Canada and the climate crisis: a state of denial 3

The climate change induced drought in BC is creating major problems for many of its small rural communities, their water supply, fish, especially salmon who need enough water in the streams they return to in order to reporduce, and the related fishing industry. So far, the provincial government has started to address these issues but there is a lot more that needs to be done. The situation is fairly similar across the country. 

Rural residents concerned with water security get little help from the province as water levels drop and severe summer droughts plague the Vancouver Island region for a third year running. Photo Rochelle Baker

B.C.’s small rural communities striving for water security as droughts become the norm still sink or swim without much assistance from the province, policy experts say.  Most of the province has been in the clutches of unprecedented — but long anticipated — climate-induced drought for most of the summer. About 55 per cent of B.C.'s water basins are at Level 5 on the provincial drought scale — the point when adverse socioeconomic or ecosystem impacts are almost certain. 

Vancouver Island, renowned for its rainforests, has experienced prolonged severe or extreme drought for the past three summers. In an effort to preserve water for people, fish, livestock and growing food on central Vancouver Island, the province has imposed temporary water restrictions in watersheds for the Tsolum River and Koksilah and Cowichan rivers. Industrial water users and farmers growing water-intensive forage crops have had to shut off their taps. It has also imposed similar measures in the Thompson Okanagan region for hundreds of water licence holders. 

However, B.C.’s reactive, piecemeal approach at the height of a water crisis is ineffective, said Oliver Brandes, a lead with the POLIS Water Sustainability Project at the University of Victoria. “When your home is on fire is not the time to be thinking about how to fireproof the house,” he said.  “We should have been doing a whole bunch of stuff in advance in November, not August.”

The extended drought late last fall set the table for today’s provincewide crisis and was predictable given the rising pattern of drought over the past decade, he said. ...

“We need to be thinking about drought response, not as a surprise and emergency, but instead as just a reality of living on the West Coast in 2023," says water policy expert Oliver Brandes ...

The province regulates the ground and surface relied on by water rural users who aren’t tapped into municipal systems. But typically, the province only restricts usage when the situation is dire, Brandes said.  “We need to be thinking about drought response, not as a surprise and emergency, but instead as just a reality of living on the West Coast in 2023,” he said. 

Small communities and many First Nations looking to improve water security as climate-induced drought becomes increasingly common still lack the power, capacity or information necessary to monitor, protect or regulate the vital resource they depend on despite long-standing promises for change, Brandes said.  Monitoring and mapping important water sources and developing a solid understanding of how much exists, how much is being used and who is using it and when needs to be better understood at the provincial level, he said.  “When you have that information, then you can start thinking really about a coherent conservation [approach] and response,” he said.

Robyn Mawhinney, Quadra Island director for Strathcona Regional District on Vancouver Island, said there’s room for the province to help develop water security in smaller communities. 

Most of the island’s 2,700 residents rely on well water, but there’s little information available for the community or the district to determine how demand and climate change are stressing vital groundwater resources. The province has determined the island’s single observation well is suffering a large rate of decline, with water levels dropping 12 centimetres annually.  To boost the community’s water security and climate resilience, volunteers with Quadra’s Island’s Climate Action Network (I-CAN) have launched a years-long attempt to evaluate water supply and demand. The end goal is to try to determine thresholds for sustainable water use on the island, said Nick Sargent, a retired hydrogeologist and one of the project leads. ...

“The province has a role to play in understanding our aquifers and ensuring that our water resources are conserved and managed for the benefit of residents.” 

Regional districts aren’t able to limit water use or enact conservation measures to preserve groundwater during droughts, Mawhinney noted.  The district can pass bylaws that incorporate wise water methods in land use or zoning decisions, she added, but granting water licences and regulating the extraction of groundwater and its use by agricultural, industrial or commercial users falls to the province. The district can’t implement staged watering restrictions and can only appeal to residents to undertake voluntary conservation efforts, like not watering their lawns or running sprinklers unless residents are hooked into municipal or district water systems.  The province also controls industrial land use, like forestry operations or clearcut logging, which has wide-scale impacts on a forest or watershed’s ability to absorb and conserve groundwater, Mawhinney added.  "Industrial forestry regulations need a broader scope, which includes water storage capacity and downstream community impacts,” she said. ...

Province has stepped forward but progress is slow

B.C. recently committed $100 million to a provincial watershed security fund and is in the final stages of creating a provincewide watershed security strategy, which is due out this winter. 

The Water Sustainability Act was beefed up in 2016, giving the province new tools to prioritize essential household and environmental needs during water shortages.  But it took six years after those revisions for the province to impose a long-awaited deadline in March 2022 for historic non-domestic groundwater users to apply for a water licence.  Those that didn’t, now face the risk of being ordered to turn off the tap or might lose their seniority access to water to newer users that applied for licences.  However, there are still large numbers of unlicensed users — like ranchers, farmers or small businesses — drawing unknown quantities of water. Nor is it clear how much water users that do have licences are extracting, Brandes said.  Meanwhile, individuals and households are being told to take shorter showers and water their gardens with dishwater. ...

For small rural communities and even municipalities with water systems, the province needs to develop clear guidance through a watershed governance framework that includes direction, funding and resources for local watershed boards or entities, he said.  Additionally, incentives or subsidies to adopt prohibitively expensive low-flow appliances or toilets, or to develop community-wide systems, such as large-scale rainwater harvesting with large capacity cisterns, need to be available.  “The province probably has to build capacity, not for every little dinky region to have their own experts, but to provide access to expertise by different communities,” he said.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2023/09/06/news/when-it-comes-water-sec...

Despite being warned in the Provincial Climate Change Impact Assessment report by climate change experts that there would be a large increase in the number of extreme heat days in the summer and that it was necessary to prepare for this situation, the Ford government in Ontario did nothing and hid the report for eight months, only releasing the report when summer was almost over and the damage to Ontarians was done. The Ford government still has not released a report on the best ways to adapt to the climate crisis. The report predicted that the number of days with extreme heat, a major killer, could quadruple on average across the province. The report also warned that northern Ontario would go from 4 to 35 days of extreme heat by the 2080s. The report also warns that Ontario's agricultural sector is especially vulnerable to extreme heat. 

A new report commissioned by Premier Doug Ford's government warns that climate change poses high risks to Ontario, with impacts on everything from food production to infrastructure to businesses. 

The report – called the Provincial Climate Change Impact Assessment – projects a soaring number of days with extreme heat across Ontario, as well as increases in flooding and more frequent wildfires. 

Presented to the government in January but only posted publicly in late August, the government did not issue a news release about the report. It follows a summer where Ontarians faced at times extreme heat, heavy rainstorms and unprecedented wildfire smoke.    

The report does "the best job that's been done to date describing the impacts of climate change and extreme weather," said Blair Feltmate, head of the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation at the University of Waterloo.  

Its 530 pages are filled with often grim details about the expected effects of climate change in Ontario, including:  

• The agriculture sector faces risks of "declining productivity, crop failure, and livestock fatalities."  

• "Most Ontario businesses will face increased risks due to climate change."

• "Climate risks are highest among Ontario's most vulnerable populations and will continue to amplify existing disparities and inequities."

Number of days with extreme heat could quadruple

A team of researchers from the Sudbury-based Climate Risk Institute prepared the report, which the government commissioned in 2020.  "The impacts [of climate change] are very apparent right now, they're very, very stark and quite serious, and this is expected to continue into the future," said Al Douglas, president of the Climate Risk Institute, in an interview with CBC News.

The researchers used historical climate data together with information about the consequences of extreme weather events and projections of future climate trends to come up with their findings.  For instance, they project how an expected rise in the number of days with extreme heat – 30 degrees and up – will have impacts on Ontario's growing seasons, businesses and human health.   By the 2080s, the report forecasts that southern, central and eastern Ontario will average 55 to 60 such extreme heat days per year, a nearly fourfold increase from the current annual average of about 16 days. Northern Ontario, which experiences an average of 4 extreme heat days annually, is projected to see upwards of 35 such days each year. 

"Changes in Ontario's climate are expected to continue at unprecedented rates," says the report. "It is important to recognize how these findings can be used to spur action to protect residents, ecosystems, businesses and communities across Ontario."  The report lays out the ways the researchers expect climate change to affect each region of Ontario along five broad themes: infrastructure; food and agriculture; people and communities; natural resources, ecosystems and the environment; business and the economy.  Piccini's spokesperson did not address questions about why the government withheld the report for eight months, or why it has not released a companion report on best practices for reducing impacts and adapting to climate change. 

A group called Seniors for Climate Action Now (SCAN) has been campaigning for the public release of the reports. 

The Ford government has "done a number of things that have made things worse from the perspective of climate change impact, and I don't think they want to draw attention to those things," said Jennifer Penney, a member of SCAN who previously worked as a climate change adaptation researcher.   "What we aren't seeing is urgency on the part of the province to address these risks. That's really what concerns me."

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/a-grim-report-about-climate-change...

More than 90% of Saskatchewan’s heavy oil sites don’t measure pollution, especially methane gasSaskatchewan is the second-largest crude oil producer in Canada after Alberta, the home of the oilsands. "In British Columbia, for example, they found about 1.7 times as much methane was being emitted compared with official estimates, according to an April paper in the journal Communications Earth & Environment."

Once again the Trudeau Liberal government has created a nice sounding set of regulations governing methane emissions only to throw them out the window by allowing Saskatchewan to use its much weaker methane regulations as equivalent to those of the Trudeau government.

Scientists say vapour recovery units can be installed at heavy oil sites to capture methane gas before it’s released into the air. There has already been widespread deployment of vapour recovery units in the Peace River area of Alberta. Photo: Amber Bracken / The Narwhal

Quote:

Saskatchewan is the second-largest crude oil producer in Canada after Alberta, the home of the oilsands.

There is a similar situation with unmeasured methane in Alberta, as 93 per cent of certain heavy oil sites there were not required to measure their methane production in 2020, according to research published in the journal Elementa.

Industry lobbyists in Alberta were able to shield some of these heavy oil sites from tougher rules, even as regulators warned weaker requirements would mean compliance would be harder to verify.

There is a gap of more than 90 per cent between observed and reported oil and gas methane emissions in Saskatchewan and Alberta, according to an updated methane reduction strategy released by Environment and Climate Change Canada last fall. ...

Currently in Saskatchewan, heavy oil sites are only required to measure their methane if the volume of their gas exceeds 2,000 cubic metres per day, or 500 cubic metres if the gas is being sent to an engine, Seymour said. As most sites report gas volumes under this threshold, they are permitted to estimate their methane instead.

The federal government is working on revised regulations that would make virtually all oil facilities — or all those that exceed five cubic metres of methane flaring and venting per day — responsible for taking steps to stop the gas from being released into the air, according to a proposed framework. 

Fossil fuel firms could do this by either using the gas as fuel, storing it underground or burning it off, which converts it to carbon dioxide — still a greenhouse gas, but less powerful than unburnt methane when it comes to warming the planet over the short term. A draft of the revised regulations is expected later this fall, Lafontaine said.

The rules, however, won’t automatically apply in Saskatchewan when they come into effect. The federal government agreed in 2020 to temporarily stand down some of its key rules, such as those related to industry performance standards or requirements for companies to report certain records, when it signed a deal with the province to accept Saskatchewan’s regulations as “equivalent” to its own.

The equivalency agreement expires at the end of 2024. In the meantime, federal officials are in “close contact with counterparts in the government of Saskatchewan about the various methane emission sources, including those from heavy oil facilities,” Lafontaine said.

In June, Saskatchewan appeared to claim an early victory in its fight against methane, when it announced provincial emissions from venting and flaring methane at upstream oil facilities in 2022 had dropped 64 per cent below 2015 levels. The province has committed to cut emissions from the upstream oil and gas sector by at least 40 per cent by 2025 from 2015 levels.

But the findings of Seymour’s July study mean there is “significant uncertainty in the province’s progress” towards its emissions target, he said. ...

Debby Westerman, executive director of resource management at Saskatchewan’s Ministry of Energy and Resources, said the ministry “collaborates regularly” with industry and other stakeholders on methane emissions. She didn’t respond to questions about what the ministry thought of Seymour’s 90-per-cent estimate, what new techniques the government was using to improve its data reporting or whether the ministry was revising its rules in light of multiple studies finding methane underreporting is an issue in the province. ...

Saskatchewan NDP MLA Aleana Young, official Opposition critic for energy and resources, told The Narwhal cutting methane emissions is “low-hanging fruit” in the fight against climate change and the Moe government should be taking note. “The government should be reviewing these findings and using the best evidence-based methods to ensure that we are accurately measuring and reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” Young said. ...

Oil companies do have options to better reduce methane emissions from heavy oil sites, according to Carleton University engineering professor Matthew Johnson. In addition to scanning facilities for leaks, they could also install equipment to capture the methane instead of letting it escape into the air.

Since methane is the primary component of natural gas, the captured methane could theoretically be sold at market rates to help pay for such equipment, according to the International Energy Agency, which has estimated 40 per cent of global oil and gas sector methane emissions could be cut at no net cost. Seymour’s study found heavy oil sites in Saskatchewan emitted enough extra methane to heat around 100,000 households in Canada over the last decade.

Johnson, the scientific director of Carleton’s Energy and Emissions Research Laboratory, said one such piece of equipment is called a vapour recovery unit. As its name suggests, it can be installed on the heavy oil tanks to capture methane. From there, the gas could be sent to a collection unit where it would get compressed and then either used, stored or burned. Deploying this equipment at heavy oil sites is feasible, according to a February study in the journal Environmental Science and Technology where Johnson and other researchers concluded there has already been a “widespread deployment of vapour recovery units at heavy oil sites in the Peace River area of Alberta.” ...

Scientists say the Lloydminster heavy oil belt contains infrastructure particularly susceptible to undercounting. Canada’s recent national emissions report to the United Nations acknowledged methane gas is escaping from equipment at some wells in the Lloydminster region and that these emissions have been estimated in the federal data. Some of the oil wells use a technique known in the industry as “cold heavy oil production with sand,” or CHOPS. It involves pumping low-grade crude to the surface along with sand or water, and then letting it settle in tanks to separate out solids from liquids. While it settles, methane naturally bubbles to the surface. The tanks are designed to release the gas before it builds up too much pressure. ...

Saskatchewan’s rules allow most of these sites to carry out periodic tests, as infrequently as once a year, to come up with a ratio representing the amount of gas produced at a well for a given amount of oil. Then, when companies sell the oil, they estimate the amount of gas by applying this ratio to the volume of oil sold. But methane isn’t always released in a steady stream, and can instead come out in gas pockets, scientists say. That adds an element of unpredictability. “The world over, this is recognized as flawed,” Johnson said about the estimation methods. He said multiple studies throughout North America have demonstrated discrepancies between measured and estimated methane. He and other Carleton researchers have been working on creating a comprehensive, measurement-based inventory of methane emissions, so governments can base their emissions reduction goals on more accurate data.

In British Columbia, for example, they found about 1.7 times as much methane was being emitted compared with official estimates, according to an April paper in the journal Communications Earth & Environment. ... 

Fossil fuels claim they are cutting their methane emissions. However their record is weak. 

In 2022, Husky was fined $600,000 for violating the federal Fisheries Act, after a 2018 pipeline spill sent hazardous wastewater into a tributary of the North Saskatchewan River, harming vegetation and fish. ...

Researchers like Seymour are adamant that whatever companies say they’re doing to get their heavy oil methane emissions under control, Canadians deserve a clearer picture of what pollution the oil and gas industry is responsible for.“If methane emissions continue to be underestimated, it will remain unclear whether the regulations are having their intended impact,” Seymour said. “It will remain unclear whether Canada is meeting its climate commitments.”

https://thenarwhal.ca/saskatchewan-oil-pollution-methane-rules/

Even though Premier Danielle Smith continues to fight the federal government over imposing caps on fossil fuel production, two new polls show the majority of Albertans want on a cap on fossil fuel production. Among young Albertans support for a cap is in the 70-75% range because they understand they are the ones who will suffer the most from the climate crisis However, another Angus Reid poll showed support for Smith rose 2% during the summer and that approval/disapproval of Smith is tied at 47%. 

Premier Danielle Smith responds to reporters’ questions on the federal government’s proposed Clean Electricity Regulations in Calgary on Aug. 14, 2023. Photo by Chris Schwarz/Government of Alberta (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

With unprecedented wildfires this year in Alberta forcing climate change to the front of public debate, two new polls find a majority of Albertans want a cap on oil and gas sector emissions. 

The polls conducted by Leger and Research Co., and commissioned by the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE), found six in 10 Albertans support capping oil and gas sector emissions. With the planet continuing to overheat for the foreseeable future and pressure to phase out the oil and gas industry ramping up globally, young Albertans appear most concerned with fossil fuel emissions, according to the polls.  The Leger poll found 69 per cent of Albertans aged 18 to 34 support a countrywide cap on oil and gas emissions, while another poll from Research Co. found 76 per cent in that age range support the proposed cap.  The polling also found roughly 70 per cent of respondents are concerned about the wildfires impacting their health. As of Sept. 14, there are more than 80 wildfiresburning in Alberta, and over 1,000 wildfires have been recorded this year in the province.

The dual polls come as Alberta and the federal government embark on a year-long discussion on energy policies that experts believe will be a forum for further battle between the two sides. As previously reported by Canada’s National Observer, federal Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault says the working group between the two governments won’t derail Ottawa’s plan to pursue the emissions cap.  However, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is adamant the policy will not come to fruition. “Under no scenario will the Government of Alberta permit the implementation of the proposed federal electricity regulations or contemplated oil and gas emissions cap,” she said in a statement late last month. “Ottawa has no constitutional authority to regulate in these areas of exclusive provincial jurisdiction.”

Smith’s reputation for battling the feds appears to be a winning formula for the Alberta premier. Despite Thursday’s polls showing Albertans are supportive of a federal policy to cap oil and gas emissions, a separate poll from Angus Reidpublished earlier in the week found Smith’s popularity grew two per cent since June to a 47 per cent approval rating –– making her the fifth most popular premier in the country. 

“Alberta vs. Ottawa is an old tune but remains perhaps a favourite among many Albertans,” the polling agency said. “Half (47 per cent) say they approve of Smith’s performance as premier, half (47 per cent) don’t.”

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2023/09/15/news/while-danielle-smith-fi...

Ontario NDP MPP Peter Tabuns, the party’s critic for energy and climate action, and Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner have laid into the Ford government for its failure to release the climate report for eight months. 

Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s government is being accused of burying a worrying report about the effects of climate change, which outlines in stark detail the risks of extreme weather events on all aspects of life, from food production to the economy.

The report, called the Provincial Climate Change Impact Assessment, predicts extreme heat and precipitation and other factors such as wildfires and droughts will have the biggest repercussions on climate in the future. It says Ontario has the institutional and financial capacity to do more to fight climate change, but it has “not yet been mobilized widely despite the imperative. Ontario has already been affected by climate change as evidenced by recent events such as flooding, heat waves, and unusually high climate variability or extremes. The impacts of climate change have the potential to affect built and natural systems through water shortages, forest fires, power outages, outbreaks of diseases, and more,” the report said. “These changes in climate translate into risks to economic sectors, ecosystems, communities, and people.” The report was commissioned by the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks in 2020 and delivered to the government in January by a project team led by the Climate Risk Institute, a non-profit academically affiliated organization. However, the report, which clocks in at 505 pages, was only posted online in late August, without a media advisory or public announcement. Environment Minister David Piccini told a legislative committee in May that the government was still reviewing the report, which he described as “substantial.”

NDP MPP Peter Tabuns, the party’s critic for energy and climate action, said Mr. Ford’s government “completely buried” the report for eight months as it continued with its plan to carve out sections of the protected Greenbelt land that arcs around the Greater Toronto Area for housing development. “The report is damning, and the government’s lack of response is even more so,” Mr. Tabuns told reporters on Wednesday. “It’s clear that Ford’s Conservatives have no serious climate adaptation strategy. Instead, they’re actively pursuing policies that will put us at even greater risk.” ...

Even the study’s co-author, Al Douglas, said he was unaware the report had been released until recently. The study provides a “very comprehensive assessment” of the risk levels of climate change, he said, including extreme weather events such as the wildfires that burned in a number of provinces this summer while residual smoke wafted into Ontario. “There isn’t a part of the province that is immune to these challenges,” Mr. Douglas, president of the Sudbury, Ont.-based Climate Risk Institute, said in an interview. “What was surprising to me is that there is almost very strong consensus about the current levels of risk. We are experiencing this stuff right now. … So it’s worrisome to think that this is going to continue to build over the next 20 to 30 years.” Although he said he was surprised the government didn’t publicize the release of the report, he is pleased it is now receiving public attention. He said he hopes similar assessments can be completed every three to five years.

The report predicts the number of extreme hot days, where air temperatures exceed 30, are “expected to rise significantly across Ontario,” particularly in Southwest, Central and Eastern Ontario, to an average of 60 days a year by the 2080s. It also says that climate change is expected to increase risks across the agriculture sector by directly affecting field crop, fruit, vegetable and livestock production, and could result in disruptions and food shortages in the province. While the report doesn’t propose concrete solutions, it says that a formal provincial adaptation plan “would co-ordinate action among various levels of implementation, prioritize investment in high-risk areas and enable an understanding of changing climate risks.”

Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner also accused the government of trying to keep the report “from seeing the light of day.” He said it paints a “grim picture” of Ontario’s climate future and serves as a stark reminder that the province needs drastic climate action immediately. “But Doug Ford is headed in the opposite direction, ramping up costly fossil gas plants, gutting conservation authorities and paving over our farmlands, wetlands and the Greenbelt,” he said in a statement.

https://www.proquest.com/canadiannews/docview/2864517009/B159DD72FBD3482...

Memorial University students rallied  to protest an oil-producing province's climate policies, including Newfoundland's own Bay du Nord and related offshore projects being subsidized by Liberal Prime Minister Trudeau and Liberal Premier Furey. 

Protesters for climate change started their walk at Memorial University's clock tower and headed to Confederation Building. (Arlette Lazarenko/CBC)© Provided by cbc.ca 

Sophie Shoemaker didn't mince words when they held up a microphone to rally Memorial University students Friday ahead of a march to Confederation Building to protest an oil-producing province's climate policies. "No more coal, no more oil, keep your carbon in the soil," Shoemaker chanted with dozens of participants in a protest organized by Fridays for Future St. John's. "We deserve to be able to be young and carefree," Shoemaker told demonstrators. "And it is immoral that people in power have put the weight of climate change on our shoulders. I am protesting today to save my children from the burden that has been forced upon myself."

Shoemaker and other organizers focused on several issues, including a demand that the government of Newfoundland and Labrador stop subsidizing fossil fuel production and exploration. They also want a permanent end to the deepsea Bay Du Nord megaroject, which its proponents have temporarily put on hold. Demonstrators also want the government to invest heavily in renewable energy projects, led by communities in the province. Finally, demonstrators — many of whom were MUN students — are demanding that the university divest its holdings in fossil fuels. This would include pensions and other financial investments would not include companies that profit from fossil fuels. "There are already 12 universities in Canada that are already divesting or having plans to divest," said Shoemaker. "But right now, MUN has no plan in place to divest and that is just not acceptable for us."

The event attracted not only students, but also professors, young teenagers, political parties and others. They gathered at the foot of MUN's clock tower to march to Confederation Building, holding sighs and shouting pleas for climate action.

"We have watched throughout our lifetimes as the planet has literally changed in front of us," said Hannah Findling, a manager for Travel Bug and the Bee's Knees stores, which closed for a few hours to allow employees to join the march. We see how it's going to continue unless we can hold lawmakers accountable and put policies into place that will actually make a meaningful difference," she said. Findling said she doesn't believe lawmakers are even listening. "I wish that I had a different answer, but I don't think they are listening. It's much, much easier to stick to the status quo, take the money and talk about profits," Findling said. 

Dan Smith, who joined the march, said he is happy to see so many people coming to support the cause. "The government of Newfoundland and Labrador has to stop subsidizing oil and gas. It's truly disgusting how much money we give to an industry that is destroying the planet," Smith said. 

At Confederation Building, demonstrators listened to speeches, performances and poetry.  "As you dig more oil, you dig us all a grave," said one protester, accompanied by soft music as she read her poetry. "Will you hear our words, before it's too late? What's within your grasp, is the course of our fate."

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/will-you-hear-our-words-climate-ch...

A new report published in the scientific journal Sciences Advances provides the “first scientific health check for the entire planet”. The report concludes six boundaries of all nine planetary boundaries within which there is " safe operating space for humanity,” have been exceeded and that "two more are judged to be close to being broken: air pollution and ocean acidification". The scientists said the “most worrying" finding was that all four of the biological boundaries, which cover the living world, were at, or close to, the highest risk level.

Climate models have suggested that the safe boundary for climate change was surpassed in the late 1980s Photograph: Alamy

Earth’s life support systems have been so damaged that the planet is “well outside the safe operating space for humanity,” scientists have warned.

Their assessment found that six out of nine “planetary boundaries” had been broken because of human-caused pollution and destruction of the natural world. The planetary boundaries are the limits of key global systems — such as climate, water and wildlife diversity — beyond which their ability to maintain a healthy planet is in danger of failing.

The broken boundaries mean the systems have been driven far from the safe and stable state that existed from the end of the last ice age, about 10,000 years ago, to the start of the Industrial Revolution. The whole of modern civilization arose in this time period, called the Holocene.

The assessment was the first of all nine planetary boundaries and represented the “first scientific health check for the entire planet,” the researchers said. Six boundaries have been passed and two are judged to be close to being broken: air pollution and ocean acidification. The one boundary that is not threatened is atmospheric ozone, after action to phase out destructive chemicals in recent decades led to the ozone hole shrinking.

The scientists said the “most worrying” finding was that all four of the biological boundaries, which cover the living world, were at, or close to, the highest risk level. The living world is particularly vital to the Earth as it provides resilience by compensating for some physical changes, for example, trees absorbing carbon dioxide pollution.

The planetary boundaries are not irreversible tipping points beyond which sudden and serious deterioration occurs, the scientists said. Instead, they are points after which the risks of fundamental changes in the Earth’s physical, biological and chemical life support systems rise significantly. The planetary boundaries were first devised in 2009 and updated in 2015 when only seven could be assessed. ...

Prof. Johan Rockström, the then-director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre who led the team that developed the boundaries framework, said: “Science and the world at large are really concerned over all the extreme climate events hitting societies across the planet. But what worries us, even more, is the rising signs of dwindling planetary resilience.” Rockström, who is now joint director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, said this failing resilience could make restricting global heating to the 1.5 C climate goal impossible and could bring the world closer to real tipping points. Scientists said in September that the world was on the brink of multiple disastrous tipping points. ...

Prof. Katherine Richardson, from the University of Copenhagen who led the analysis, said: “We know for certain that humanity can thrive under the conditions that have been here for 10,000 years — we don’t know that we can thrive under major, dramatic alterations [and] humans impacts on the Earth system as a whole are increasing as we speak.” She said the Earth could be thought of as a patient with very high blood pressure: “That does not indicate a certain heart attack, but it does greatly raise the risk.”

The assessment, which was published in the journal Science Advances and was based on 2,000 studies, indicated that several planetary boundaries were passed long ago. The boundary for biosphere integrity, which includes the healthy functioning of ecosystems, was broken in the late 19th century, the researchers said, as the destruction of the natural world decimated wildlife. The same destruction, particularly the razing of forests, means the boundary for land use was broken last century. Climate models have suggested the safe boundary for climate change was surpassed in the late 1980s. For fresh water, a new metric involving both water in lakes and rivers and in soil showed this boundary was crossed in the early 20th century.

Another boundary is the flow of nitrogen and phosphorus in the environment. These are vital for life but excessive use of fertilizers means many waters are heavily polluted by these nutrients, which can lead to algal blooms and ocean dead zones. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization data, three times the safe level of nitrogen is added to fields every year. The boundary for synthetic pollution, such as pesticides, plastics and nuclear waste, was shown to have been passed by a 2022 study. The Richardson-led analysis assessed air pollution for the first time, which affects plant growth and monsoon rains. It found air pollution has passed the planetary boundary in some regions such as South Asia and China, but not yet globally. Ocean acidification is also assessed as getting worse and being close to exceeding the safe boundary.

The scientists said: “This update finds that six of the nine boundaries are transgressed, suggesting that Earth is now well outside of the safe operating space for humanity.” Rockstrom said: “If you want to have security, prosperity and equity for humanity on Earth, you have to come back into the safe space and we’re not seeing that progress currently in the world.”

Phasing out fossil fuel burning and ending destructive farming are the key actions required.

The planetary boundaries are set using specific metrics, such as the level of CO2 in the atmosphere for climate change. The Earth’s systems are resilient to some level of change, so most of the boundaries have been set at a level higher than that which persisted over the last 10,000 years. For example, CO2 was at 280 parts per million until the industrial revolution but the planetary boundary is set at 350ppm.

Prof. Simon Lewis, at University College London and not part of the study team, said: “This is a strikingly gloomy update on an already alarming picture. The planet is entering a new and much less stable state — it couldn’t be a more stark warning of the need for deep structural changes to how we treat the environment. The planetary boundaries concept is a heroic attempt to simplify the world, but it is probably too simplified to be of use in practically managing Earth,” he continued. “For example, the damage and suffering from limiting global heating to 1.6 C using pro-development policies and major investments in adapting to climate change would be vastly less than the damage and suffering from limiting warming to 1.5 C but doing this using policies that help the wealthy and disregard the poor. But the concept does work as a science-led parable of our times.”

A related assessment published in May examined planetary boundaries combined with social justice issues and found that six of these eight “Earth system boundaries” had been passed.

The researchers said more data was needed to deepen the understanding of the current situation, as well as more research on how the passing of planetary boundaries interact with each other. They said the Earth’s systems had been pushed into disequilibrium and, as a result, “ultimate global environmental conditions” remained uncertain.

A separate initiative to define the end of the Holocene and the start of a new age dominated by human activities moved forward in July when scientists chose a Canadian lake as the site to represent the beginning of the Anthropocene. This group settled on a date of 1950, significantly later than the dates indicated by most of the planetary boundaries.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/13/earth-well-outside-s...

In yet another sign of the global impact of climate change Brazil is "battling wildfires during a rare winter heat wave". Temperatures are expected to hit 45 degrees Celsius tomorrow, according to the CBC New Network. 

An extensive area of the Serra das Bandeiras forest burns in Barreiras, western Bahia state, Brazil, Thursday, Sept. 21, 2023. According to the National Center for Prevention and Combat of Forest Fires, the fires are being fanned by strong winds, high temperatures, and dry weather. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)ERALDO PERES

Firefighters on Thursday were battling flames in Brazil’s northeastern Bahia state, fanned by strong winds and abnormally high temperatures for the season, authorities said.

While it is still technically winter in Brazil, with spring due to start in a couple days, a heat wave prompting record temperatures has swept across much of the country since the beginning of the week.

Faced with a growing number of hot spots caused by high temperatures, Bahia's association of forestry-based companies this week launched a campaign to prevent — and combat — wildfires.

State authorities said they have mobilized over 150 military firefighters to put out fires in different areas across the state, as well as in Chapada Diamantina, a national park known for its panoramic views.

The Instagram account of Bahia's secretary for public security showed images of firefighters making their way through parched forests, equipped in high-visibility orange gear and helmets, attempting to bring the licking flames under control.

The fires broke out Monday, according to local media reports. There are no details regarding the size of the affected area, but Brazil's National Institute of Meteorology has categorized the heat wave as a “great danger.”

https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2023-09-21/brazils-firefighte...

The tenfold increase in the number of cases of Dengue fever since 2000 is closely related to the warming global and is a harbinger of the spread of more and more previously tropical diseases to more temperate regions as the world warms. During this period the number of "reported cases" has increased from 500,000 to five million. Furthermore "There are likely hundreds of millions more unreported incidents each year, as dengue produces mild or no symptoms in most people. But as more people get infected, the percentage who end up developing the severe form of the disease will increase, too." Already there are dengue fever cases being passed from person to person in Florida. How long will be before these diseases start appearing in Canada? "In the U.S., climate projections indicate that the atmospheric conditions for dengue will be ideal throughout much of the country by the end of the century." In fact, we already have had this occur in Canada with Lyme disease. "Climate change already has amplified the range of invasive insects that devour crops, destroy homes, and spread disease. “Tick-borne diseases are an important public health concern and the incidence of these infections is increasing in the United States and worldwide,” said Igor Dumic, the study’s lead author and a researcher at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science who has treated numerous Lyme patients. “Lyme disease is a classic example of the link between environmental factors and the occurrence and spread of disease.” (https://www.popsci.com/lyme-disease-climate-change/)

A health worker fumigates against dengue on July 28, 2023, in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Photo by Getty Images/Grist

This year, nearly 100,000 people in Bangladesh have contracted dengue fever, a mosquito-borne viral disease common in tropical and subtropical regions of the world. The number of infected patients is overwhelming the fragile hospital system there. More than 450 people have died so far, the deadliest dengue outbreak in the nation of approximately 170 million since record-keeping began in 2000. Sri Lanka, nearby, is also experiencing a sharp spike — more than 40,000 cases of dengue this year alone.

Similar dengue-driven crises are unfolding in other parts of the globe. The Americas are in a “public health emergency,” according to the World Health Organization, or WHO: Peru experienced its largest dengue outbreak ever this summer; Brazil, Bolivia, and Argentina are also reporting alarmingly high numbers of cases. 

In the United States, five cases of locally acquired dengue have been reported in Florida this month alone, prompting local health officials to put Miami-Dade and Broward counties on alert. The state has reported a total of 11 cases of locally transmitted dengue so far in 2023.

These outbreaks are concerning, but they’re not particularly surprising to experts who have been tracking dengue for the past several decades. Cases of dengue — which can cause fever, rashes, vomiting, and, in severe instances, internal bleeding, organ failure, and death — have been rising for years. 

Since the beginning of the century, global cases of the disease, carried by the Aedes genus of mosquitoes, have skyrocketed, from roughly 500,000 in 2000 to more than five million in 2019. In the first seven months of 2023, worldwide cases spiked to more than three million, and over 1,500 deaths have been reported — numbers that are expected to rise as the summer continues.

There are likely hundreds of millions more unreported incidents each year, as dengue produces mild or no symptoms in most people. But as more people get infected, the percentage who end up developing the severe form of the disease will increase, too. Experts say a tangled web of factors is driving the surge, but one culprit stands out: climate change. ...

“This is the [mosquito-borne] disease that has grown most substantially in the past 10 years,” Felipe J Colón-González, a climate and health researcher who works at the global charitable foundation the Wellcome Trust, told Grist. “There are many factors that are related to climate.” 

In order to gauge the influence of global warming on the spread of dengue, researchers look at three interconnected clues: where mosquitoes move, how quickly they develop, and how often they reproduce. 

Like any creature on Earth, mosquitoes thrive within a specific temperature range. The insects can’t withstand temperatures that are too dry or cold. Anywhere below 57 F, particularly when there’s low humidity, is unlivable. But most mosquitoes can’t withstand temperatures that are too wet or hot, either — large rainstorms wash them out and they tend to die off at 90 F and above. 

Human industrial activity has warmed the planet by about 2 F, on average, a seemingly small change that has had enormous implications for the spread of infectious disease — and life on Earth writ large. 

Nepal, a mountainous country in South Asia, is a perfect example of how even a slight temperature change can open up a Pandora’s box of disease. Dengue wasn’t present in Nepal until 2004 when the first case was recorded. Less than two decades later, in 2022, the country, which is warming more than 1 F every decade, experienced its largest outbreak ever — 54,232 cases and 67 deaths. Researchers in Nepal noted that the nation’s mountains are undergoing “unusually large” fluctuations in temperature. Snow cover on those mountains is melting away as climate change accelerates, inviting pests into new, higher territories. Afghanistan, also long considered too mountainous for Aedes mosquitoes, is witnessing a similar trend. 

Climate change isn’t just inspiring mosquitoes to move to higher elevations — it’s prompting the bugs to mature more quickly and produce more generations of offspring in a single season. 

Warmer temperatures increase both mosquitoes’ rate of survival and development, and the rate at which they feed. Female mosquitoes, the ones that bite humans, digest blood more quickly when it’s warm and humid out. That leads to more disease. “Because the metabolism is faster, they have to feed many more times in a life cycle so there’s more probability of an infection,” said Colón-González. 

Even temperatures that should be too hot for mosquitoes don’t always kill them off. The insects hide in cool corners and under couch cushions to escape the heat, seeking shade much like humans do. “Mosquitoes are annoyingly intelligent creatures,” Colón-González said. 

It’s clear that climate change is helping mosquitoes, and the diseases they carry, extend their reach across much of the planet. Roughly half the globe is now at risk for dengue, Raman Velayudhan, who leads the WHO’s program for the control of neglected tropical diseases, said recently. But mosquitoes are not invincible. Researchers have had success artificially infecting Aedes mosquitoes with a bacterium that prevents the transmission of dengue from mosquitoes to humans. Pilot studies in South America and Southeast Asia have shown that the bacterium, called Wolbachia, can be incredibly effective: Cases of dengue in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, went down 77 per cent following the release of Wolbachia mosquitoes. ...

In the U.S., climate projections indicate that the atmospheric conditions for dengue will be ideal throughout much of the country by the end of the century. But it’s unlikely that dengue will become as widespread an issue as it is in underdeveloped countries. That’s because most American homes have window screens that keep bugs out, and a large portion of the population has access to air conditioners that keep humidity low inside. Houses in the U.S. are spaced further apart than elsewhere in the world, which means a mosquito that breeds in one house won’t necessarily bite people in the house next door. Americans also have widespread access to mosquito repellant. And in most areas, drinking water containers and sanitation systems are stored underground, which means mosquitoes can’t breed in them.

https://grist.org/health/dengue-fever-cases-surge-as-temperatures-rise/

Sold by the Liberals and Conservatives as the solution that allows Canada and the rest of the world to keep producing more fossil fuel, Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) has been a dismal failure at reducing emissions around the world, including its three installations in each of Saskatchewan, Alberta and BC, as well as elsewhere. The article below notes that the Saskatchewan’s Boundary Dam 3 carbon capture and storage facility "has consistently failed to meet its targets" and now there is a new proposed for BC that threatens nearby First Nations with the fossil fuel companies and the federal and provincial governments each providing one third of the costs to set up BC Centre for Innovation and Clean Energy using CCS as the excuse to keep producing more fossil fuels and their greenhouse gas emissions. In other words, two thirds of the funding is coming from taxpayers.

Even the world's largest CCS in Australia was a disaster. "ENERGY GIANT CHEVRON has failed to capture and store the carbon emissions it promised to at its Gorgon liquefied gas facility in Western Australia. “This admission from Chevron highlights once again that carbon capture and storage (CCS) in the fossil fuel sector is an expensive failure,” said the Climate Council’s Senior Researcher, Tim Baxter. Gorgon’s CCS project is the biggest facility of its kind in the world. It is meant to capture and store four million tonnes of CO2 per year, which is 80 percent of the carbon dioxide emissions found in its reservoir." (https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/resources/carbon-capture-and-storage-f...)

In fact "Chevron Corp and its partners in the Gorgon liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in Western Australia have agreed to buy carbon credits likely to cost more than $180 million as a penalty for failing to meet a five-year target for carbon capture and storage (CCS)." (https://www.metro.us/chevron-partners-to-fork/#:~:text=MELBOURNE%20%28Re...–%20Chevron%20Corp%20and%20its%20partners,five-year%20target%20for%20carbon%20capture%20and%20storage%20%28CCS%29.)

The three already existing CCS facilities in Alberta and Saskatchewan have cost $4 billion with half the money coming federal and provincial governments. At $140 a ton of emissions, these CCS projects are not only expensive, they only capture a small share of emissions. Meanwhile the taxpayer is left holding much of the cost. 

Saskatchewan’s Boundary Dam 3 carbon capture and storage facility is one of three major CCS projects in Canada, and has consistently failed to meet its targets. Photo from SaskPower.

Big Oil and supportive governments have stalled action on climate change for so long that, as the clock ticks toward catastrophe, one of the last hopes is the expensive and unproven technology of carbon capture and storage, or CCS. ...

But oil and gas companies are happy with the claimed solution because it means they can continue profiting from fossil fuels while they bury their emissions with financing provided largely by public subsidies.... 

Treaty 8 traditional lands overlap the major oil and gas reserves of the Montney Formation. According to a 2013 report by federal, B.C. and Alberta energy regulators, “the Montney’s marketable unconventional gas resource is one of the largest in the world.”...

Now it will be the source of feedstock for the $40-billion Shell Canada-led LNG Canada liquefied natural gas project near Kitimat.

Much of the supply for this project will come from Shell’s 250,000-hectare Groundbirch gas fields west of Dawson Creek, with 500 producing wells and four gas plants. This is where the Coastal GasLink pipeline starts, near the Saulteau and West Moberly First Nations reserves on Moberly Lake.  Shell needed a plan to deal with its greenhouse gas emissions, and it came up with one that will be financed largely by taxpayers. In July 2021, the federal and provincial governments, and Shell, each kicked in $35 million to set up the BC Centre for Innovation and Clean Energy.

B.C. Premier John Horgan tried to justify his partnership with the fossil fuel giant when he introduced the centre.

“Shifting from our reliance on fossil fuels to low-carbon energy requires an all-hands-on-deck approach,” he said.

But Horgan misspoke. The centre’s first project has little to do with low-carbon energy. It is to identify and assess suitable carbon storage locations in the Montney region. That means more facilities to capture carbon, more pipelines to carry carbon to storage places and more burial grounds. And it means more industrial developments in Treaty 8 territory.

There won’t be much time for the consultation and negotiation required by the B.C. Supreme Court decision. The province has to move quickly. Alberta and Saskatchewan already have carbon capture programs up and running. Fossil fuel companies in those provinces are lining up to take advantage of the federal government’s generous investment tax credit for capital expenses on CCS projects....

Shell gets a seat at the table while putting up just $2 million in the project’s first year. After four years, Shell will have contributed half its pledge. The B.C. government, in contrast, paid its full $35 million in year one, with no representation. ...

Capturing and burying carbon is a costly proposition. As of 2022, Canada has three major CCS facilities: Shell’s Quest Carbon Capture and Storage project near Edmonton; Alberta Carbon Trunk Line; and Saskatchewan’s Boundary Dam 3 carbon capture and storage facility. Together the three projects cost more than $4 billion to construct, with nearly half contributed by federal and provincial governments. They remove a total of 3.2 million tonnes of greenhouse gases a year, barely a rounding error considering Canada’s total annual emissions of about 730 million tonnes. 

Recent research suggests they are not even achieving their design targets. The Boundary Dam 3 project promised a capture rate of 90 per cent. It never reached that target, so SaskPower lowered expectations to 65 per cent, which the facility still fails to consistently meet. The government utility has to pay penalties each year.

And research published in January by the international NGO Global Witness suggests Shell’s Quest facility emits more greenhouse gases than it captures. To reach this conclusion, Global Witness took into account the methane pollution resulting from extracting and transporting gas — pollution Shell does not report. The study found that over a five-year period, the plant captured 4.8 million tonnes of greenhouse gases and emitted 7.5 million tonnes, rendering it a net emitter. Shell rejected the report’s findings, but provided no evidence.

https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2022/10/26/Industry-Carbon-Capture-Steamroll...

A new report by the Pembina Institute found that while Alberta tarsands companies are "on track for their second-highest profits in a decade, they are making no new investments in reducing emissions".

Oilsands companies are on track for their second highest profits in a decade, yet they are making no new investments in reducing emissions, according to new research released by the Pembina Institute today. 

The Pembina Institute’s third update to its Waiting to Launch report provides an analysis of efforts by members of oilsands consortium, the Pathways Alliance, to reduce their carbon emissions.  

In the first half of 2023, returns to shareholders remained high, with 75% of all available cashflow returned in the form of share repurchases and increased dividends. Companies made no new investments in reducing emissions. One small piece of good news: emissions did not increase in 2022. 

It was a year ago when the Pembina Institute first released Waiting to Launch, examining the gap between Canadian oilsands companies' climate pledges and actions. Although 2022 was the industry’s most profitable year of all time, there were no new efforts by members of the oilsands consortium, the Pathways Alliance, to reduce their carbon emissions—despite having pledged to do exactly that.  

Based on figures from the first two quarters of this year, 2023 will be second only to 2022 for profits earned by Canada’s oilsands industry. 

https://www.pembina.org/pub/Waiting2023MidYear

The International Energy Agency (IEA) is also warning that because fossil fuel production will peak before 2030, not only are no new fossil fuel projects needed globally, they would be a "very unwise economic risk Fatih Birol, head of International Energy Agency, says countries planning expansion are ‘misjudging market trends’". Although Trudeau was allowed to address the UN this week on Canada's climate crisis goals, he was called out by the UN environmental facilitator who said "Canada was one of the largest expanders of fossil fuels last year." (https://www.cbc.ca/news/climate/canada-climate-united-nations-cap-1.6974069) Despite these warnings, Canadian governments and banks continuing pouring money into a sunset industry that brings with it severe economic risk. 

Quote:

Countries and companies planning to expand their fossil fuel production are taking “very unhealthy and unwise economic risks” as their investments may not be profitable, the world’s foremost energy adviser has warned.

Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), predicted this week that fossil fuels would peak this decade, a historic turning point for the climate. But despite the likelihood of demand declining, and the threat of climate chaos, many countries and private sector companies are considering new capacity. Birol said: “New large-scale fossil fuel projects not only carry major climate risks, but also business and financial risks for the companies and their investors. When I talk with the oil companies, both international and national oil companies, some of them are saying that we have been underinvesting in oil and gas. But companies and investors should be very careful about this claim, bearing in mind the demand trajectories we are seeing. It could lead them into taking very unhealthy, unwise economic and climate risks.”

Governments should be urgently discussing the phasing-out of fossil fuels at Cop28, the forthcoming UN climate summit, Birol said. The question of phasing out was dropped at last year’s Cop, but many countries plan to reignite the debate this year.
But even with governments’ current climate policies, which are inadequate and need to be toughened, the amount of oil and gas needed globally will decline, Birol noted. “If you start a project today, wherever you are, the first oil or gas will come to markets in five years, and will come at a time when you will see global oil and gas trends declining,” he told the Guardian in an interview. “Therefore, one should be very careful about not only the climate risk, but also the business risk on large-scale oil and gas projects.”

Birol refused to single out any countries, but several developed and developing economies are planning large expansions of their fossil fuel production, despite their commitments to limiting global temperature rises to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. The US was this week found to be planning the world’s biggest share of global oil and gas expansion between now and 2050, and the UK government plans scores of new oil and gas licences as the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, vowed to “max out” the North Sea. ...
Several countries and companies planning expansions have cited findings from the IEA that oil and gas will still be needed in the future, even when the world reaches net zero greenhouse gas emissions, as justification for their plans. Birol warned that they were not taking on board the IEA’s full advice: “We will definitely need oil and gas in years and years to come, but the issue is the amount of oil and gas we will need globally will be less and less.”

He said: “They are misjudging the market trends – they believe what they want to believe. And they also misjudge the mood of the people in the street as far as climate change is concerned, and their responsibility.”

Birol applauded the proposed commitment to triple global renewable energy capacity, likely to be a centrepiece of Cop28, which will take place from late November in Dubai. But he said this commitment was insufficient and that the rapid decline of fossil fuels was also needed to keep the world within 1.5C.

“The increase of renewables is good, but in the absence of a decline in fossil fuels, the impact on temperature trajectories will be minimal or nothing,” he said. “There should be a discussion [of the phase-out of fossil fuels at Cop28]. And I hope that discussion will give a signal to the markets that fossil fuel consumption will fall.”

Warnings that the price of renewable energy could rise were overdone, Birol indicated. “There may be some zigzags [on the price], but the overall trend is they are competitive [with fossil fuels] and will be even more competitive in future,” he said. “Solar is very competitive, and offshore wind is making big steps – soon we will see it competitive as well.”

Although he has forecast that fossil fuel use will peak for the first time this decade, Birol said much more needed to be done by governments to ensure that its use declined far more steeply afterwards. “The most important issue is not the peak, but the decline of fossil fuels after the peak, that is the nerve centre of the problem.”
Current policies will lead to global heating of 2.4C and must be toughened as a matter of urgency , he said.

Vancouver was one of the cities involved in September 15-17 2023 climate strike. 

In 2019, climate strikes were having their moment. Mass protests aimed at promoting climate justice and challenging politicians to stand up to the fossil fuel industry, largely organized by young people who felt short-changed by generations of inaction, erupted around the world. 

 Then COVID happened. The intervening years passed, bringing with them a myriad of local and large-scale climate concerns: a return to action at Wet’suwet’en; the Fairy Creek blockade; sporadic actions protesting the Trans Mountain pipeline. A flood that destroyed a highway. A heat dome that killed hundreds. A fire season that was the US’s deadliest since 1918 and Canada’s worst in recorded history. 

“People around the world have been facing insane wildfires, deadly floods, and that’s been no different here in Canada, where we’ve seen some of the most extreme weather conditions taking place in the last three years,” says Alison Bodine, an organizer with Metro Vancouver Climate Convergence and part of the Vancouver Climate Strike Coalition.

The coalition includes over a dozen groups, from parents and kids to doctors and drumming bands, united in the belief that fossil fuel extraction needs to end urgently. 

When Fridays for Future, the international climate movement founded from Greta Thunberg’s school strikes in 2018, started discussing plans for a global day of action for September 15, Bodine knew that Vancouver had to be involved.

“Folks that are active in the climate justice movement in Vancouver started talking, we said, ‘Let’s come together and do a Vancouver climate strike as well,’” Bodine says. “Post COVID [restrictions], different organizations have been finding new ways to work together and wanting to organize together, and this is an excellent opportunity to join in this global movement.”

Around Canada, rallies are expected to take place in 50 cities, with hundreds more happening across the world and a further day of action happening on September 17 in New York City.

One of the big challenges has been figuring out what a climate strike looks like in 2023. As prices surge, crises multiply, and people become more tired and burnt out simply by trying to survive, protests can fall by the wayside. 

“A lot of us are looking back at [2019] and saying, ‘What can we do to build momentum back to that point?’” says Bodine. “We’re hoping for a great action on Friday, and also for continuing this work together at such an urgent time.”

The event is set to start at Vancouver City Hall at 1pm, marching downtown to the Vancouver Art Gallery and culminating with speakers and performers on the plaza starting at 3pm. Speakers include journalist Brandi Morin and activist Janelle Lapointe, alongside music and drag performances. There will also be activities for kids, because the whole event is designed to be peaceful and family friendly.

In the spirit of school strikes, don’t be surprised if there are kids who look like they came from their classes. The organizers contacted all the local school boards to let them know about the event, with Vancouver, New West, and Burnaby school boards all voicing their support, according to Bodine. 

And to maximize accessibility, people can join at different points if the whole march is too long; there’ll be masks available and ways for people to maintain social distancing; and the event will be livestreamed digitally for those that can’t attend in person.

“We want to make this rally as accessible as possible,” Bodine says. “If we can see it as kind of a re-introduction for folks to what it means to mobilize in large numbers, it’s an excellent opportunity and an important opportunity.” 

For her, one of the most important parts of the event is reminding people that collective action can be a really powerful way to channel rage or hopelessness into positive change. 

“I think the biggest barrier for many folks is thinking that, in recognition of things getting worse, ‘What can we do? How is it possible for any of us to stop this?’” Bodine offers. “We’ve been really fortunate to form a coalition of groups that know that it is possible—to not only impact policy, but also to work on changing all of our mindsets to know that this better, greener world is possible. Getting together and mobilizing is one important way that we can express that.”  

https://www.straight.com/city-culture/vancouver-joins-hundreds-of-cities...

Here is a look at some of the September 15-17  climate strikes around the world including Germany Philippines and Sweden. The url below also includes protests at tennis, golf , car races, horses races, soccer, rugby, basketball etc. sports matches.

 

German climate strke protesters 

Tens of thousands of climate activists around the world are protesting Friday and through the weekend to call for an end to the burning of planet-warming fossil fuels as the globe suffers dramatic weather extremes and record-breaking heat.

The strike — driven by several mostly youth-led, local and global climate groups and organizations, including Greta Thunberg’s Fridays for Future movement — is taking place in dozens of countries and in hundreds of cities worldwide.

In one strike in Quezon City in the Philippines, activists lay in front of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources in protest, and held signs demanding fossil fuels — from coal to natural gas — be phased out. Outside the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources office in Jakarta, Indonesia, protesters held signs calling for end to dirty fuels and greenwashing as police officers looked on.

In Sweden, climate activists gathered in front of Parliament, just next to the Royal Palace where Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf was celebrating his 50th anniversary on the throne. Their chants about “climate justice” could be heard in the palace courtyard as the king watched the changing of the guard during the golden jubilee celebrations.

A week before the planned protest, the United Nations warned that countries are way off track to curb warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times, as agreed in Paris in 2015. The world has warmed at least 1.1 degrees (2 degrees Fahrenheit) since then.

Over the past few months, Earth broke its daily average heat record several times according to one metric, July was the hottest month ever on record, and the Northern Hemisphere summer was declared the hottest on record.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/climate-protesters-worldwide-call-for...

Climate crisis protests in 54 countries involving more than one million protesters took place around the world on September 15-17 2023.

Climate protesters were set to take to the streets in more than 50 countries from Friday to Sunday, in a weekend of demonstrations to demand that governments phase out the burning of fossil fuels heating the planet.

In a year of mounting deaths and economic destruction from record-breaking floods, wildfires and drought, protesters have planned more than 500 gatherings in 54 countries - from Pakistan and Nigeria to the United States.

Organizers of the protests expect global turnout over the weekend to total more than a million people. That could make this weekend's action the largest international climate protest since before the COVID-19 pandemic, when the "school strike" movement led by Swedish activist Greta Thunberg saw millions of people worldwide join marches.

"This is directed at world leaders," said Mitzi Jonelle Tan, a climate activist with youth movement Fridays for Future in Manila, the Philippines. "The fossil fuel industry's time is up. We need a just transition, and we need to phase out the fossil fuels causing the destruction of our environment," she told Reuters.

Organisers said they would call on governments to immediately end subsidies for oil and gas and to cancel any plans for expanding production.

Governments spent a record-high $7 trillion in subsidies to oil, gas and coal last year, according to an IMF analysis.

"We're taking to the streets to demand that African leaders phase out on fossil fuels and focus on investing in community-led renewable energy, to meet the energy demand for the 600 million Africans who do not have access to electricity," said Eric Njuguna, a climate activist based in Nairobi, Kenya.

The demonstrations take place two months before this year's U.N. COP28 climate summit, where more than 80 countries plan to push for a global agreement to gradually phase out coal, oil and gas.

The burning of fossil fuels is the main cause of climate change, but countries have never agreed in U.N. climate talks to phase out fossil fuels - though they have committed to phase down use of coal power. Governments reliant on oil and gas revenues, and those planning to use fossil fuel-based energy to improve poor communities' living standards, are expected to push back on the proposal.

Wealthy nations will also face pressure to offer far more funding to help developing countries invest in low-carbon energy. Renewable energy is cheaper than fossil fuels in terms of its running costs, but communities need support to make the upfront investments required to quickly build wind farms and install solar panels. Despite having plentiful solar energy resources, Africa received only 2% of global investments in renewable energy over the last two decades, the International Renewable Energy Agency has said.

Around 15,000 people were expected to join a march in New York on Sunday, as leaders gather for next week's U.N. General Assembly, as well as a "climate ambition summit" on Wednesday. U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres is expected to ask governments to strengthen their plans for cutting planet-warming emissions.

A U.N. report last week warned that the world was on a dangerous track toward severe global warming, and said more action was needed on all fronts, including a drastic drop in coal-fuelled power use by 2030. The report also urged a massive boost in financial investment to developing countries for both clean energy and measures to adapt to rising heat, worsening storms and other consequences of the warming climate, the U.N. said.

https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/global-climate-protests-dem...

A large climate crisis demonstration also occurred in Quezon City, a suburb of Manila, in the Phillippines on September 15th. 

Protesters wear a traditional hat as they join the global march to end fossil fuel in front of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources on Friday, Sept. 15, 2023, in Quezon city, Philippines. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

In one strike in Quezon City in the Philippines, activists lay in front of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources in protest, and held signs demanding fossil fuels — from coal to natural gas — be phased out.

A week before the planned protest, the United Nations warned that countries are way off track to curb warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times, as agreed in Paris in 2015. The world has warmed at least 1.1 degrees (2 degrees Fahrenheit) since then.

Over the past few months, Earth broke its daily average heat record several timesaccording to one metric, July was the hottest month ever on record, and the Northern Hemisphere summer was declared the hottest on record.

Dozens of extreme weather events — from Hurricane Idalia in the southeastern United States to torrential flooding in Delhi in India — are believed to have been made worse by human-caused climate change.

Another major strike is planned to take place Sunday in New York, to coincide with the city’s Climate Week and the U.N. climate summit.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2023/09/15/news/climate-protesters-worl...

Brazilian climate change activist, Paloma Costa, who ed Brazil's delegation to the Youth Climate Summit in 2019, talks about the need for climate crisis action, including in primary and secondary education, as she had no education on climate change until she reached university.

Quote: 

Brazilian activist Paloma Costa is creating a new generation of youth engaged in climate activism. ... coordinated the climate working group at Engajamundo, which invited youth to participate in "Fridays for the future" and climate strikes. The organization was born following the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, also known as Rio + 20. During the event, which took place almost 10 years ago, many young people felt that their views had not been adequately represented by world leaders and UN agencies.
For Paloma, today's youth are working on the frontlines of the response to the climate crisis. In her view, decisionmakers, as well as all the actors and sectors that make up the socioenvironmental dynamic, must learn, connect and help create change in line with the creative ideas that youth are proposing. "We are the catalysts for action, this is the desire of our generation," she said.
The climate crisis is a priority in the post-COVID-19 world, according to UN Secretary-General António Guterres. “The revitalization of economies is our opportunity to redesign our future”, he said. This was why he created a Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change, in which Paloma participates. “As with the COVID-19 pandemic, we are all vulnerable to the impacts of the climate crisis,” warned Paloma. "We must understand that we are the Earth's cure and, therefore, we must work collectively to address the cumulative challenges faced across the planet," said the activist, in step with the United Nations belief that only together countries will be able to overcome them. Young people are putting pressure on their elders to do what is right. This is a moment of truth for people and the planet. COVID-19 and the climate took us to a threshold”, said Secretary-General Guterres, defending a “cleaner, greener and more sustainable” path.
However, she still believes that much more can be done. For the activist, the future she wants to build will be more democratic, with greater participation of young people and more information and education on climate issues. “After all, to participate effectively, it is necessary to have access to information, research and quality education that is capable of generating a broader understanding of these vital issues”, she explained, recalling that her generation will suffer from the impact of climate change and its resulting effects on the job market.
Paloma said that she herself did not have an education focused on climate change and that her understanding, and consequent engagement with the topic only happened later, when she was studying at college. “While doing an internship at the Socioenviromental Institute, where I still work, I started to learn about the climate emergency and the role of indigenous and traditional communities in Brazil," Paloma explained. She is now a qualified lawyer.
"We need to create formal spaces inside the structures of each state that include young voices in a deliberate and binding way - not just as an adviser or advisory council," she said. “For now, we can recommend and give our opinions and the Secretary-General is interested in listening and getting involved with the things we do. But I feel that if we don't have a formal seat at the table, it's just us and the Secretary-General. And we need everyone on board to make this happen to create change,” she concluded. 

https://www.un.org/en/coronavirus/“we-are-action”-says-young-brazilian-woman-who-fights-against-climate-crisis

Six Portuguese youths are also suing 32 countries including all EU countries, the UK, Norway, Russia, Switzerland and Turkey because of their inaction on climate change. 

Portugal has experienced record heat in recent years, causing wildfires every year since 2017

"What I felt was fear," says Claudia Duarte Agostinho as she remembers the extreme heatwave and fires that ripped through Portugal in 2017 and killed more than 100 people. "The wildfires made me really anxious about what sort of future I would have."

Claudia, 24, her brother Martim, 20, and her sister Mariana, 11, are among six young Portuguese people who have filed a lawsuit against 32 governments, including all EU member states, the UK, Norway, Russia, Switzerland and Turkey.

They accuse the countries of insufficient action over climate change and failing to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions enough to hit the Paris Agreement target of limiting global warming to 1.5C.

The case is the first of its kind to be filed at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg. If it is successful, it could have legally-binding consequences for the governments involved. The first hearing in the case is due later on Wednesday.

Aged from 11 to 24, the six claimants argue that the forest fires that have occurred in Portugal each year since 2017 are a direct result of global warming.

They claim that their fundamental human rights - including the right to life, privacy, family life and to be free from discrimination - are being violated due to governments' reluctance to fight climate change. They say they have already been experiencing significant impacts, especially because of extreme temperatures in Portugal forcing them to spend time indoors and restricting their ability to sleep, concentrate or exercise. Some also suffer from eco-anxiety, allergies and respiratory conditions including asthma.

None of the young applicants is seeking financial compensation. "I want a green world without pollution, I want to be healthy," says 11-year-old Mariana. "I'm in this case because I'm really worried about my future. I'm afraid of what the place where we live will look like."

Claudia says Mariana still gets scared when she hears helicopters flying above, which remind her of the firefighters back in 2017, when more than 50,000 acres (78 sq miles, 202 sq km) of forest were destroyed, and ashes from the wildfires were falling over their house miles away. "I think it is really amazing for Mariana to get involved in this case, to have such a conscience at her age," Claudia says. "But it is also very worrying: Why does she need to think about these things? She should be playing with her friends and dancing to TikTok videos instead."

Lawyers representing the six young claimants are expected to argue in court that the 32 governments' current policies are putting the world on course for 3C of global warming by the end of the century.

"It's catastrophic heating," says Gearóid Ó Cuinn, director of Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) that is supporting the applicants. "Without urgent action by the governments, the youth applicants involved in this case face unbearable heat extremes that'll harm their health and their wellbeing. We know that the governments have it within their power to do much more to stop this, but they are choosing not to act," he says.

A 2021 Lancet study found that climate anxiety and dissatisfaction with government responses to climate change were widespread in children and young people across the world and impacted their daily functioning. Based on a survey of 10,000 children and young people aged 16-25 in 10 countries across the world, the study suggested that a perceived failure by governments to respond to the climate crisis was associated with increased distress.

In separate and joint responses to the case, the governments argue that the claimants have not sufficiently established that they have suffered as a direct consequence of climate change or the Portuguese wildfires.

They claim there is no evidence to show climate change poses an immediate risk to human life or health, and also argue that climate policy is beyond the scope of the European Court of Human Rights jurisdiction.

"These six young people from Portugal, who are ordinary individuals concerned about their future, will be facing 32 legal teams, hundreds of lawyers representing governments whose inaction is already harming them," says Gearóid Ó Cuinn. "So this is a real David vs Goliath case that is seeking a structural change to put us on a much better track in terms of our future."

The Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatovic, who intervened in the case as a third party, says this case has the potential to determine how states address climate issues and human rights. "It is actually an alarm to member states, to international organisations, to all of us that have a particular chance to show that we do care, and that it's not just words on paper. It's not just ticking a box and saying we are for this or that resolution. It's about changing our policies," she told the BBC.

The ECHR ruling would legally bind the 32 governments at once to increase their climate actions by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and phasing out fossil fuels. It would also influence domestic courts who have been seeking guidance from the ECHR on cases related to climate change. A verdict is expected in nine to 18 months.

Claudia says she often thinks about whether she should have children in the future, questioning the state of the world they would be living in. "But winning this case would mean there would finally be hope," she says. "It would mean that people are really listening to us and that they are as worried as we are and that the governments would really have to take measures to do something about it. It would be amazing for everything - for our anxiety, for our futures. A lot of things can follow after that."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/young-people-sue-32-countries-over-...

Doubly good news for Newfoundland, as not only it is increasingly likely that Newfoundland's offshore oil projects not likely to occur, but the provincial Liberal government has finally started to see the light, namely that fossil fuel production is a very risky way to grow an economy, with the project cancellations and delays that have occurred recently, as described in the last post. The provincial government has this month "invited four companies to seek permits to develop wind-hydrogen facilities on Crown land ... The province’s vast potential for wind energy production had been left unexploited due to the moratorium in place since 2007. ... [However] a group of citizens, with support from the Miawpukek First Nation at Conne River, has called for a federal review the project.".

wind turbine assembly

Newfoundland and Labrador has invited four companies to seek permits to develop wind-hydrogen facilities on Crown land, a move that marks another big milestone since the province lifted a 15-year wind development ban this spring—and supports its ambitions to export green fuel globally.

“This is a transformative industry for Atlantic Canada,” said Nova Scotia-based billionaire John Risley, pointing to wind as a long-term replacement for the fossil fuel industry.

Risley, a director of World Energy—one of the four companies on the invitation list—added that Newfoundland and offshore Nova Scotia have world-class wind resources, with “huge opportunity” in exploiting them.

The three other companies are EverWind Fuels, Exploits Valley Renewable Energy Corporation, and Toqlukuti’k Wind and Hydrogen. Each of the firms will receive wind application recommendation letters that are not a green light to begin construction, reports CBC, but will allow them to proceed through the province’s Crown land application process.

The four companies were selected from a list “whittled down” to nine prospective developers.

Provincial Energy Minister Andrew Parsons called the decision a “significant milestone” in moving the hydrogen/ammonia sector along.

The province’s vast potential for wind energy production had been left unexploited due to the moratorium in place since 2007. The measure was initially meant to protect development of the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric project, but was lifted in April after the province reviewed its renewable energy policy.

Now, wind energy from the new projects will be used to produce green hydrogen or ammonia, which is expected to beexported to Europe through the Canada-Germany Hydrogen Alliance. Proponents say the projects will boost the economy and add new jobs. Estimates show project lifespans of 35 to 40 years from construction through decommissioning, and Parsons said the work will generate roughly C$206.2 billion in GDP and $11.7 billion in revenue for the province, with peak full-time employment of 11,694 jobs.

But some of the proposals have already garnered public criticism. World Energy’s Project Nujio’Qonik at Port-au-Port has been contested by locals who renewed their activism after the recent provincial announcement. They say there’s been insufficient research on the project’s size and scale and its potential impacts on communities and the environment.

“What we feared last year is coming true,” said Marilyn Rowe of Sheaves Cove. “These turbines are going to be over 600 feet in height.”

Rowe said the project will use Siemens offshore turbines that have never before been installed on mountaintops, so “there is no knowledge or history or data available to tell us what the effects are going to be.”

World Energy has submitted an environment impact assessment for its plans, which await provincial approval. Meanwhile, a group of citizens, with support from the Miawpukek First Nation at Conne River, has called for a federal review the project.

https://www.theenergymix.com/2023/09/05/newfoundland-and-labrador-offers...

California is suing the Big Five oil giants because of their climate change lies when their CEOs knew the global disaster that was coming if fossil fuel production and its emissions were not greatly reduced. 

The state of California has filed a sweeping climate lawsuit against Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP, ConocoPhillips, and Chevron, as well as the domestic oil industry's biggest lobby, the American Petroleum Institute. 

The suit, filed on Friday in San Francisco Superior Court, claims that the companies misled the public for decades about climate change and the dangers of fossil fuels. It demands the companies help fund recovery efforts related to California's extreme weather events, from rising sea levels to drought and wildfires, that have been supercharged by human-caused climate change.

"Oil and gas companies have privately known the truth for decades — that the burning of fossil fuels leads to climate change — but have fed us lies and mistruths to further their record-breaking profits at the expense of our environment. Enough is enough," Rob Bonta, California's attorney general, said Saturday in a statement.

Oil giants are already facing dozens of lawsuits from states and localities over their role in causing climate change. California's case adds to the legal threats facing America's oil and gas industry, forcing fossil fuel companies to defend themselves against the largest economy in the U.S. and a major oil-producing state. 

On Sunday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said the damage caused by oil and gas companies' deceit was "incalculable" and his state is prepared to enforce accountability.

"The scale and scope of what the state of California can do, we think can move the needle," Newsom said at a discussion organized by Climate Week NYC. 

Why now?

The lawsuit comes after years of extreme weather events have battered California's economy and killed its residents. In just the past year, California has been inundated with record heat, explosive wildfires, unusual bouts of severe rain and snow, and a rising sea level that's threatened the state's shorelines — disasters that studies say were made more likely or more intense due to climate change.

California filed its lawsuit against Exxon and other oil and gas companies just a day after The Wall Street Journal reported that executives at Exxon continued in recent years to raise doubts internally about the dangers of climate change and the need to cut back on oil and gas use, even as the company publicly conceded that burning fossil fuels contributes to global warming.

Those efforts inside of Exxon, which continued until 2016, according to the Journal, were happening at the same time that scientists at the company were modeling troubling increases in carbon dioxide emissions without big reductions in fossil fuel consumption. The Journalcited internal company documents that were part of a New York state lawsuit and interviews with former executives. In response to the Journal article, an Exxon spokesperson told NPR that the company has repeatedly acknowledged that "climate change is real, and we have an entire business dedicated to reducing emissions — both our own and others."

Wiles said in a statement this week that the documents the Journal uncovered will probably be used against Exxon in court. 

What are the allegations?

In the 135-page California complaint, the state claims that oil and gas executives knew at least since the 1960s that greenhouse gasses produced by fossil fuels would warm the planet and change the climate. According to the suit, industry-funded reports themselves directly linked fossil fuel consumption to rising global temperatures, as well as damages to the air, land and water.

Despite this, oil companies intentionally suppressed the information from the public and policymakers, even investing billions to cast doubt and spread disinformation on climate change, the state alleges.

"Their deception caused a delayed societal response to global warming," the complaint said. "And their misconduct has resulted in tremendous costs to people, property, and natural resources, which continue to unfold each day."

The state further charges that the oil companies continue to deceive the public today about the science and reality of climate change, adding that the industry's investments in clean fuels and renewable energy are "nonexistent or miniscule" in comparison to the resources devoted to expanding their fossil fuel production.

How are companies responding?

Ryan Meyers, general counsel of the American Petroleum Institute, defended oil and gas companies and their commitment to reducing their environmental footprint, adding that climate policy should be for Congress "to debate and decide, not the court system."

"This ongoing, coordinated campaign to wage meritless, politicized lawsuits against a foundational American industry and its workers is nothing more than a distraction from important national conversations and an enormous waste of California taxpayer resources," Meyers said. 

Similarly, Shell spokesperson Anna Arata said that the company agrees climate change needs to be addressed, but it should be done collaboratively not by legal action.

"We do not believe the courtroom is the right venue to address climate change, but that smart policy from government and action from all sectors is the appropriate way to reach solutions and drive progress," she said in a statement.

Chevron agreed that climate change policy requires coordination. The company also accused California of being "a leading promoter of oil and gas development."  "Its local courts have no constructive or constitutionally permissible role in crafting global energy policy," the company said in a statement. Exxon, BP and ConocoPhillips did not immediately respond to NPR's request for comment.

Why Exxon?

Earlier investigations found Exxon worked for decades to create confusion about climate change, even though its own scientists had begun warning executives as early as 1977 that carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels were warming the planet, posing dire risks to human beings.

A study early this year in the journal Nature found that Exxon's scientists had modeled global warming trends with "shocking levels of skill and accuracy," according to the lead author.  Despite the warning from its own scientists, Exxon spearheaded and funded a highly effective campaign for more than 30 years that cast doubt on human-driven climate change and the science underpinning it.

Scientists with the United Nations say the world is running out of time to prevent global warming that would cause more dangerous impacts, like storms and heat waves. Climate scientists say people need to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). The world is currently heading for about 2.5 degrees Celsius of warming.

Climate change is making California wildfires more explosive. Over the past two years, the threat of wildfires has led several big insurance companies to scale back their home insurance business in the state or to stop selling new policies altogether in order to avoid paying billions in damages.

https://www.npr.org/2023/09/16/1199974919/california-oil-lawsuit-climate...

Scientists are calling for a moratorium on geo-engineering attempts to adapt to the climate crisis. 

Solar radiation management involves attempting to reduce the amount of sunlight striking the Earth’s surface. Photo by Alan Levine/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Governments should place a moratorium on efforts to geoengineer the planet’s climate, as greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise and the climate crisis takes hold, a panel of global experts has urged. Geoengineering is highly controversial, but discussions of its feasibility are gathering pace as the impacts of extreme weather, driven by climate breakdown, grip the planet. There is no global agreement on geoengineering, and no rules on what countries or businesses can do.

In a recent report, the Climate Overshoot Commission called on governments to phase out fossil fuels, put more resources into adapting to the impacts of extreme weather, and start using technologies to remove carbon dioxide, such as carbon capture and storage and the capture of carbon directly from the air. Governments should also allow academics to investigate the possibilities of geoengineering, chiefly in the form of solar radiation management, which involves attempting to reduce the amount of sunlight striking the Earth’s surface, for instance through whitening clouds to be more reflective, or setting up mirrors in space.

But governments should not embark on any such activities, the panel warned, because of the dangers involved in tinkering with the global climate in ways that are not yet well understood.

Pascal Lamy, the former chief of the World Trade Organization, who chaired the Climate Overshoot Commission, said it was “not inevitable” that the world would overshoot 1.5 C, the global temperature limit governments have agreed, but that the likelihood was increasing. “It depends on what we do,” he said. ...

But he warned that the world could not ignore the possibility of geoengineering, as some countries could start to investigate and experiment on their own. He said: “There is an increasing international discussion of solar radiation management. But the danger is of unintended consequences, and of transboundary consequences.” Scientists could not say whether solar radiation management was safe, and the precautionary principle should be applied, he said.

Geoengineering is a term that can include everything from reforesting large areas of land to absorb more carbon to painting rooftops white to be more reflective, or seeding the ocean with iron to grow more plankton and absorb more carbon.

The Climate Overshoot Commission, a group of senior former diplomats, policy experts and scientists including Laurence Tubiana, the former French diplomat who was one of the main architects of the Paris Agreement, focused on solar radiation management because that is one of the most controversial and dangerous ideas.

While regrowing trees is usually regarded as safe, putting mirrors in space to reflect sunlight or seeding clouds to reflect more rays into space could have huge impacts that would be hard to control, and would be impossible to confine within country borders. As well as the risks inherent to changing the climate in one place, there could be a “termination shock” — the concern that if emissions continued to pour into the atmosphere while geoengineering was used, stopping the use of the technology would cause severe disruption to the climate as the underlying heating effect took hold again.

Peter Kalmus, a climate scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory speaking on his own behalf, warned of the danger.

“Geoengineering, like direct air capture, is a deeply uncertain techno-solution that fossil fuel executives love to push to take pressure off their core business of selling oil, gas and coal, which, as more and more people are realizing, is causing rapid and irreversible destruction of our planet’s habitability,” he told The Guardian. “Fossil fuel elites will use geoengineering as an excuse to continue business as usual. As a climate scientist, my worst nightmare is continued fossil fuel expansion accompanied by solar geoengineering followed by termination shock. This would be game over for human civilization and much of life on Earth.”

Mark Maslin, professor of earth system science at University College London, who was not involved with the panel, said many scientists had strong feelings about geoengineering. “Solar radiation management [efforts] are dangerous experiments and will cause unpredictable climate change because the distribution of solar energy across the Earth is what creates our dynamic climate,” he said.

“Reducing the solar energy in one region will change how the atmosphere and oceans move energy from the tropics to the poles in unpredictable ways.”

He added: “A strong international moratorium against solar radiation management is required, to ensure no country or company tries to ‘fix climate change’ with disastrous consequences.”

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/14/experts-call-for-glo...

After July was the warmest month ever, August was the warmenst August ever, and today it was announced that September was the warmest September ever, setting up 2023 to almost certainly be the warmest year ever. Furthermore, this effect is very likely going to carry over into 2024 making next winter and 2024 the warmest ever. The temperature graph at the url below for every year from 1950 to 2023 shows every year before 2002 with a globally averaged air temperature below the average 1991 to 2020 average temperature and every year since 2009 with a globally averaged air temperature above the average 1991 to 2020 average. 

New York saw a heatwave in early September

September was the most abnormally warm month ever observed, smashing the previous high for this month and putting 2023 on track to be the hottest year on record. The global average surface air temperature last month was 16.38°C (61.48°F), according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. That beat the previous September record by 0.5°C, the widest such margin for any month in records going back to 1940, and exceeded the pre-industrial average for the month by 1.8°C. Zeke Hausfather at the Berkeley Earth research organisation in California called the anomaly “absolutely gobsmackingly bananas”. “It’s now hard to imagine that global temperatures won’t break the record this year, and probably not by a small amount,” says Jennifer Francis at Woodwell Climate Centre in Massachusetts.

High temperatures throughout September drove extreme weather worldwide. Record heatwaves struck the UK, the US and Europe. Wildfire season started early in Australia. Cyclone Daniel, fuelled by exceptionally warm Mediterranean waters, killed thousands of people in Libya, and two deadly typhoons hit China in one week. “It’s all connected,” says Francis. “Warming increases the chances of broken temperature records, but it also means more evaporation of water vapour from land and oceans into the air.”

This year so far has been 1.4°C warmer than the pre-industrial average, well above the anomaly seen in the hottest year, 2016, and a step closer to the threshold of 1.5°C of long-term warming at which severe impacts are predicted.

This year also saw the hottest July and August on record. Unseasonable warmth is expected to continue with the onset of El Niño, the climate phase in which warm water pools in the eastern Pacific, boosting the global temperature. As October begins, unusual warmth is bringing a “second summer” to swathes of North America and Europe.

Ongoing marine heatwaves are adding even more energy to the mix, with sea surface temperatures across much of the world also setting a September record.

“The ocean is starting from a warmer place for this El Niño event, so 2024 is likely to be even warmer again than 2023,” says Samantha Burgess at Copernicus. “Every fraction of a degree matters, and every action that we take to get closer to net zero matters.”

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2396055-scorching-september-puts-20...

Despite the US having already had 23 weather and climate disasters so far this year, and despite the Pope, many Protestant and Jewish leaders advocating for the need to address the climate crisis immediately, only 27% of Americans think that climate change is a crisis, with no religous group having more than one third of its followers thinking that we are in a climate crisis.  Among white evangelicals the percentage who see the problem as a crisis has actually dropped from 13% to 8%. "In stark contrast to religious Americans, the religiously unaffiliated increasingly view the Earth as being in crisis. Among this group, often referred to as “nones,” that view grew 10 percentage points, from 33% in 2014 to 43% in 2023." But even this non-religious group does not have a majority seeing climate change as a crisis. I suspect the numbers in Canada are not much different, except for the fact that evangelicals in Canada are a smaller percentage of the the population, and therefore the overall percentage of those who believe we are in crisis would be a little higher. 

 

U.S. faith groups do not view climate change as a crisis, new poll finds © Jae C. Hong/AP

Quote:

On the same day Pope Francis issued a new call for climate change action, a group of mostly mainline Protestant and Jewish leaders launched a seven-year campaign to advocate for meaningful climate solutions.  “One Home One Future” is the latest multifaith effort intended to engage congregations in caring for the Earth.

But a new survey released by the Public Religion Research Institute suggests that work won’t be easy. 

Beliefs on the severity of climate change have not shifted much among religious traditions over the past decade and few religious Americans view climate change as a crisis, according to the PRRI study published Wednesday. 

Overall, 27% of Americans say climate change is a crisis, just a few percentage points up from 23% in 2014. Among the nation’s religious groups, beliefs on the severity of climate change have not shifted significantly. In fact, among White evangelicals the view that the Earth is in crisis actually dropped — from 13% in 2014 to 8% today. 

No religious group topped one-third of respondents agreeing climate change is a crisis. American Jews were the most likely to say so at 32%, followed by 31% of Hispanic Catholics, 22% of White mainline Protestants, 20% of White Catholics, 19% of Black Protestants and 16% of Hispanic Protestants who say there’s a climate crisis. 

The survey of 5,192 adults in all 50 states, conducted online June 8-28, 2023, shows that despite growing climate calamities, American opinions have not moved dramatically.

“The fact that it remained unchanged was pretty remarkable to me,” said Melissa Deckman, CEO of PRRI. “It’s just really concerning,” 

 

So far in 2023, the United States has had 23 separate weather and climate disasters that cost more than $1 billion each in damage, the New York Times reported. Those include Hurricane Idalia in Florida and the wildfires in Hawaii, which are believed to have killed 97 people. The month of August was the planet’s hottest in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s 174-year record. 

While religious Americans mostly agree that climate change is caused by human activity, such as burning fossil fuels, here too there are exceptions. Nearly half of White evangelicals (49%) still believe climate change is caused by natural patterns in the environment. 

To a great extent, these unyielding views of the climate crisis may be shaped by politics. Evangelicals and Latter-day Saints, who overall don’t see climate change as a crisis, are stalwart Republicans, a party that has resisted acknowledging climate change. (Former president Donald Trump, the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee in 2024, has called the extremely settled science of climate change a “hoax.”) 

“I’m not at all surprised to find that White evangelicals and Latter-day Saints tend to be the least likely to think that climate change is caused by humans or see any sort of policy to address it because we know that the Republican Party’s official position has often denied climate change and it’s certainly not advocating for policies that mitigate climate change effects,” Deckman said. 

The survey found that fewer than 3 in 10 Republicans (28%) believe climate change is caused by human activity. Fully half of Republicans believe climate change is caused by natural changes in the environment and an additional 20% think there’s no solid evidence for climate change. (By comparison, 83% of Democrats and 64% of independents believe climate change is caused by human activity.) 

In stark contrast to religious Americans, the religiously unaffiliated increasingly view the Earth as being in crisis. Among this group, often referred to as “nones,” that view grew 10 percentage points, from 33% in 2014 to 43% in 2023. 

At the same time, the theological notion that God has called Christians to exercise dominion over all areas of society appears to be waning. Fewer than half of White evangelicals subscribe to this belief and far lower numbers of other religious groups do. Religious groups are now more likely to believe that individuals are required by God to take care of or be good stewards of the Earth, the survey found. 

On Wednesday, Francis issued a stark reminder about the effects of climate change. He warned that “the world in which we live is collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point.”  In an update to “Laudato Si’,” the pope’s pioneering 2015 encyclical that rang a clear alarm bell about the climate, Francis asserted that “despite all attempts to deny, conceal, gloss over or relativize the issue, the signs of climate change are here and increasingly evident.”  And he took direct aim at the United States, for the “irresponsible lifestyle” causing irreparable harm to the planet. 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/u-s-faith-groups-do-not-view-climat...

In yet another sign of the rapid exponential growth in the effects of the climate crisis, "Antarctica has likely broken a new record for the lowest annual maximum amount of sea ice around the continent, beating the previous low by a million square kilometres."

Antarctica’s sea ice reaches its peak in September each year but this year’s maximum was about one million square kilometres below the previous record low in 1986. Photo by NASA ICE/Flickr (CC BY 2.0 Deed)

The new mark is the latest in a string of records for the continent’s sea ice, as scientists fear global heating could have shifted the region into a new era of disappearing ice with far-reaching consequences for the world’s climate and sea levels.

Each September, Antarctica’s sea ice reaches its maximum extent. The average between 1981 and 2010 was 18.71 million square kilometres. But the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) said preliminary analysis suggested the sea ice reached a maximum of 16.96 million square kilometres on Sept. 10 and had fallen away since then. The 2023 maximum was 1.75 million square kilometres below the long-term average and about one million square kilometres below the previous record low maximum set in 1986.

Dr. Will Hobbs, a sea ice scientist at the University of Tasmania, said that since April, the rate of growth in Antarctica’s sea ice had been “very, very slow.” ...   He said sea ice losses in the Ross Sea region were likely down to winds that had pushed the ice against the continent, bringing warm air. But weather couldn’t explain why ice was lost around the rest of the continent.

Antarctica’s sea ice goes through an annual cycle, reaching its lowest extent each February and its highest levels in September. Antarctica’s sea ice had been relatively stable until a new record summer low was broken in 2016. Since then, further record lows have been set, including this February, which broke the record for the lowest summer minimum. Scientists are still trying to untangle the reasons for the dramatic run of records, with natural variability and global heating likely combining. Hobbs said in his view the “scientific barrier” had not yet been crossed to allow scientists to say with confidence the records were down to global heating. But he said the loss of sea ice was consistent with climate change projections.

NSIDC said the losses of sea ice since 2016 were most likely linked to the warming of the upper layer of the ocean. “There is some concern that this may be the beginning of a long-term trend of decline for Antarctic sea ice, since oceans are warming globally, and warm water mixing in the Southern Ocean polar layer could continue,” the centre said in an update.

Thousands of emperor penguin chicks likely died last year after the breakup of usually stable sea ice at four of their colonies.

Dr. Ariaan Purich, a climate scientist specializing in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean at Monash University, said the top 300 metres of the Southern Ocean around the continent had been noticeably warmer since 2016. “But as to why the sea ice has been so much lower than it has ever been on the record, we still don’t have a good grasp on that yet.” She said the loss of sea ice had far-reaching consequences for the planet. Sea icehelps protect the land-based ice from entering the ocean, which could push up sea level by several metres.

Sea ice also reflects the sun’s energy back out to space. She said with less sea ice, more of the ocean is exposed to the sun’s energy, causing further Southern Ocean warming and further loss of ice. “Scientists are worried. I’m worried that it looks low sea ice is the future — and it’s here now.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/26/antarctic-sea-ice-shrinks-...