Climate change solutions bathed in benefits

Advocates for action on climate change see the solutions as being bathed in benefits.

Most everything proposed by those same advocates is about improving life for all and within and beyond that, protecting conditions that ensure earth is habitable for humans.

The Huffington Post says: “Even though the world's population is set to rise to 10 billion by 2050 from 7 billion today, the tool shows it is possible for everyone to eat well, travel further and live in more comfortable homes, without pushing global temperature rise above 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), the UK's Department of Energy and Climate Change said.”

The story headed: “The World Can Live Better And Fight Climate Change, UK Report Says” argues carbon dioxide emissions can be reduced and living conditions for all improved.

Social concerns will imprint climate change urgency

Social concerns are what will imprint the urgency of attending to climate change on the minds of most.

And that urgency is happening in California.

A drought of unprecedented proportions for the U.S. state is now among residents’ biggest concerns.

The Huffington Post reports that 29 per cent of people are most concerned about their jobs, while twenty-six per cent of residents named water and drought as the most important issue facing Californians.

In the story headed: “For Californians, The Drought Is Almost As Big Of A Concern As Their Jobs” the post reported the residents wanted more action on drought preparedness and water security.

Solutions to climate change are fundamentally social and behavioural although practicalities such as a wider and deeper understanding of water will play an equally important role.

Numbers help us understand climate change

Numbers can be used to describe anything, including the extremes of climate change.

And now the Huffington Post has used numbers, 21 or them exactly, to help us see the reality that is climate change.

The story headed: “21 Numbers That Explain Why The Time To Address Climate Change Is Right Now, Or Maybe Yesterday”, lists 21 numbers to help explain one of the most pressing global issues of our time.

Historical significance might soon have more important future consequences

Insects might soon be
standard fare for everyone.

Our penchant for eating meat might have historical significance, but it might have even more important contemporary and future consequences.

Westerners have long based their diet around meat and while our growing physical size of both our bodies and brains has been attributed to meat, it could also be our undoing.

People in the world’s developing countries, which are among the world’s most populous nations, are quickly acquiring a taste for meat and so there is an ever increasing demand for meat on the world market.

Production of meat is environmentally inefficient and worsens the conditions that lead to climate change.

There is, however, and answer and the world’s burgeoning population, which is expected to be 10 or 11 billion by the end of this century, now needs to think seriously about vegetarianism and eating insects.

Just today the Huffington Post has discussed the need for humans to change their diets and consider adding a new form of protein – insects!

The idea is discussed in a story headed:  “Forget The Hamburger; Insects Are Better For You And The Planet”.

U.S. polls tells us to worry about climate change

Australia’s politicians, despite what they might say, are driven by polls.

Here is one, admittedly from the U.S., but it is one they should most definitely be taking notice of – “Americans Are Getting More Worried About Climate Change, According To New Polls”.

The Huffington Post reports that Americans are getting increasingly worried about climate change and its impacts, or at least that is what nation-wide polls reveal.

'Farce' believers not observing world events or the science

Those who describe global warming as a “farce” are obviously not taking any note of what is happening around the world or what the science says.

Writing in a story headed: “The Planet Just Had Its Warmest August On Record” The Huffington Post says the latest readings continue a series of record or near-record breaking months.

Climatologist and climate modeler at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Dr. Gavin Schmidt, told The Post that while the agency's data does indicate that this August was the hottest on record, the difference falls within a few hundredths of a degree compared with previous Augusts.

“Schmidt cautioned against focusing on any one month or year, but instead on the fact that "the long-term trends are toward warming." A very hot August, he said, is just one piece of the data that "point[s] towards the long-term trends," The Post reported.

Mitigation recedes, adaptation now the 'main game'

The time for mitigation is largely past and now it seems that adaptation is now the main game.

Oddly, and interestingly, adaptation has already become the norm, at least for humans.

That human adaptation is discussed in a story in the Huffington Post headed: “For Most Of Us, A Warmer World Has Become The New 'Normal'”.

Global warming has been  going on for so long that most of us were not born when the earth was last cooler than average in 1985.

It says: “Decades of climate change bring risks that people will accept higher temperatures, with more heatwaves, downpours and droughts, as normal and complicate government plans to do more to cut emissions of greenhouse gas emissions”.

The evidence just continues to roll in

Those of us convinced about climate change don’t need any more convincing, but the evidence just continues to roll in.

And now the Huffington Post is reporting that the world has just experienced is hottest June on record.

According to the story, headed: “The World Just Had Its Hottest June On Record” the globe is on a “hot streak”.

It said: “The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Monday that last month's average global temperature was 61.2 degrees, which is 1.3 degrees higher than the 20th century average. It beat 2010's old record by one-twentieth of a degree”.

“While one-twentieth of a degree doesn't sound like much, in temperature records it's like winning a horse race by several lengths”, said NOAA climate monitoring chief, Derek Arndt.

Mounting costs will convince even the greatest doubters

Ever-mounting costs will eventually convince even the most ardent denialist that climate change is real.

To underline that the Huffington Post has reported that weather- and climate-related disasters have caused $2.4 trillion in economic losses and nearly two million deaths globally since 1971.

The story, headed: “Weather And Climate-Related Disasters Have Cost The Planet $2.4 Trillion, WMO Report Finds” discusses detail of newstudy from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO)".

Careering toward the opposite of an expected ice age

The world is meant to be heading toward an ice age and yet the reality is quite different.

The reality is, as the Huffington Post has noted in a story headed: “Last Month was the hottest may in recorded history”.

“The past May was a scorcher”, the Post reported.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Monday that combined average May temperatures on land and sea surfaces were at 1.33 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th-century average of 58.6 degrees.

"Four of the five warmest Mays on record have occurred in the past five years," the NOAA also wrote in its report. The previous hottest May on record was in 2010.

There is no argument that humans are earth's invasive species

It would be difficult to argue that humans are not THE invasive species when considering earth’s wellbeing and equilibrium.

Earth for all its diversity and five well recorded extinctions, is well advanced in harbouring is sixth extinction.

Humans, that’s you and me, are driving this extinction as explained by The Huffington Post in its story headed: “World on brink of sixth great extinction, species disappearing faster than ever before”.

Writing in her new book, “The Sixth Extinction: An unnatural history”, Elizabeth Kolbert discusses the previous five mass extinctions and then turns her attention to the sixth extinction in which the cataclysm is us.

The seriousness of climate change ecliped by fantasy, again!

Indisputable evidence that many in powerful places are not sufficiently intellectually equipped to understand the seriousness and consequences of climate change is illustrated in a Huffington Post story.

The story, headed: “House Science Committee is more worried about aliens than climate change” reports that the chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee has spent more time studying existence of extra-terrestrial life than it has examining climate science or the repercussions of global climate change.

Delay of decades to food security because of climate change

Food security is one of the great emerging threats manifested by climate change.

And now a report from Oxfam declares that climate change could delay the fight against hunger by decades.

“What Oxfam is discovering more and more in our world to address hunger and poverty globally is that climate change is one of the single biggest threats to winning the fight against hunger,” Oxfam International’s climate change policy manager, Heather Coleman , to the Huffington Post.

The Post story headed: “Climate change could delay the fight against world hunger for decades:report” tells of this dilemma.

Don't worry about saving the planet, save us!

The planet doesn’t care about climate change, we do!

Earth has been about for more than 13 billion years and we have only been here for about 200 000 years.

What we are concerned about is not the survival of the planet for it will go on regardless of what we do, what we are really concerned about it the preservation of the conditions that have existed for the past 10 000 years and allowed humanity to flourish.

The Huffington Post writing about the World Economic Forum at Davos discussed the dichotomy of thought in a story headed: “Kumi Naidoo of Greenpeace: ‘The planet does not need saving’”.

"The struggle is not about saving the planet. The planet does not need saving," Naidoo said. "This fight is fundamentally about securing our children and grandchildren's futures."

Escaping from this mess will demand courage, innovation and sanity.

Here in Shepparton we have a head of the local council’s environment and sustainability committee who equates the resolution of those issues with the elimination of septic tanks.

On a somewhat larger scale Australia’s PM considers climate change “crap” and now American Republicans have chosen a climate skeptic to head its environment subcommittee.

It’s bizarre: humanity faces its most pressing problem ever for which solutions will need to be innovative, new, courageous and devoid of any trace of the status quo and yet we appear to continually retreat to the ideas and processes that landed us in this present mess.

That process turns thoughts to what Albert Einstein once said: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.

Considering that, it is interesting to note in a Huffington Post story headed: “House Republicans pick climate skeptic to head environment subcommittee”, that such insanity is at work again.

The world's okay, but we are 'painting ourselves into a corner'

Rather than God,
we need
Superman.

We are, it seems, quickly “painting ourselves into a corner”.

Our absolutely inadequate response to mitigating events leading to climate change is forcing us into the position of playing “God”.

A carefully crafted response that should have ideally begun late last century has not happened and so the world’s exposure to climate change has worsened, rather than lessened.

Subsequently, as the 21^st century unfolds it appears we are going to have no option but resort to God-like technologies to remove greenhouse gases from earth’s atmosphere.

A report from the Huffington Post headed: “World may have to suck gases from air to meet climate goals” warns that emissions will have to drop by 40 to 70 per cent between 2010 and 2050 to give the world a good chance of restricting warming to U.N. targets.

Humanity scrambles to maintain its foothold on the planet



There appears consensus that this
 is where we are headed -
 Four Degrees or More?

Maintaining a foothold on earth has long been a challenge for humanity, but with exponential growth in numbers and the blunt refusal to abandon practices that have left all aspects of our environment in serious disrepair; the few existing solutions are quickly closing down.

Beyond that, the Huffington Post notes in a story headed: “Climate change report predicts warming will only make human ills worse” that the many ills of the modern world – starvation, poverty, flooding, heatwaves, droughts, war and disease - will only worsen.

Increase in global temperatures are locked in - as 2° degree over pre-industrial levels cannot be avoided and it was at the launch of the book “Four Degrees of Global Warming: Australia in a Hot World” in Melbourne recently there appeared consensus that such an outcome was unavoidable.

“Business as usual” is the obvious cause of global warming, along with the exponential growth in population, but it is certain that humanity has not the courage or the intellectual athleticism needed to shift to a world in which climate change mitigation is prioritized ahead of maintaining our financial wealth.

Humanity it lost at sea, its pockets burdened with gold coin, the markets for a life jacket and its last hope for rescue is with business as usual.

Its preservation begins with abandoning the gold coin, freeing itself from the market paradigm and realising that business as usual is not in the rescue business – humanity will have to save itself from itself.

When it comes to water, Australia is in the red

Australia is totally red, meaning it is under high water stress.

What that means, according to the World Resources Institute in the U.S., is that up to 80 per cent of the water available to our agricultural, domestic and industrial users is being withdrawn annually.

Water scarcity in Australia is remarkably high, something which is of no surprise to those of us who live here.

A story headed: “These are the most water-stressed countries in the world” has been published by the Huffington Post.

Researchers with the Institute’s “Aqueduct Project” looked at water risks in 100 river basins and 181 nations around the world.

Australia and Japan taking us off track in climate struggle

Australia and Japan have been credited with playing a significant role in taking global efforts to combat climate change off track.

A Reuters story published in The Huffington Post headed: “Climate change fight getting off track after major global setbacks in Japan and Australia, study finds”.

The Reuters story argued that negatives behaviour in both Australia and Japan offset the positive outcomes in both the U.S. and China.

Climate Action Tracker had found, the story said, that the world was headed for a temperature rise this century of nearly four degrees compared to an earlier prediction of just over three degrees, if governments stuck to promised greenhouse gas emissions.

Understanding a little about food security and climate change

Food security has been discussed by those who gather Beneath the Wisteria and how it would be impacted by climate change.

It was agreed, generally, that few of have any real comprehension of what food security really means when our supermarkets are bulging with foodstuffs from every corner of Australia, and the world.

It is indisputable that as climate change settles upon us, food and its reliable availability will become foremost in our thinking.

A story in the Huffington Post headed: “Climate change threatens your dinner (but not if you live in Canada)”, help us understand a little about the complications associated with our changing climate.

Coincidently, I have written a column for the Shepparton News (to be published on Monday, October 28) also discussing food security, but from the point of view of the additional complication of oil scarcity - http://www.mateology.blogspot.com.au/.

Interestingly, just today I have engaged the editor, Geoffrey Adams, of the largest circulating weekly newspapers in the Goulburn Valley, Country News, in a conversation about being somewhat more disciplined about publishing letters to the editor from climate change deniers.

Geoffrey argued that was not a path he wished go down indicating that he was most interested in balance rather than disallowing the publication of certain letters.

He was alerted to the fact that the realities and urgencies of climate change far exceeded the now aging and inappropriate good journalism rules to which newspapers have long adhered.