boatsie is trying to get a group of kossacks together to have a Climate news brief daily, If you would like to do a day let her know, we would be happy if you took a day during the month also. So share what is going on in your neck of the woods.
‘Doomed to stay’: The dying villages of Mexico’s Lake Cuitzeo
Fifty-two-year-old Augustin Rodriguez stands on the withered grass of his front yard and opens the tap. Water slowly drips from the garden hose the fisherman’s family uses for their daily needs. There is just enough to fill the cooking pot; the rest of the water is for the three goats that are cooped up nearby, next to the makeshift open-air kitchen.
The colourful buildings of San Nicolás Cuiritzeo in Mexico have seen better days. Like the water that has disappeared from the lake that neighbours the village, many of its inhabitants have left to seek a more prosperous life elsewhere. Once a healthy mix of farmers, ranchers, and fishermen, today only about 350 remain.
Augustin shrugs. “We have to be thrifty. The lake has been empty for months. We have to make do with some groundwater that we get from a well a little further away, but that too is almost empty. If it doesn’t rain in the next few days or weeks, we’re in for a big problem,” he says.
His family sits outside, in the shade provided by a skinny tree.
‘Record-shattering’ heat becoming much more likely, says climate study
“Record-shattering” heatwaves, even worse than the one that recently hit north-west America, are set to become much more likely in future, according to research. The study is a stark new warning on the rapidly escalating risks the climate emergency poses to lives.
The shocking temperature extremes suffered in the Pacific north-west and in Australia 2019-2020 were “exactly what we are talking about”, said the scientists. But they said the world had yet to see anything close to the worst impacts possible, even under the global heating that had already happened.
The research found that highly populated regions in North America, Europe and China were where the record-shattering extremes are most likely to occur. One illustrative heatwave produced by the computer models used in the study showed some locations in mid-northern America having temperatures 18C higher than average.
Lake Powell hits lowest level on record in climate change-fueled water crisis
Plagued by climate change-fueled drought and increasing demand for water, Lake Powell, the second largest reservoir in the United States, has fallen to its lowest level on record since it was first filled more than 50 years ago.
As of Sunday, Lake Powell had fallen to roughly 3,554 feet in elevation — just 33% of capacity — according to the
US Bureau of Reclamation, below the previous all-time low set in 2005.
Lake Powell and nearby
Lake Mead, the nation's largest reservoir, have drained at an alarming rate this year. The two reservoirs fed by the Colorado River watershed provide a critical supply of drinking water and irrigation for many across the region, including rural farms, ranches and native communities.
Climate crisis ‘a hammer hitting us in the head’, says Oregon governor as wildfires rage
As California’s biggest wildfire destroyed multiple homes, flames racing through rugged terrain, and as numerous other blazes battered the American west, the governor of Oregon said the climate crisis was “like a hammer hitting us in the head”.
In California, the Dixie fire, which started on 14 July, had already leveled more than a dozen buildings when it tore through the tiny community of Indian Falls after dark on Saturday.
A new damage estimate was not immediately available but fire officials said the blaze had charred 298 square miles of timber and brush in Plumas and Butte counties and was 21% contained.
Solar geoengineering: Scientists decry a 'foolish' idea
The idea sounds preposterous, straight out of a Ray Bradbury novel: Tint the planet's atmosphere so the sun's rays bounce back into space, instead of heating a planet growing increasingly warmer via fossil fuel emissions.
But the idea is gaining steam among some political leaders and scientists as global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions fail and the effects of climate change are increasingly felt around the world.
A group of scientists, social justice advocates, Indigenous leaders, and youth on Wednesday decried the concept, saying the technology would widen disparities between global haves and have-nots, leave humanity exposed to even greater problems in the future, and tinker with a complex, essential system – our atmosphere – without fully understanding the consequences.
A Clean Energy Milestone: Renewables Pulled Ahead of Coal in 2020
In a year of pandemic illness and chaotic politics, there also was a major milestone in the transition to clean energy: U.S. renewable energy sources for the first time generated more electricity than coal.
The continuing rise of wind and solar power, combined with the steady performance of hydroelectric power, was enough for renewable energy sources to surge ahead of coal, according to 2020 figures released this week by the Energy Information Administration.
“It’s very significant that renewables have overtaken coal,” said Robbie Orvis, director of energy policy design at the think tank Energy Innovation. “It’s not a surprise. It was trending that way for years. But it’s a milestone in terms of tracking progress.”
Scientists are worried by how fast the climate crisis has amplified extreme weather
Until recently, climate change had been talked about as a future threat. Its frontlines were portrayed as remote places like the Arctic, where polar bears are running out of sea ice to hunt from. Sea level rise and extreme drought was a problem for the developing world.
In the past four weeks, floods in Germany engulfed streets and swallowed homes that had stood for more than a century in the quiet village of Schuld. A Canadian town of just 250 -- known more for its cool, mountain air -- burned to the ground in a wildfire that followed unprecedented heat.
And in the western United States, just weeks after a historic heatwave, some 20,000 firefighters and personnel have been deployed to extinguish 80 large fires that have consumed more than 1 million acres (4,047 square kilometers).
UN climate science talks open amid heatwaves, floods and drought
The assessment comes as record-breaking heat waves, devasting floods and drought struck across three continents in recent weeks. “This report has been prepared in exceptional circumstances, and this is an unprecedented IPCC approval session,” Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Chair, Hoesung Lee, told the opening session of the meeting.
The report, Climate Change 2021: the Physical Science Basis, by IPCC Working Group I brings together the latest advances in climate science and multiple lines of evidence to provide an up-to-date physical understanding of the climate system and climate change.
“Assessments and special reports have been foundational to our understanding of climate change, the severe and growing risks it poses throughout the world and the urgent need for action to address it,” said UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa, on Monday.
Climate change: Researchers begin discussions on vital report
Against a backdrop of fires and floods, researchers are meeting virtually to finalise a key climate science study.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is preparing the most comprehensive assessment on the state of global heating since 2013.
Over the next two weeks, the scientists will go through their findings line by line with representatives of 195 governments.
Experts say the report will be a "wake-up call" to governments.
It is expected that the short, 40-page Summary for Policymakers will play an important role in guiding global leaders who will come to Glasgow in November to deal with critical climate questions.
Yep, it’s bleak, says expert who tested 1970s end-of-the-world prediction
At a UN sustainability meeting several years ago, an economic policy officer came up to Gaya Herrington and introduced himself. Taking her name for a riff on James Lovelock’s earth-as-an-organism Gaia hypothesis, he remarked: “Gaya – that’s not a name, it’s responsibility.”
Herrington, a Dutch sustainability researcher and adviser to the Club of Rome, a Swiss thinktank, has made headlines in recent days after she authored a report that appeared to show a controversial 1970s study predicting the collapse of civilization was – apparently – right on time.
Coming amid a cascade of alarming environmental events, from western US and Siberian wildfires to German floods and a report that suggests the Amazon rainforest may no longer be able to perform as a carbon sink, Herrington’s work predicted the collapse could come around 2040 if current trends held.
UK weather – scientists warn Brits they could face 40C days within ten years as extreme heatwaves hit the UK
Worst-case projections could see 40C reached every three-and-a-half years by the end of the century but a medium outcome would have one every 15 years.
Critics however argue the conclusions from the study "unrealistic" and its forecasts are "highly unlikely".
University of Reading’s heatwave hazards researcher Chloe Brimicombe said: “Most of our rail network would not be able to run in those sorts of temperatures.
“We would see increased pressure on water resources, productivity would be reduced, and it could affect our livestock and our crops.”
Outrage as Italy faces multimillion pound damages to UK oil firm
Italy could be forced to pay millions of pounds in damages to a UK oil company after banning new drilling near its coast.
The case has sparked outrage at the secretive international tribunals at which fossil fuel companies can sue governments for passing laws to protect the environment – amid fears that such cases are slowing down action on the climate crisis. It is also fuelling concern that the UK is particularly exposed to the risk of oil firms suing to prevent green policies, potentially hampering climate action.
Rockhopper Exploration, based in Salisbury, Wiltshire, bought a licence to drill for oil off Italy’s Adriatic coast in 2014. There had already been a wave of opposition to the project, with protests that drew tens of thousands of people. Within two years, the campaign won over the Italian parliament, which imposed a ban on oil and gas projects within 12 nautical miles of the Italian coast.
Wastewater Pollution: EPA Moves to Undo Trump's Weakening of Coal Plant Requirements
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced Monday it is kicking off a new rulemaking process to pass stricter requirements for how coal power plants dispose of wastewater, undoing a major rollback implemented in the last year of the Trump administration.
Wastewater pollution from coal plants is poured into nearby rivers and streams and often contains toxic metals including arsenic, lead and mercury, which seriously harm marine life and have been linked to cancer, heart disease and other health problems.
Despite the change, the Biden administration said it does not plan to immediately reinstate the stricter requirements that were in effect before the rollback, and instead will allow the current system to stay in place while working to strengthen those rules.
Solar cells: Layer of three crystals produces a thousand times more power
The photovoltaic effect of ferroelectric crystals can be increased by a factor of 1,000 if three different materials are arranged periodically in a lattice. This has been revealed in a study by researchers at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU). They achieved this by creating crystalline layers of barium titanate, strontium titanate and calcium titanate which they alternately placed on top of one another. Their findings, which could significantly increase the efficiency of solar cells, were published in the journal Science Advances.
Most solar cells are currently silicon based; however, their efficiency is limited. This has prompted researchers to examine new materials, such as ferroelectrics like barium titanate, a mixed oxide made of barium and titanium. "Ferroelectric means that the material has spatially separated positive and negative charges," explains physicist Dr Akash Bhatnagar from MLU's Centre for Innovation Competence SiLi-nano. "The charge separation leads to an asymmetric structure that enables electricity to be generated from light." Unlike silicon, ferroelectric crystals do not require a so-called pn junction to create the photovoltaic effect, in other words, no positively and negatively doped layers. This makes it much easier to produce the solar panels.
Have we entered a new phase of climate change?
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In just over a week, if all goes as planned, a colossal report on the state of the global climate will emerge from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.This is the sixth analysis of its kind in 31 years and, like the other five, it will be a sweeping scientific assessment of how and why the planet is warming. Yet this report will be different. It will arrive as the impact of a shifting climate seems brutally apparent, not just on remote Himalayan glaciers or Arctic sea ice, but right in front of frightened human eyes.
Climate change: Will extreme weather events galvanise Cop26 summit action? Don't count on it – Martyn McLaughlin
Across nearly every continent, from developing countries to modern cityscapes, our planet is being subjected to a series of brutal stress tests. What was once perceived as a future threat is very much a present reality.
Consider the breathless international news cycle in recent weeks, where a succession of extreme weather events has attracted considerable coverage, though mostly in isolation.
In western Canada temperatures reached a barely conceivable 49.6 Celsius, triggering a spike in sudden deaths and firestorms capable of generating their own lightning.
Video shows salmon injured by unlivable water temperatures after heatwave
Salmon in the Columbia River were exposed to unlivable water temperatures that caused them to break out in angry red lesions and white fungus in the wake of the Pacific north-west’s record-shattering heatwave, according to a conservation group that has documented the disturbing sight.
In a video released on Tuesday by the non-profit organization Columbia Riverkeeper, a group of sockeye salmon swimming in a tributary of the river can be seen covered in injuries the group say are the results of stress and overheating.
The salmon had been traveling upstream in the Columbia River from the ocean, to return to their natal spawning areas, when they unexpectedly changed course, explained Brett VandenHeuvel, the executive director of Columbia Riverkeeper. He described the sockeye as veering off to the Little White Salmon River, a tributary of the Columbia River where the video was recorded, in an effort to essentially “escape a burning building”.
Critical measures of global heating reaching tipping point, study finds
A new study tracking the planet’s vital signs has found that many of the key indicators of the global climate crisis are getting worse and either approaching, or exceeding, key tipping points as the earth heats up.
Overall, the study found some 16 out of 31 tracked planetary vital signs, including greenhouse gas concentrations, ocean heat content and ice mass, set worrying new records.
“There is growing evidence we are getting close to or have already gone beyond tipping points associated with important parts of the Earth system,” said William Ripple, an ecologist at Oregon State University who co-authored the new research, in a statement.