Shell is not a green saviour. It’s a planetary death machine : The Guardian

Is the Shell oil company greenwashing?

"Don’t buy the greenwash. Shell’s initiatives, which have won over many conservation groups, are dwarfed by its investment in oil and gas"

"Shell’s “cash engines”, according to its annual report, are oil and gas. There is no sign that it plans to turn the engines off. Its “growth priorities” are chemical production and deep water oil extraction. It does list low-carbon energy among its “emerging opportunities” in future decades, but says it will develop them alongside fracking and liquefied fossil gas technologies. In the future, the company says, it will “sell more natural gas”. But as an analysis by Oil Change International explains, “there is no room for new fossil fuel development – gas included – within the Paris agreement goals”. Even existing gas and oil extraction is enough to push us past 1.5C of global heating. Shell is a company committed for the long term to fossil fuel production – which is another way of saying ecocide."

by George Monbiot

Read The Guardian article 


See also:

Meet the Money Behind The Climate Denial Movement: Smithsonian

UCSF Adds Fossil Fuels To Industry Documents Library: DESMOG

"Today, UCSF Library launched a new Fossil Fuel Industry Documents Archive featuring over 1,000 internal documents from the fossil fuel industry illustrating strategies to cast doubt on climate science and delay policy action. The documents were collected over two decades by the Climate Investigations Center.

UC San Francisco's Industry Documents Library (IDL) is a unique resource.  It gathers and organizes internal documents from companies that privatize profits and socialize costs, risks or damage to health or environment.

‘Climate apartheid’: Rich people to buy their way out of environmental crisis while poor suffer, warns UN: Independent

Millions forced to choose between starvation and migration under 'best-case' scenario of 1.5C of warming by 2100

Wealthy communities will be able to buy their way out of the unfolding climate crisis while the poorest will suffer most, a UN report has found.

Even under the unrealistic "best-case" scenario of 1.5C of warming by 2100, many millions of people will have to choose between starvation and migration, Philip Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights warned.

He predicted a split between those able to mitigate the worst effects of the warming planet and those with no means to avoid it, calling it a "climate apartheid". 

And he said the fallout from our rapidly warming climate would have dire implications for human rights and democracy.

"What was once considered catastrophic warming now seems like a best-case scenario," Mr Alston said.

Read complete Independent article

 

Climate change and sea-level rise in the Australian region

Characteristics of Australia’s future climate. Source: BoM, State of the Climate 2014, published by CSIRO and BoM.

"Future climate change over Australia will track global trends, causing warmer temperatures, changes to rainfall regimes, rising sea levels and more acidic ocean waters.

04 September 2018

At a glance

• Under a high greenhouse gas concentration scenario (RCP8.5), temperatures in Australia will increase by between 2.8 and 5.1°C by 2090 compared to 1986-2005.

• Rainfall trends are more uncertain, however rainfall amounts are expected to decrease over southern Australia, accompanied by more frequent and more severe droughts. 
• Global sea levels are expected to increase by 45 to 82 cm by 2090 for the high concentration scenario.  These levels may be higher if a tipping point is reached which commits one or more land-based ice sheets to irreversible melting. Projected increases around Australia are very similar.
• Extreme high sea-level events will occur more frequently in future, increasing the risks of flooding and erosion in coastal areas.
• In line with global trends, seawaters around Australia are becoming more acidic, as the oceans absorb some of the CO₂ released by human activities."

Go to CoastAdapt site 

Related:

Sea Level Rise Can No Longer Be Stopped, What Next? - with John Englander

Climate Adaptation Isn’t Surrender. It’s Survival: WIRED

"Here’s an unpopular opinion in some circles: We are going to have to use technology to adapt to the worst effects of climate change." ........

..... "Those who invest in climate adaptation technology with the dream of scaling companies for massive returns will have to be wary that they don’t worsen the social and political problems that underlie so much of the climate conversation already: The rich spew pollution, the poor are suffering as a result, and a fancy new tech solution might only be available to the rich polluters anyway.

But that doesn’t mean tech can’t make a huge difference, or that adaptation shouldn’t be done. The change is here, the need is real, and the solutions can come from any entrepreneur, any investor, any scientists or would-be startup CEO. It’s time for tech to get in the game. There’s no more time to waste."

Read the WIRED article 

Related:

Their lands are becoming deserts but here is some hope.

Rising sea, erosion to wreak havoc in low-lying suburbs: The Age

Flooding in Melbourne

"Rising seas are threatening to encroach on low-lying parts of Melbourne within 20 years, causing flooding and erosion in suburbs including St Kilda, Point Cook, Mordialloc, Seaford and Frankston.

Other places at risk include areas around Queenscliff and Barwon Heads on the Bellarine Peninsula; the south-west Victorian towns of Port Fairy and Portland; and Tooradin, Lang Lang and Seaspray in the state's south-east.


Read the complete The Age article.

Related:

Sea Level Rise Can No Longer Be Stopped, What Next? - with John Englander

Experts Raise Alarm Over Climate Change Threat to Cultural Heritage: The Youth Times

"Climate change is a threat to our future, but also to our heritage, natural and cultural"

 

"Athens - Climate change could wreak "irreversible damage" on the world's most precious ancient monuments and other cultural sites, experts warned Saturday as they pushed for UN protection for major global sites.

Academics and policy makers gathered in Athens for a meeting on the threats to world heritage called for an array of tools to predict, measure and counter the effects of climate change.

They are campaigning to have the issue included on the agenda at the UN Summit for Climate Change in New York in September."

Read the complete The Youth Times article 

Related: 

Sea Level Rise Can No Longer Be Stopped, What Next? - with John Englander