Today, the 22nd of April, is EARTH DAY and articles of interest are everywhere. Here are some headlines and short comments.
“On TV, Spend Earth Day With David, Greta … or Cher?”
“This year’s specials include a Greta Thunberg documentary, a David Attenborough extravaganza, James Cameron on whales and Cher rescuing an elephant.”
“In (a discussion between Greta Thunberg and David Attenborough from) “A Year to Change the World, ”Thunberg is unfailingly polite, but you can see what she’s thinking. When she asks if he has ideas for how to “activate” older people into environmental activism, he has nothing to offer, other than to praise her.” (New York Times)
Yes, that’s the issue; how to “activate” people? Older or not. Just maybe 1bio stories can do their little bit to help in that?
The Climate Crisis Is Poised to Make Huge Swaths of America Totally Uninsurable
(The Daily Beast)
No comment needed. Fire in the (USA) west and water in the east…
United Nations releases 2nd World Ocean Assessment
The report lists impacts on what UN secretary general António Guterres said was the planet’s “life support system”. Sea levels are rising, coasts are eroding, waters are heating and acidifying and the number of deoxygenated “dead zones” is rising. Marine litter is present in all marine habitats and overfishing was costing societies billions. About 90% of mangrove, seagrass and marsh plant species were threatened with extinction.
(The report authored by UN Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea, excerpts above from The Guardian)
The report is downloadable in 2 volumes – totalling 1090 pages! It clearly is a comprehensive document and of value to professionals in the field. But for most of us the length and complexity make it essentially inaccessible. That is why we need stories woven from the findings of these reports, and solidly linked back to them.
“Changes to giant ocean eddies could have ‘devastating effects’ globally”
“Researchers fear increasing energy in these eddies could affect ability of Southern Ocean to absorb C02” ‘“The world’s oceans soak up most of the carbon dioxide that humans dump into the atmosphere. The Southern Ocean in particular absorbs about 40% of the entire ocean uptake and much of that uptake is achieved by ocean eddies” Any change in the ocean eddies in the Southern Ocean can … “potentially impact the carbon sink and the ability to uptake carbon that we might continue to emit in the future”
(The Guardian)
So much we still don’t understand
“Some say we can ‘solar-engineer’ ourselves out of the climate crisis. Don’t buy it.”
“What could go wrong with this idea? Well, quite a lot”
(Ray Pierrehumbert and Michael Mann, The Guardian)
Some of these ideas are called “geoengineering” elsewhere. My fear is that inaction (or inadequate action) now will force us into these risky projects in future.
“There Are Massive Chemical Dumps In The Gulf We Know Almost Nothing About”
“In the 1970s, the EPA allowed chemical companies to dump toxic waste into the deep sea. Now, oil giants are drilling right on top of it.”
(Huffington Post)
No comment
“Earth Day has embraced hysteria and abandoned science”
(Fox News)
Fox News is the leader in primetime viewership (in the USA) according to Nielsen Media Rating. Just one more reason why the trace supporting the 1bio stories needs to be accurate and complete. We will not sway the opinion of the committed Fox viewer by factual analysis, but we do need to solidify the opinion of the silent majority.