Why we need political action to rein in the oil, coal and gas companies | video explainer: The Guardian

The Guardian reveals the 20 fossil fuel companies whose relentless exploitation of the world’s oil, gas and coal reserves can be directly linked to more than one-third of all greenhouse gas emissions in the modern era. Global environment editor, Jonathan Watts, explains how they have continued to expand their operations despite being aware of the industry’s devastating impact on the planet.

The Guardian ► http://www.youtube.com/theguardian

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Melbourne: predicted flooding with a conservative sea level rise of only 1.5m

Fracking Firms Fail, Rewarding Executives and Raising Climate Fears: NYT

Oil and gas companies are hurtling toward bankruptcy, raising fears that wells will be left leaking planet-warming pollutants, with cleanup costs left to taxpayers.

An infrared image last year of an MDC Energy well pad leaking methane (which is invisible to the naked eye). This month, the site has continued to leak gases, government violations show. Credit...Jonah M. Kessel/The New York Times

The day the debt-ridden Texas oil producer MDC Energy filed for bankruptcy eight months ago, a tank at one of its wells was furiously leaking methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. As of last week, dangerous, invisible gases were still spewing into the air.

Read the NYT article

By Hiroko Tabuchi

• Published July 12, 2020Updated July 14, 2020
• #criminalesclimáticosdelacárcel, #jailclimatecriminals, #fracking, #methane gas, #oil companies,

Climate Explained: What the World Was Like the Last Time Carbon Dioxide Levels Were at 400ppm: EW

climate change

What was the climate and sea level like at times in Earth’s history when carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was at 400ppm? 

 

The last time global carbon dioxide levels were consistently at or above 400 parts per million (ppm) was around four million years ago during a geological period known as the Pliocene Era (between 5.3 million and 2.6 million years ago). The world was about 3℃ warmer and sea levels were higher than today.


We know how much carbon dioxide the atmosphere contained in the past by studying ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica. As compacted snow gradually changes to ice, it traps air in bubbles that contain samples of the atmosphere at the time. We can sample ice cores to reconstruct past concentrations of carbon dioxide, but this record only takes us back about a million years.


Beyond a million years, we don't have any direct measurements of the composition of ancient atmospheres, but we can use several methods to estimate past levels of carbon dioxide. One method uses the relationship between plant pores, known as stomata, that regulate gas exchange in and out of the plant. The density of these stomata is related to atmospheric carbon dioxide, and fossil plants are a good indicator of concentrations in the past.


Another technique is to examine sediment cores from the ocean floor. The sediments build up year after year as the bodies and shells of dead plankton and other organisms rain down on the seafloor. We can use isotopes (chemically identical atoms that differ only in atomic weight) of boron taken from the shells of the dead plankton to reconstruct changes in the acidity of seawater. From this we can work out the level of carbon dioxide in the ocean.
The data from four-million-year-old sediments suggest that carbon dioxide was at 400ppm back then.

Sea Levels and Changes in Antarctica 

 

During colder periods in Earth's history, ice caps and glaciers grow and sea levels drop. In the recent geological past, during the most recent ice age about 20,000 years ago, sea levels were at least 120 meters lower than they are today.


Sea-level changes are calculated from changes in isotopes of oxygen in the shells of marine organisms. For the Pliocene Era, research shows the sea-level change between cooler and warmer periods was around 30-40 meters and sea level was higher than today. Also during the Pliocene, we know the West Antarctic Ice Sheet was significantly smaller and global average temperatures were about 3℃ warmer than today. Summer temperatures in high northern latitudes were up to 14℃ warmer.


This may seem like a lot but modern observations show strong polar amplification of warming: a 1℃ increase at the equator may raise temperatures at the poles by 6-7℃. It is one of the reasons why Arctic sea ice is disappearing.

Impacts in New Zealand and Australia  

 

Read the complete EW article

Melbourne: predicted flooding with a conservative sea level rise of only 1.5m

Melbourne: predicted flooding 1.5m

 • We are looking more and more unlikely to prevent global heating.

• Scientists are predicting the melting of the ice covering Greenland with a subsequent sea level rise of 7m.

• This rise does not factor in sea rise from the melting of Antarctica and other ice.

Original article by J.Vernon of wewantclimateactionnowblogspot.com.au

Melbourne: predicted flooding 1.5m

• Already many properties are likely to flood when a high tide is combined with high local rainfall. What were 'hundred year' rainfall events are now 'ten year' events.

•  Victorian state planning policy seems to underestimate likely sea level rise and doesn't seem to look beyond 2100, however, infrastructure will be expected to survive well beyond 2100.

"Consistent with state planning policy to ‘plan for possible sea level rise of 0.8 metres by 2100, and allow for the combined effects of tides, storm surges, coastal processes ...’, these guidelines apply to areas that will be affected by tidal inundation within the Port Phillip and Westernport region."  Melbourne Water Planning for Sea Level Rise 2017

Planning for Sea Level Rise Melbourne Water

 

Possible flooding of 7m

• The frequency of high rainfall events will increase with global heating and more and more severe hurricanes are predicted because of warmer seas.

• Low coastal areas will be subjected to severe storm surges.

• Would you buy a property likely to be inundated in twenty years, fifty years, a hundred years? Many wouldn't. Even the perception of possible inundation will greatly affect property values.

• When certain properties are in less demand their value falls. It becomes more and more difficult to ensure properties at risk of tidal surges and flooding.

• Would you buy a property with a value likely to fall?

•  The view of Melbourne above shows areas likely to be inundated by a 7m sea level rise.

• Property above a 10m rise will become highly sought after and will greatly rise in value.

Learn more about how sea rise inundation will affect Australian property.

Click here to go to Coastal Risk Australia site


Related:

Port Macquarie after a 7m sea level rise. Insurance risks affect property values now.

Related: 'Retreat' Is Not An Option As A California Beach Town Plans For Rising Seas: NPR 

#inundation  #sea rise  #searise  #climatecrisis  #climatechange  #ice  #melting ice 
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Report: Global Climate Lawsuits Against Governments and Polluters on the Rise: DeSmog

Climate Crisis = Human Rights Crisis

Climate litigation is not going away any time soon.

Lawsuits demanding accountability and action on the existential threat of climate change continue to take hold across the world with some significant new developments and new cases emerging over the past year, according to a new report on trends in global climate change litigation.

That report, published July 3 by the London School of Economics’ Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, provides an overview of climate change lawsuits around the world including key developments between May 2019 and May 2020. Grantham Research Institute maintains a database of global climate change lawsuits and in recent years has issued annual reports on trends in climate litigation.

Over the past three decades climate change lawsuits have spread across six continents with over 1,500 cases identified in 37 countries, according to the latest report. Most of these cases are in the U.S., though increasingly cases are emerging outside the U.S. including 26 new cases in the last year alone. The Global South (Asia, Africa and Latin America) has seen 37 cases of climate litigation to date.

While a majority of climate-related lawsuits are routine cases such as regulatory proceedings or challenges to fossil fuel permitting, cases are also being brought more strategically as a way to hold governments and companies accountable for damaging climate impacts. This kind of litigation against national governments and against fossil fuel companies has taken off in recent years.

New study out today on climate litigation across the world – shows humans rights are increasingly being used to support cases & that plaintiffs are using new strategies to bring lawsuits against major fossil fuel companies https://t.co/1tD7dVKlJ6 pic.twitter.com/7FO7DK4DiC

— Grantham LSE (@GRI_LSE) July 3, 2020

Read the complete DeSmog article

Read time: 6 mins

By Dana Drugmand • Tuesday, July 7, 2020 - 11:03

Main Image: Climate litigation increasingly focuses on human rights violations stemming from the climate crisis. Credit: Dana Drugmand

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‘Nature doesn’t trust us any more’: Arctic heatwave stokes permafrost thaw: Climate Home News

Published on 07/07/2020, 9:38am
 

Teriberka, a village in the Russian Arctic (Pic: Ninara/Flickr)

By Alister Doyle

Record permafrost temperatures are transforming the Arctic, especially for indigenous peoples, whose hunting livelihoods are at risk as ground melts 

 

Frozen ground in the Arctic is thawing, harming indigenous people’s hunting livelihoods and destabilising buildings and roads across the rapidly warming region.

Air temperatures hit 38C in Russia on 20 June in the Russian town of Verkhoyansk in Siberia, claimed as a heat record in the Arctic, which is warming twice as fast as the global average.

The previous day, the land surface temperature hit an extraordinary 45C at several locations in the Arctic Circle, according to European satellite data.

Often overlooked compared to air temperature records, temperatures in the ground are trending ever higher across the Arctic, according to the UN panel of climate scientists.

Permafrost, permanently frozen ground often just below the surface which melts to mud in summer, covers about a quarter of the land in the northern hemisphere. And shrinking permafrost is causing wrenching long-term changes to nature.

“As one of our elders says: ‘Nature doesn’t trust us any more’,” said Vyacheslav Shadrin, chair of the Yukaghir Council of Elders, of the Republic of Sakha-Yakutia in the Russian far east, about 600 km from Verkhoyansk. The Yukaghir total about 1,500 people.

“We can’t predict what will happen tomorrow. This is maybe the main challenge. All our lives are based on traditional knowledge. We used to know that tomorrow we catch fish or have our reindeer. Now we can’t say,” he told Climate Home News. Rivers that were reliable roads for months in winter can now be treacherous.

A bison horn revealed by melting permafrost in Siberia (Pic: Johanna Anjar)

Until a few decades ago, he said that many Yukaghir did not dig up ancient mammoth bones or tusks, fearing that disturbing bones entombed in the frozen soil could release malevolent spirits from an underworld below.

Today, however, the thaw of permafrost means such finds are more common – and valuable to collectors – and many Yukaghir have abandoned the belief.

“Traditionally the most forbidden things are connected to the mammoth, the spirit of the underworld. Now we use mammoth bones as a profit,” he said.

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Around the Arctic, the loss of white snow and ice that reflects sunlight back to space reveals darker soil and water, that absorb ever more heat and accelerates the thaw.

At the time of publication, the extent of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean was tracking close to 2012 levels, the minimum on records dating back to 1979, NSIDC data show. On land, snow and ice cover is also among the lowest for the time of year, according to Rutgers University, and Greenland’s melt so far this year is also rapid, adding to sea level rise.

The World Meteorological Organization said it is checking last month’s heat record in Siberia. Daily records can be natural freaks – Fort Yukon on the Arctic circle in Alaska hit 37.7C as long ago as 1915, before climate change was a worry.

The temperature spike in Siberia was “an iconic threshold that indicates the warming we’re seeing over the long term” both in the air and the soil, said Walt Meier, senior research scientist at the US National Snow and Ice Data Center.

“The Arctic is warming about twice as fast as the rest of the globe and the Siberian region, even in the Arctic, is warming rapidly,” he told CHN. “We’re seeing buildings cracking, roads buckling around the Arctic.”

Greenpeace takes Arctic oil lawsuit to Norway’s supreme court

The thaw of permafrost may have caused the collapse of a fuel tank that spilled 21,000 tonnes of diesel into rivers and subsoil near the city of Norilsk on May 29. Elsewhere, loss of permafrost has been blamed for causing more frequent avalanches.

Read the complete Climate Home News article 

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permafrost, Russia, Arctic, #cambio-climatico, #climateaction, #climatecriminals, #jailclimatecriminals, #climateemergency, #climatecrisis, 

US 2020 election: Louisiana governor vetoes bill denying free speech and pushing environmental racism: A greener life, a greener world

Environmental Pollution

The US is facing an intense battle against the COVID-19 outbreak, in which more than 100,000 US citizens have lost their lives. The majority of fatalities have occurred with people of colour communities. This, combined with the illegal police killing of George Floyd, an African American man effectively suffocated during his arrest, has fuelled widespread anti-racist and anti-police-brutality protests across the country and beyond. 

Adding fuel to the fire, a controversial bill called the HB 197,  which proposed increasing penalties imposed on peaceful environmental protestors, was introduced in the Louisiana House of Representatives by a Republican, Jerome Zeringue, and subsequently approved. However, Democratic Governor John Bel Edwards subsequently used his veto power and denied the bill becoming law. 

Activists had argued that the bill would make it harder for local activists to protest against ‘corporate polluters’ and that, the bill in effect, constituted ‘environmental racism’ as people of colour were disproportionately paying the price for fossil fuels pollution in Louisiana, in particular the region nicknamed ‘Cancer Alley’ – a stretch along the Mississippi River that houses numerous industrial plants, which is experiencing far higher than average incidents of cancer. The now-defeated bill would have landed harsh penalties on any protesting ‘trespassers’ on any factory infrastructure.
A petition protesting the bill reads: ‘This bill would silence free speech by imposing harsh prison sentences for merely being present at a so-called “critical infrastructure” facility. If this bill were to become law, it could criminalize people for protesting environmental injustices and racism – including the residents of Louisiana’s so-called “Cancer Alley” who have been protesting the deadly and devastating impact of corporate polluters.’

Several other US states have signed similar bills into law, criminalising environmental protests, effectively denying the public to chance to speak out and protest projects like oil and gas pipelines. It is believed that the right-wing climate-denying think tank ALEC, which defends polluting industries, is behind these laws and bills and has been lobbying intensely to get them approved. 

By Anders Lorenzen

Read the complete A greener life, a greener world article