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Kitchen Table Kibitzing: Climate Bytes 8/31 [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-08-31
“One of our biggest assumptions is that the climate emergency is an issue. It’s not, it’s an era,” says US-based climate futurist Alex Steffen, author of Carbon Zero: Imagining cities that can save the planet and The Snap Forward, and editor of Worldchanging, A User’s Guide for the 21st Century.
“Climate is redefining every aspect of society, already – and we’re only at the beginning. The extent to which this surprises us is a measurement of how little we yet grasp what’s happening.” Mike Scott. The Future of Climate Action.
In his article, Scott calls for ‘multi-solve’ measures that simultaneously address numerous issues and show rapid results. This, he believes, will make it less difficult to engage the public and politicians on “climate-focused initiatives [which] pay immediate social or economic dividends.
For example:
Electric vehicles not only cut carbon emissions but also improve air quality and therefore the health of the environment and local people. Meanwhile, sustainably-produced renewable fuels are a valuable drop-in solution that can be used to immediately cut emissions in existing combustion engine vehicles, while also reducing traffic-related local emissions and improving local air quality .
are a valuable drop-in solution that can be used to immediately cut emissions in existing combustion engine vehicles, while also . Energy efficiency measures don’t just cut emissions, they also reduce energy bills permanently. And, because efficiency measures are often labor-intensive and take place at a local level, they create jobs that cannot be exported elsewhere.
Farming practices that reduce carbon emissions or store carbon - such as planting cover crops, rotating crops and no-tilling regimes - can also improve soil health, reduce water loss, and increase yields. Meanwhile, new food technologies – from insect farming to vertical agriculture and lab-produced meat – can open up enormous economic benefits for developing regions.
Agri-voltaics, where solar panels are placed on farmland, not only generates zero-carbon energy but also generates an extra income stream for farmers and creates shade for crops to grow or animals to graze and can even increase yields.
In IFPRI’s 2022 Global Food Policy Report, researchers from the International Food Policy Research Institute, the Alliance of Bioversity and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, the International Water Management Institute, and other partners identify six policy priorities that can—and should—be implemented now. This broad range of recommendations for accelerating food systems transformation holds potential to build resilience and adaptation in developing countries. Food systems are both impacted by climate change and major contributors to climate change. Recent estimates indicate that food systems contribute more than a third of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions causing climate change, making reducing them essential to any mitigation effort. Moreover, agriculture, forestry, and other land use (AFOLU) is currently the only sector with serious potential to become a net emissions sink—pulling more GHGs out of the atmosphere than it emits—through creation and protection of carbon sinks in forests, oceans, and soils.
Beware These 10 Climate Myths
The reality about climate change is not hard to find. Yet pernicious myths about its causes, dangers, and solutions still permeate too much reporting. Indeed, these myths keep some reporting from happening at all, such as when coverage fails to connect extreme weather to climate change and the burning of fossil fuels. One reason for these missteps? A decades-long disinformation campaign by the fossil fuel industry explicitly intended — to quote an internal planning document — “to reposition global warming as theory rather than fact” (even though the industry privately knew better). This campaign has relied on many of the same tactics, and even the same scientists, as the tobacco industry’s campaign to deny that smoking causes cancer. To help liberate our reporting from this industry spin, CCNow has published a list of 10 common climate myths, accompanied by the facts and scientifically solid language that journalists can use instead. Covering Climate Now
"Flying Blind" as Climate Change Wreaks Havoc on our World (published here Aug. 28)
A group of 45 leading climate scientists spoke to the Guardian about the severity of rapidly accelerating “off the chart” climate change, warning that while we have not yet reached the tipping point we are perilously close. Within a decade we can expect the extreme weather of 2023 to become the new normal. The only solution is to bring the burning of fossil fuels to zero.
Where We'll End Up Living as the Planet Burns
Over the next fifty years, hotter temperatures combined with more intense humidity are set to make large swathes of the globe lethal to live in. Fleeing the tropics, the coasts, and formerly arable lands, huge populations will need to seek new homes; you will be among them, or you will be receiving them. This migration has already begun—we have all seen the streams of people fleeing drought-hit areas in Latin America, Africa, and Asia where farming and other rural livelihoods have become impossible. The number of migrants has doubled globally over the past decade, and the issue of what to do about rapidly increasing populations of displaced people will only become greater and more urgent as the planet heats. We can—and we must—prepare. Developing a radical plan for humanity to survive a far hotter world includes building vast new cities in the more tolerable far north while abandoning huge areas of the unendurable tropics. It involves adapting our food, energy, and infrastructure to a changed environment and demography as billions of people are displaced and seek new homes.
Forbes Magazine provides a detailed overview of how states across the country are being impacted by migrations, offering suggestions of where people might consider resettling and why.
MARCH!
The Global Fight to End Fossil Fuels takes place in New York City on September 15 and 17 to coincide with Climate Week and the UN Climate Ambition Summit. Demonstrations are also planned across the country and internationally. Information on transportation is available on the site.
On September 15 to 17, millions of people around the world will take to the streets to demand a rapid, just, and equitable end to fossil fuels. This wave of global mobilisations will include the March to #EndFossilFuels fast, fair, forever in New York City on September 17, as world leaders attend the United Nations Secretary General’s Climate Ambition Summit. This historic mobilisation renews and reinforces the globally coordinated efforts focused on ending the era of fossil fuels. The scale of this mobilisation and the urgency of the moment underscore the devastating impacts of recent record breaking heat, deadly floods, and increased extreme weather events. The climate crisis is escalating and in response so is the global movement for climate justice. Across the globe, we are coming together to fight back against the fossil fuel industry and its enablers. Together, we are unstoppable as we build and imagine a fossil fuel-free world.
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