a warming world."

 "Future children. The thought of them is why — when my mother made the comment about my grandfather — my satisfaction was tinged with sadness and worry.

This year, I’ve begun to question if I can have children.

I don’t mean “can” in the biological sense, but in the ethical

Climate Change and Childbearing

sense. I don’t know if I can have children in a world rapidly approaching unlivable temperatures, rising seas, and mass extinctions."

Read the Medium article

See also: New Report Warns Geoengineering the Climate Is a '... 

One person’s recycling won’t stop climate change in itself. We must act collectively: The Guardian

"It is liberalism’s most dangerous lie that an individual’s action can solve problems of this scale."

"It’s not surprising that in response to a problem this huge, this existential, people seek out something they can do, from using a keep cup to being fastidious with the recycling. It makes us feel better, it gives us something tangible to do, it stops us from despairing. But we need to admit that even if every plastic bottle and tin can ever produced was recycled, we’d still be on track for catastrophic climate change. No matter how many plastic straws are declined or ocean plastic turned into shoes, every indication points to our children never knowing coral reefs, the Arctic melting and the seas rising."
 
So what should we be doing?"


Read more:

One person’s recycling won’t stop climate change in itself. We must act collectively | Emily Mulligan

 

#climateaction   #plastic #Adani  #coalmining  # coralbleaching  #coralreefs 

Video: Climate Scientists Reveal Their Fears For The Future

ABC News (Australia)

Climate scientists rarely speak publicly about their personal views. But in the wake of some extreme weather events in Australia, the specialists who make predictions about our climate reveal they're experiencing sometimes deep anxieties. 

Published on Jun 27, 2017

Climate scientists rarely speak publicly about their personal views. But in the wake of some extreme weather events in Australia, the specialists who make predictions about our climate reveal they're experiencing sometimes deep anxieties.

The Guardian: Climate change is the biggest threat to our futures, not striking from school

"We are walking out for a day to send the Australian government a message: you can no longer pretend we are not here

"This month, hundreds of children are going on strike from school to demand urgent action on climate change. From rural Victoria to Townsville, we are walking out of school for a day or more to tell our politicians to listen to us and protect our futures."


Read The Guardian article

Students strike for climate change protests, defying calls to stay in school

 

Australian Students Stage School Strikes Over Climate Change Inaction

 

Protest in Melbourne - From NY Times

The Pen: Australian school students are going on strike to speak out against climate threat

Photo from the Midland Express

"Hundreds of school students around the country are expected to take part in a strike on 28,29 and 30 November.
A prominent environment organisation, the Australian Youth Climate Coalition, is encouraging participation.
  
This is now becoming a nationwide movement,  as more young people around Australia get involved."

"They are deeply concerned about global warming, and what they see as the failure of politicians to date, to do enough about it. They want urgent action about what they say is a climate emergency."

Read full article

Children Face Unique Health Risks Due To Climate Change: by Climate Reality

The medical profession has sounded the alarm on the potential health risks of climate change. And one demographic in particularly is vulnerable to the threats arising from a warming planet. Climate change disproportionately affects children. A recent paper in the  Pediatrics journal estimates that children will bear 88% of the burden of climate-related disease.

When the world gets warmer, the results impact real people’s lives. It’s a truth that too often gets lost amid data points and science jargon, late-breaking news, and heated political handwringing. But we must not let it.

Real people just like you (and us!) are suffering right now because of our changing climate. And some of us are unfairly impacted more than others.

Those with modest incomes. The elderly. And worst of all, children.

Read the original article