It's been over 30 years since the first major UN report on the dangers of climate change. Many scientists knew what was happening even before then, and had warned governments and corporations about the risks of continuing with Business As Usual.

And what was the response?

Not only was there no serious attempt to reduce greenhouse gas emissions — "No, sorry, we can't do that" — instead our so-called leaders doubled down, greatly *increasing* their use of fossil fuels!
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Global greenhouse gas emissions have reached a record high amid an unparalleled acceleration in global warming, according to a new study.

From 2013 to 2022, “human-induced warming has been increasing at an unprecedented rate of more than 0.2 degrees Celsius per decade,” fifty top scientists warned on Thursday in a sweeping climate science update.

The findings would appear to close the door on capping global warming under the 2015 Paris Agreement’s ambitious 1.5C target, long identified as a guard rail for a relatively climate-safe world, albeit one still roiled by severe impacts.
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FULL STORY -- https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/6/8/planet-warming-at-unprecedented-rate-study-finds

SEE ALSO -- https://www.dw.com/en/global-warming-surged-in-past-decade-research-says/a-65864100

#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateEmergency #CO2 #Emissions #BusinessAsUsual

Are we, the larger society around us, ready to wake up? Are we ready now to take action and stop what is happening?

An opinion piece published at The Hill asks these questions...
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How dire a warning must there be for us to do something about global climate change? Is there anything scientists can say or the weather can do to persuade us to stop dumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere?

Perhaps not.

After issuing five detailed “synthesis” reports about climate change since 1988 — each more certain and urgent than the last — the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has just issued its sixth report. It minces no words. Our final chance to avoid a global catastrophe is to make massive cuts in fossil-fuel emissions within 12 years.

Yet, energy-related emissions of carbon dioxide set a record last year. Countries still provide fossil fuels with trillions of dollars annually in direct and indirect subsidies. The world’s 60 biggest banks provided $4.6 trillion in fossil fuel financing, including $742 billion in 2021, since nations agreed to the Paris climate accord in 2015. Four of the biggest oil companies had $1 trillion in sales and record profits last year. And 20 of the biggest oil companies plan to spend nearly $1 trillion to develop new oil and gas fields by the end of 2030. Even President Biden, fully aware of the climate crisis, has given the go-ahead to an $8 billion oil project in Alaska.

In other words, the global oil and gas industry has never been better, while the world has never been closer to simultaneous environmental, economic and humanitarian disasters expected to displace 1.2 billion of the world’s people by 2050 and have violent impacts that will last thousands of years.

A year ago, The Guardian reported on climate-related “doomerism” — even resulting in suicide in some cases.

“Studies have shown that while alarm over worsening wildfires, droughts, flooding, and societal unrest is on the rise, not many of us talk about climate angst with others to avoid political arguments or simply avoid bringing down the mood. Those who do speak out are often younger activists – research has shown that half of people between 16 and 25 years old believe the Earth may be doomed, while three-quarters feel anxiety when they think or hear about climate change. Some speak openly of not wanting to bring children into a hotter, harsher world,” according to The Guardian.

“But the worst part is that everyone’s acting normal — it’s like we are zombies,” clinical psychologist turned climate activist Margaret Klein Salamon told The Guardian. “The sense of helplessness and hopelessness is holding back conversations and political action.”

So, will the masses wake up and force industry and governments to take the radical steps necessary at this late date?

In a brilliant essay published by the Washington Post, author and historian Rebecca Solnit suggests that since wealth accumulation and retention seem to rule, we should redefine what wealth is. While fossil fuels make a few people financially wealthy, they impoverish the rest of us in ways not measured by goods and money.

“Even the affluent live in a world where confidence in the future, and in the society and institutions around us, is fading,” Solnit points out, “and where a sense of security, social connectedness, mental and physical health, and other measures of well-being are often dismal. This is the world we live in with fossil fuel — the burning of which makes us poorer in many ways.”
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SOLNIT ESSAY -- https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/03/15/rebecca-solnit-climate-change-wealth-abundance/

HILL OPINION PIECE -- https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/3912939-fossil-fuels-are-impoverishing-us/

#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateAction #ClimateEmergency #CO2 #Emissions #Anticapitalism

Here's an article explaining "Why Only Degrowth Will Save The World."

From the introduction...
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Let’s be clear. It isn’t ‘climate change’ that’s the problem. It’s a multitude of crises stemming from the fact that our current capitalist economy, predicated on endless accumulation and extraction, has tipped nature out of balance. And if we don’t change this system, we are screwed.
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They suggest following these basic principles:

✦ Never extract more than ecosystems can regenerate.
✦ Never waste or pollute more than ecosystems can safely absorb.

And then they propose a plan of action...
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1. End planned obsolescence — Guzzling materials and energy only for them to be useless in a few years, all in the name of the growth imperative, is madness. Policy options include extended warranties on products and the right to repair products. Take the Fairphone, for example.

2. Cut advertising — Advertising, especially when tied to social media giants like Google and Facebook, is mass manipulation on an unprecedented scale. Hickel calls it an “assault on our consciousness — the colonisation of not only our public spaces but our minds, to make us desire things we don’t need”. Policy options include quotas on ad expenditure, legislation, banning ads in public spaces, and social policies to reduce inequality.

3. Move from ownership to usership — especially for equipment that is necessary but rarely used. Take lawnmowers, for example, or cars. Common Asset trusts, anyone?

4. End food waste — Around 50% of all the food produced in the world, about 2 billion tonnes, is wasted every year. This is an insane ecological cost, in terms of energy, land, water, and emissions. Ending this could cut the scale of damage caused by the agricultural industry in half.

5. Scale down ecologically destructive industries — such as the fossil fuel industry (obviously), the beef industry, the arms industry, the commercial airline industry, etc.
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I like the sound of this. How about you?

FULL ARTICLE -- https://medium.com/the-new-climate/why-only-degrowth-will-save-the-world-2a4b1bf35011

Note that this is all based on work by Jason Hickel (@jasonhickel), especially as contained in his book, Less is More.

GET THE BOOK -- https://www.jasonhickel.org/less-is-more

#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateEmergency #Capitalism #BusinessAsUsual #Degrowth

A message from Greta Thunberg (@gretathunberg)...
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School strike, week 251.

Today, I graduate from school, which means I’ll no longer be able to school strike for the climate. This is then the last school strike for me, so I guess I have to write something on this day.

When I started striking in 2018 I could never have expected that it would lead to anything. After striking every day for three weeks, we were a small group of children who decided to continue doing this every Friday. And we did, which is how Fridays For Future was formed.

Some more people joined, and quite suddenly this was a global movement growing every day. During 2019, millions of youth striked from school for the climate, flooding the streets in over 180 countries. When the pandemic started, we had to find new ways to protest.

With time, we started to get back on the streets again. We’re still here, and we aren’t planning on going anywhere. Much has changed since we started, and yet we have much further to go.

We are still moving in the wrong direction, where those in power are allowed to sacrifice marginalised and affected people and the planet in the name of greed, profit and economic growth. They continue to destabilise the biosphere and our life supporting systems. We’re rapidly approaching potential nonlinear ecological and climatic tipping points beyond our control.

And in so many parts of the world, we are even speeding up the process. There are probably many of us who graduate who now wonder what kind of future it is that we are stepping into, even though we did not cause this crisis.

We who can speak up have a duty to do so. In order to change everything, we need everyone. I’ll continue to protest on Fridays, even though it’s not technically “school striking”. We simply have no other option than to do everything we possibly can. The fight has only just begun.
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🤗 💚

#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateEmergency #ClimateAction #ClimateJustice

Why are so many climate scientists so scared and so angry?

Maybe it's because they know better than most of us how bad our situation today truly is, and how horribly we've been betrayed by our so-called leaders.

Here's an excerpt from an excellent piece on this subject by Alan Urban...
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Even if the planet stopped getting warmer right now, we would still be in big trouble. The ice caps would keep melting and sea levels would keep rising.

Look at what’s happening at a mere 1.2°C of warming. We’re already seeing some of the worst heat waves in human history, not to mention record-breaking floods, droughts, wildfires, and water shortages.

But of course, warming isn’t going to stop at 1.2°C. Because of the heat we’ve already trapped in the atmosphere, and because we continue to emit huge amounts of greenhouse gases every year, the climate is warming exponentially.

All of these climate-related crises are stretching farms to the limit, yet this is just the beginning. As crop yields decline and the population grows, we will see food insecurity get worse and worse until we’re in a global famine.

And that right there is why climate scientists are scared. They understand that human civilization was born during the Holocene, when global temperatures were very stable and stayed within a range of about 1°C.

As we push the planet out of that range and raise the temperature about 50 times faster than would occur naturally, it will become harder and harder to produce enough food to feed everyone, and this will lead to social instability, political upheaval, the worst migration crisis ever, and wars over resources.

Disasters that weren’t supposed to happen until we reached 1.5°C are happening now, so we can only imagine what will happen when we hit 2° or 3°C.

This is why top scientists from around the world are warning us that we face a ghastly future filled with untold suffering. They’ve been telling us over and over, year after year, summit after summit, that we have to stop burning fossil fuels as quickly as possible. But as you can see [below], the world keeps ignoring them.
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FULL ARTICLE -- https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fmedium.com%2F%40CollapseSurvival%2Ffaster-than-expected-why-climate-scientists-are-so-scared-985db6579f2e

#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateEmergency #CO2 #Emissions #Capitalism

A group of 18 European Parliament Members have issued a statement officially calling for #Degrowth.

Here is part of what they wrote...
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We believe that the current economic model, based on endless growth, has reached its limits.

Firstly, continuous economic growth, especially based on the consumption of fossil fuels, is leading to catastrophic global warming.

Secondly, the infinite pursuit of growth relies on the depletion of natural resources, the destruction of biodiversity, and the accumulation of waste and pollution. This also poses risks to our health, our economies, and our societies writ large.

Thirdly, the current economic model is contributing to social inequality and exclusion. The emphasis on economic growth has not translated into equal distribution of wealth or opportunities. Instead, it has resulted in a concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few leaving many behind.

Fourthly, the current economic model is inherently unstable and prone to crises, as seen, for example, during the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. The pursuit of growth at all costs has created a global economic system that is fragile and vulnerable to shocks.

We need an economic system that prioritises human well-being and ecological sustainability over GDP growth, one that recognises that infinite growth on a finite planet is impossible.

We also believe we need to find new ways of organising our economies without relying on the continuous exploitation of resources and the constant increase in production and consumption.

We call for more pluralism in economic thinking within EU institutions and for its alignment with the scientific evidence of climate, ecological, and social sciences.

We call for economic models and other decision-support tools to be more diverse, more comprehensive, and more readable for citizens.

We call for decision-making processes to be aligned with our common policy objectives rather than on the basis of the variation of GDP figures.
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FULL STATEMENT -- https://www.euronews.com/2023/05/10/moving-beyond-growth-is-not-only-desirable-it-is-essential

Names of those who signed on as co-authors: Philippe Lamberts (BE), Bas Eickhout (NL), Ville Niinisto (FI), Manuela Ripa (DE), Marie Toussaint (FR), Ernest Urtasun (ES), Kim Van Sparrentak (NL) — Greens/EFA; Manon Aubry (FR), Petros Kokkalis (EL), Marisa Matias (PT), Helmut Scholz (DE) — The Left (GUE/NGL); Pascal Durand (FR), Aurore Lalucq (FR), Pierre Larrouturou (FR) — Socialists & Democrats (S&D); Sirpa Pietikainen (FI), Maria Walsh (IE) — European People’s Party (EPP); Katalin CSEH (HU) — Renew Europe (RE); and Dino GIARRUSSO (IT) — Non-attached (NI).

#Europe #EU #Politics #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #Biodiversity #Pollution #Inequality