As the usual suspects convene in Madrid for the annual UNFCCC meeting, people across the world are demanding rapid and comprehensive action in the Climate Crisis.
Inspired by Greta Thunberg's “Our House is on Fire” and actress Jane Fonda’s #FridayFireDrill” campaign, #ClimateStrike trended atop Twitter for some time yesterday with tens of thousands participated in ongoing Friday climate strikes.
”We don’t know a planet like this,” said meteorologist Eric Holthouse. in an Independent article Climate crisis: CO2 levels rise to highest point since evolution of humans.
The Mauna Loa Observatory, which has measured the parts per million (ppm) of CO2 in the atmosphere since 1958, took a reading of 415.26ppm in the air on 11 May – thought to be the highest concentration since humans evolved.
Meteorologist Eric Holthouse retweeted the Mauna Loa readings and said: “This is the first time in human history our planet’s atmosphere has had more than 415ppm CO2.
“Not just in recorded history, not just since the invention of agriculture 10,000 years ago. Since before modern humans existed millions of years ago.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren tweeted her support of the Climate Strike, expressing her push to “root out the corruption in Washington that’s holding up every effort to fight the climate crisis;” Sen. Bernie Sanders participated in the strike from the campaign trail.
”If you love this country, you love the children of this country,” he tweeted. “If you love the children, then we need you to stand up to the fossil fuel industry which is destroying our children's future.”
”Our house is on fire. Join us in The Streets”
For the past nine weeks, demonstrators including Jane Fonda have participated in #FireDrillFridays .
”We must all face the harsh reality that our planet is rapidly approaching an irreversible tipping point, beyond which the unravelling of our ecosystems will be beyond our control,” Fonda writes in a NYT piece yesterday. “Scientists have made clear that we now have less than 11 years to reduce fossil fuel and other greenhouse gas emissions roughly by half, and 20 years after that to cut them to net zero, to stabilize the rise in temperatures by the end of the century and meet the goal of the Paris agreement on climate change.”
Yesterday’s Washington, D.C. actions focused on financial giants BlackRock, Wells Fargo and Chase for their role in funding fossil fuels.
Fonda is leading FireDrillFridays in DC for eight weeks. Inspired by Greta and the youth climate strikes as well as Reverend Barber’s Moral Mondays and Randall Robinson’s often daily anti-apartheid protests, I’ve moved to Washington, D.C. to be closer to the epicenter of the fight for our climate. Every Friday through January, I will be leading weekly demonstrations on Capitol Hill to demand that action by our political leaders be taken to address the climate emergency we are in. We can't afford to wait.
Climate News Bytes
The necessity of pulling carbon dioxide out of the air
Of the wisdom taught in kindergartens, few commandments combine moral balance and practical propriety better than the instruction to clear up your own mess. As with messy toddlers, so with planet-spanning civilisations. The industrial nations which are adding alarming amounts of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere—43.1bn tonnes this year, according to a report released this week—will at some point need to go beyond today’s insufficient efforts to stop. They will need to put the world machine into reverse, and start taking carbon dioxide out. They are nowhere near ready to meet this challenge
Planet at the crossroads
Unlike jaywalking or reckless driving, one needn’t act to put one’s life at risk when it comes to the climate. For now, simply living puts us at risk, not just as individuals but as a species. Yet critics of global democratic governance argue against straightforward measures to ensure rapid decarbonization, such as an end to fossil fuel subsidies, a fully costed global price on carbon, and land use rules to protect biodiversity.
So, all we need is a global patchwork of ambitious bylaws to address these issues, right? While cities are in many ways leading the charge on decarbonizing their operations, significant greenhouse gas emissions occur outside of cities, so a more universal instrument is needed to actualize our shared values of interdependence with other species and a livable future.
Lest you doubt our ability to value other species, not just as edibles or wearables but as beings whose lived lives are critical to our own survival and who are inherently worthy of love and respect, consider the response to recent bushfires that have put koalas at risk of extinction. People living in places far from Australia are making mittens to help injured koalas heal from their burns. This is just one of many examples of humans reaching out to members of another species to help them recover from the harms of anthropogenic climate change.
Rivers could generate thousands of nuclear power plants worth of energy, thanks to a new ‘blue’ membrane
Blue energy’s promise stems from its scale: Rivers dump some 37,000 cubic kilometers of freshwater into the oceans every year. This intersection between fresh- and saltwater creates the potential to generate lots of electricity—2.6 terawatts, according to one recent estimate, roughly the amount that can be generated by 2000 nuclear power plants.
En-Roads Simulator
En-ROADS enables people to explore the policies and interventions needed for reducing global greenhouse gas emissions to limit warming. This tool puts the most important ingredients at your fingertips in order to understand the big picture view of climate change and the solutions required to solve it.
En-ROADS is a useful tool for guiding policymakers, business leaders, classrooms, and communities in grounded conversations about what approaches will make the biggest difference on climate change. To reach a wide array of audiences, the team behind En-ROADS has developed a popular workshop and roleplaying game to use in interactive group sessions. They will be leading trainings and building a network of ambassadors sharing these events worldwide.