Amazon Deforestation Rate Hits 3 Football Fields Per Minute, Data Confirms

The Amazon rainforest in Brazil is being clear cut so rapidly — a rate of three football fields per minute — that it is approaching a "tipping point" from which it will not recover, according to the Guardian. 

The Amazon rainforest is disappearing at
the rate of three football fields a minute.

As trees are lost, researchers said there is a risk that large areas could transition from rainforest to savannah as they lose the ability to make their own rainfall from evaporation and from plants giving off water vapor, according to Newsweek. 

A transition on that scale could have significant implications for global warming since the rainforest absorbs vast amounts of atmospheric carbon. Recent research has shown the potential for massive tree plantings to remove excess carbon from the atmosphere.

Read the story from EcoWatch by Jordan Davidson - “Amazon Deforestation Rate Hits 3 Football Fields Per Minute, Data Confirms.”

Over 9.4 million people employed in the renewable energy sector

More than 9.4 million people across the world are now employed in the renewable energy sector, according to a recent whitepaper published by Allen & York, a leading technical recruitment consultancy. 

Millions are employed in the renewable energy sector.

The report, “Recruitment and career opportunities within the UK, European and global renewable and clean energy markets”, details that over 9.4 million people now work in renewable energy, including 2.8 million in solar photovoltaics (PV) and 1 million in the wind sector.

According to the data, China, Brazil, the U.S., India, Japan and Germany ranked highest for the number of renewable energy jobs.

China continues to lead the world in renewable employment, with more than with 3.5 million people employed in the sector. 

Last year, China contributed to more than a third of the global renewable energy capacity.

Read the Climate Action story - “Over 9.4 million people employed in the renewable energy sector.”

We need science, not more hot air

The banners and placards were the first sign this was not your average protest: "science not silence", "yes to evidence-based policy and peer review", "science doesn't care what you believe, it cares about facts". 

Last weekend's protest march in support of science and research saw more than 3000 people in Melbourne supporting thousands more around Australia and tens of thousands in the US and elsewhere including Brazil and Chile. There were plenty of jokes at their own expense, such as battle cries of "nerds rule", but the message at the heart of this action was deadly serious: many in the global scientific community feel that they and their work are under threat.

In Melbourne, two Nobel Prize winners addressed the crowd, each stressing that while the issues at stake were apolitical, there was an urgent need for action to combat the major threats to the global culture of science and robust scientific research.

Professor Peter Doherty, a highly respected immunologist and Australia's eighth Nobel Laureate in science, argued that there had never been a more desperate need for a clear understanding of what is happening with, for example, the atmosphere, oceans and climate. 

Read the Editorial in today’s Melbourne Age - “We need science, not more hot air.”

Global warming worsening Zika virus - speading with alarming speed

The Zika virus, transmitted by the same mosquito as dengue fever, has spread with alarming speed throughout South and Central America – and scientists in Brazil suspect that global warming is exacerbating the problem.

Although the virus, named after the Ugandan forest where it was first identified, usually causes only mild symptoms and often passes undetected, it has been associated with a surge in the number of cases of babies born with microcephaly, which can cause brain damage.

Read the Eco-Business story - “Warming linked to spread of Zika virus.”

Zika virus forces WHO to declare public health emergency

The World Health Organization declared a "public health emergency of international concern" on Monday morning due to the clusters of microcephaly and other neurological abnormalities that may be caused by Zika virus.

This designation, also known as PHEIC, has only been applied to three other illnesses in the past -- most recently to Ebola during the 2014 to 2015 outbreak in West Africa.

The determination is intended to mobilize an international response to combat mosquito-borne Zika virus, which has spread throughout Central and South America and the Caribbean and is suspected to be the cause of a sharp rise in birth defects in Brazil.

Read the Huffington Post story - “WHO Declares Public Health Emergency Around Zika Virus.”

Zika - another symptom of our sick climate

The Zika virus has rapidly gained notoriety in past weeks, and for good reason.

The outbreak, which began in Brazil in May 2015, has subsequently spread to 21 countries and territories and counting. The virus usually just causes mild, non-fatal symptoms in those it infects directly, but the really alarming development is the suspected link between Zika and microcephaly, a birth defect Brazil has noticed increasing in its newborns—more than 4,000 since October.

Read Flannery Keck’s Citizens’ Climate Lobby story - “The Zika virus: One more symptom of a sick climate.”

US to triple renewable energy by 2030

T

he US will triple its renewable energy capacity in less than 15 years. Yes, you read that right. Triple renewables by 2030.

That’s just one of several headline takeaways on a Tuesday of big announcements from Brazil, China, and the US – three of the world’s top greenhouse gas emitters – with major implications for the UN climate talks in Paris later this year.

First, China released its long-awaited commitments for the Paris talks – known as its intended nationally determined contribution (INDC).

Meanwhile, back in DC, US President Barack Obama met with Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff to discuss strategies for fighting climate change, with a statement following announcing a new joint commitment from the two nations.

Read The Climate Reality Project story - “Brazil, China, and the US step up on triple Tuesday”.

The Galilee Basin - is Australia's 'carbon bomb'

G

uardian assistant national editor, James Randerson, tells us about Australia’s “carbon bomb” that is the Galilee Basin.

James Randerson - assistant national
editor with The Guardian.

“The Galilee basin is a so-called global 'carbon bomb.' The 'carbon bombs' are 14 giant proposed fossil fuel projects around the world. The numbers are staggering. If they go ahead, these projects will lead to the emission of 6.3 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide a year by 2020. That is as much as the entire US emits annually.

“Over the coming weeks we will profile four more of these carbon bombs in Canada, China, Brazil, The Arctic.

“Next week, the project moves into a new phase where some of the investigative clout that we've thrown behind it begins to bear fruit.

“Both the Wellcome Trust and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation say they carefully scrutinise the companies they invest in.

“We will take a careful look at the social and environmental record of some of those companies and share the results next week. Watch this space.”

Climate change and the global coffee business clash

I

n the past, companies that dominate the global coffee business have managed their supply risk by diversifying their suppliers.

Now a quarter of production in Brazil, the largest producer of high-quality Arabica coffee, is under direct threat from climate change, and rising temperatures are expected to undermine the commercial viability of Arabica coffee in many of the world’s coffee-growing regions.

In the next two decades, this systemic failure across many regions will require companies to radically change their production models and sourcing relationships.

Yes, the price of your favourite coffee will increase due to climate change, but there is hope that the risks involved will change the entire industry for the better.

Read The Guardian story - “Your morning espresso could be about to get a lot more expensive”.

Pointing to the past is a fallacious and weak argument

Those who deny climate change point, without fail, to the past to substantiate their arguments.

Doing that, they argue, as they point to the past: “This is not new, it’s happened before”.

Yes, it is unquestionably easy to do that and find the equivalent of what is happening now, but that overlooks two important and critical matters.

Years, often decades stood between events of the past and today those same, or similar disruptive happenings are an annual occurrence.

And worsening that, those places disrupted by those climatic events are more closely settled and so have populations vastly exceeding those of the past.

A modern and current example of that is unfolding at San Paulo in Brazil.

The country’s largest city is nearly out of water and, of course, those who deny climate change, can quickly point to history and say “Oh that happened 80 years ago, so that is nothing new.”

Those justifications overlook the simple and critical fact that eight decades ago, San Paulo was home to just 200 000 people, while today some 20 million people live in the city.

A story on Real Clear Science, headed: “Brazil's Largest City Almost Out of Water”, explains what is unfolding in the country’s capital city.

Any 'ism' will do, but not climate change

Those unable to understand or accept climate change invariably connect it to any “ism” that counteracts personal beliefs.

Many aligned with neo-liberalism see the damage humans have caused to earth’s climate as ‘leftism”, “communism” or even “anarchism” and now it is a “bridgehead for imperialism”.

This latest uninformed and distorted claim comes from Brazil’s new Minister for Science, Also Rebelo.

The New York Times reports on this month’s appointment of Mr Rebelo by Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff.

The appointment, according to the New York Times story is causing alarm among climate scientists and environmentalists, as Brazil has been seeking to assert leadership in global climate talks.

Details about Mr Rebelo’s appointment can be found in the story headed: “Climatologists Balk as Brazil Picks Skeptic for Key Post”.

'Exceptional' and 'weird' weather linked to climate change

Tierney Smith.

“Exceptional” and “weird” are terms used to describe opening gambits to the world’s weather in 2014.

Writing on EcoNews, Tierney Smith says in a story headed: “Extreme weather hits hard worldwide” that scientist are now linking unprecedented storms in the UK and droughts in California and Brazil with climate change.

In England, never before seen rainfall has left parts of the nation’s infrastructure in disarray, while across the globe in South America’s largest city, San Paulo, is facing the opposite problem, a distinct lake of water.

The city is facing its worst drought in 50 years and it has just emerged from it hottest January on record.

Brazil - a long way from here, but really right next door

A drought in Brazil seems an unimaginable distance from the reality of Australia.

Brazil

In a geographic sense that is partly true, but considered in relation to the damage we are doing to out atmosphere, it is really right next door.

Considering that, a story in today’s Melbourne Age deserves our attention.

The story, about a serious issue, headed “Drought sparks chaos” begins:

 RIO DE JANEIRO. Severe drought gripping north-eastern Brazil - the worst in a half-century - is taking its toll on more than 1100 towns, even triggering fighting in rural areas.