Category: News articles

We can still fight climate change, but we’re locked into a difficult scenario

https://www.vox.com/2018/10/9/17951924/climate-change-global-warming-un-ipcc-report-takeaways

“There is a small respite in the IPCC report: Researchers found that the greenhouse gas budget to limit warming to 1.5°C may be a bit larger than previously thought by about 300 gigatons. That buys the world some wiggle room, but not much: about six years’ worth of global emissions. 

Our current emissions trajectory puts us on a course to reach 3°C of warming by the end of the century, even if every country meets its goals under the Paris agreement. Global greenhouse gas emissions are set to rise this year. Yet the harms outlined in the new IPCC report show that even the Paris target of 2°C may still be too dangerous.

Getting on course for 1.5°C of warming would require slashing global greenhouse gas emissions 45 percent below 2010 levels by 2030. And greenhouse gas emissions have grown, not fallen, since 2010, so the cut has to be even more drastic now.”

https://amp.ft.com/content/4df1b9e6-34fb-11e9-bd3a-8b2a211d90d5?__twitter_impression=true

Why I Quit Flying

4. Why in essence have you pledged to stop using air transport?

… Flying has become a huge industry, packaged like a mcdonalds hamburger. It’s all processed and nothing original or pure. It’s quite sad too, aviation used to be so romantic. What an adventure it must have been to fly in a small plane for the first time many years ago. It would be nice if we could treat aviation with respect, and consider flying a real treat to be done once or twice in one’s life, not every weekend down to one’s holiday home in Spain. Just like cars, we seem to be intoxicated by the technology, blind to the fact that our over-indulgence is causing enormous suffering, and even jeopardizing our very ability to continue to inhabit this planet. It is an addiction of the worst order, and we are blinded by this dependent relationship.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jan/19/how-to-reduce-carbon-footprint

From cutting down on meat to contacting your local representatives and investing in clean energy, here are 15 ways to help reduce global carbon emissions

1 Air travel is usually the largest component of the carbon footprint of frequent flyers. A single return flight from London to New York – including the complicated effects on the high atmosphere – contributes to almost a quarter of the average person’s annual emissions. The easiest way to make a big difference is to go by train or not take as many flights.

Losing Earth by Nathaniel Rich tells the fascinating and terrifying story of how we have known about the devastating impacts of climate change caused by the burning of fossile fuels for almost half a century, without being able to address the issue properly. With serious action being taken by politicians and the oil industry 30 years ago, we could have already limited temperature rise to even below 1,5 degrees. What went wrong?

“If the world had adopted the proposal widely endorsed at the end of the ’80s — a freezing of carbon emissions, with a reduction of 20 percent by 2005 — warming could have been held to less than 1.5 degrees.”

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/01/magazine/climate-change-losing-earth.html

Although this extensive article is extremely well written, well documented and in every aspect a must read for everyone concerned about our future on earth, the conclusion that “human nature” is to blame for our failure in addressing climate change when had the chance (and hence, our continued failure in addressing it properly even today) – is only in part true.

The one other, big obstacle keeping us from really addressing climate change, is – as Naomi Klein claims in her critique of “Loosing Earth” – capitalism

https://theintercept.com/2018/08/03/climate-change-new-york-times-magazine/