LOCAL
1) Media articles written by CKM member Tom Powell since the last newsletter. 01/03/2024 - Do we really need to fly? 29/03/2024 - Where does the plastic go? 27/04/2024 - We need to stick together. 25/05/2024 - Temporary rates rises? Don't count on it. 2) The big dry shuts off Wairau River water takes. This article from Maia Hart published in the Marlborough Express in March reported on discussion at the MDC March Environment and Planning Committee meeting. I attended the meeting and have put together some comments, which I've added here for those interested in the ongoing situation with the declining Wairau aquifer and the latest update from the Gravel Bed Rivers research team. Important points to note -
An update was also published by MDC on May 3rd. It is a good summary of the situation as it now stands. You can read the full statement on their website. 3) MDC Long Term Plan consultation - Consultation on the 2024-34 Long Term Plan closed on May 13th. CKM contributed a submission focusing on the big picture view as we see it, which you can download and read if interested. Here are a couple of extracts from our submission - INFRASTRUCTURE STRATEGY – We know the Plan is for the next ten year period but we note that in the Infrastructure Strategy you project expenditure for the next 30 years (page 54). Rather than attempting to project expenditure for 3 decades, which we believe is an impossible and pointless task, we propose the following –
AND We believe the overwhelming factors impacting the future of Marlborough and our planet as a whole will be environmental and climatic and it appears that the weighting of these factors in the graphs in the LTP document (pg 54) have been excluded or at the least minimalised. Why would we project infrastructure expenditure for 3 decades with the apparent assumption that life will continue as usual and that disasters such as the 2021 and 2022 extreme rainfall events were somehow unusual. It seems to us heroic or maybe wishful thinking to be projecting spending in the 2030’s to be trending downwards from the relative highs of the next five years. Likewise projecting five yearly expenditures from 2029 – 2054 as being less than the next 5 year period fascinates us. Is no one listening to the warnings of what we are to expect in the decades ahead? All those warnings tell us to expect more extreme events and that the time of living in a relatively benign climate has now passed. We do not comprehend how anyone can make financial projections about the next 10 years, let alone 30 years, without at least acknowledging the impacts of further disruptive events. 4) Marlborough to host first all-electric flights - The country’s first commercial electric plane will fly a Wellington-Marlborough cargo route for mail and parcels, Air New Zealand says. The cargo-only commercial demonstrator flights, carrying mail for NZ Post, will be up and running in 2026, using the Beta Alia plane ordered by Air New Zealand late last year. At the time they were ordered Air New Zealand hoped electric planes would be carrying passengers in the next decade. A key element of the deal to acquire smaller aircraft was to get Air New Zealand to the top of the list for more commercially viable passenger aircraft, where it was hoping to replace the 50-seater Q300 regional planes. You can check out the full article on Stuff and this media release on the MDC website. 5) The family that diverts 1000 tonnes of waste a year. Motueka couple Merv Hall and Ricarda Scherschel divert 1000 tonnes of waste a year from landfill, an impressive feat for a small business with only four full time equivalent employees. But they are not set at stopping there, and say with funding, they could help reduce Tasman’s waste by 10%. Hall and Scherschel took over Motueka’s Weka Peckers in 2020. The decision, Hall said, was “a bit of Covid thing”. The pair had been traveling back and forth between Scherschel’s native Germany, but with two young children, decided they needed a base. Passionate about environmental issues, when the business came up for sale, they grabbed it. Since then, it’s grown from a reuse shop to a larger focus on waste diversion areas - including the tricky pieces of recycling that kerbside bins won’t accept. Check out the full article in Stuff. NATIONAL 6) Recloaking Papatūānuku - Pure Advantage have made an impressive infographic available on their website outlining their vision for recloaking Papatūānuku. This is a very positive and uplifting initiative that aims to strategically reforest and restore two million hectares of indigenous forest in Aotearoa. The infographic is available to view and download from their website where they make the following statement. The Recloaking Papatūānuku infographic highlights the What, Why, How, When, Where and Who of the initiative. It shows that together, we have the tools to weave climate and ecological resilience into our whenua, and invest in the future economic and social prosperity of our country. Pure Advantage is built on a commitment to communicate professional climate and business aligned thought leadership, including support for the Ō Tātou Ngahere programme of work with Tāne’s Tree Trust and increasingly Recloaking Papatūānuku. With all the cuts and changes going on in the science community it is more important than ever for us to keep engaging with professional thought leaders and help to promote their views on the urgency and opportunities for New Zealand to respond to the challenges and opportunities we face with climate change and environment. 7) Fast-track bill could affect NZ's reputation - Transparency International. Transparency International which campaigns against corruption worldwide has expressed some valid concerns about the proposed "Fast Track" legislation. This article and short interview on the RNZ website gives more info. Resources Minister Shane Jones has reportedly asked officials for advice on whether oil and gas companies could be offered “bonds” as compensation if drilling rights offered by the present government were extinguished by any future administration. Such a move would have real implications under the government’s proposed Fast-track Approvals Bill, which is designed to “enable faster approval of infrastructure and other projects that have significant regional or national benefits”. Transparency International says the fast-tracking consent bill could taint New Zealand's international reputation. In March, the government unveiled a plan to fast-track infrastructure projects, giving just three ministers the power to greenlight significant projects. The bill, which is before a select committee, has been criticised for potentially exposing the ministers to corruption allegations. Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Simon Upton said the role of ministers as decision-makers should be scrapped. And the auditor-general had urged that the bill included requirements for better managing conflicts of interest. Transparency International believed public perception around the fast-track bill might be improved by a sunset clause, "so that it doesn't just go on and on" and said the scope was currently "very broad", not just involving the Resource Management Act. "The bill seems to have exclusion clause for the OIA [Official Information Act] so it's not clear whether people will be able to seek information and gain it, and then there are the legal challenge rights which seem to be curtailed as well." There could be economic consequences if New Zealand's international reputation were to drop further, Haggie said. "The problem is we rely on our international reputation hugely in terms of our trading status... our mana internationally at trading tables, and generally as a good government citizen of the world... "That's really important for New Zealand to hold its head up high and be able to say its systems are clean, it's a good democracy, it's a safe place... it's running a good, fair system for doing business, and for its people in terms of participation." On the same theme this article from Jane Kelsey in The Conversation looks at the possible exposure of future NZ governments to expensive trade disputes. Last year, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment warned that governments could be liable to oil and gas corporations for US$340 billion in future disputes over fulfilling their commitments under the Paris Agreement on climate change. This is a major disincentive to ambitious climate action. States that once championed agreements containing ISDS are now withdrawing from them. This year, the European Commission proposed a coordinated EU withdrawal from the multilateral Energy Charter Treaty because energy companies are using ISDS to challenge new climate change laws and policies. The New Zealand parliament began to step back from ISDS in 2015, when NZ First MP Fletcher Tabuteau sponsored a private member’s bill “to protect New Zealand laws by prohibiting New Zealand from entering international agreements that include provision for investor-state dispute settlement”. And finally this article looks at potential impacts on NZ’s biodiversity. ....the proposed fast-tracking process leaves no time for thorough ecological surveys to assess a site’s biological diversity. It restricts consenting to just six months, which means expert panels would have to make their assessments based only on existing ecological information – known as a “desktop assessment”. None of the recent and proposed changes to environmental legislation are responsive to the dual biodiversity and climate crises. They are also inconsistent with the government’s own stated goal of evidence-based decision making. The fast-tracking agenda threatens to undermine New Zealand’s progress on biodiversity protection and other key environmental issues. It erodes rather than sustains the natural capital on which the economy depends. “These are not a replacement for on-the-ground surveys, particularly in New Zealand, where we have limited data on many species and for many parts of the country,” the authors write. 8) ELI has successfully overturned the granting of a nitrogen discharge consent to a major irrigation scheme. We all need to be thankful for the legal work that groups such as ELI (Environmental Law Initiative) do on behalf of Papatūānuku. This was an important legal challenge that may not have happened at all without ELI's efforts. The High Court has found that Environment Canterbury (ECan) unlawfully granted a resource consent for the discharge of nitrogen and other contaminants to Ashburton Lyndhurst Irrigation Ltd (ALIL). In a High Court judgment delivered on Wednesday 20 March, Justice Mander found that the decision to grant the discharge consent breached the statutory bar to consenting discharges likely to cause significant effects on aquatic life: "On the Commissioner's own findings, it appears indisputable there will likely be continuing significant adverse effects on aquatic life for the time being. I do not consider the grant of a discharge consent on the basis of the conditions imposed, albeit in anticipation that over time there will be a reduction in nitrogen leaching loads and some mitigation of the adverse effects that are likely to continue from the current activity, avoids breaching the s107(1) prohibition.” Based on this finding the judge found that the decision to grant the resource consent was based on a material error of law. ELI’s Director of Research and Legal, Matt Hall said: "This ruling is hugely significant for freshwater management, both in Canterbury and around Aotearoa New Zealand. The Court has upheld the clear prohibition on the granting of discharge consents that are likely to have significant adverse effects on aquatic life. The Court has also made it clear that where upstream discharges end up causing problems in the coastal environment, the relevant coastal policies apply." You can read more about the case on the ELI website and also access the full judgement if you are interested. 9) European court rules human rights violated by climate inaction. This appears to be a bit of landmark court case because "It comprehensively dismisses the argument that courts cannot rule on climate legal obligations because climate change is a global phenomenon or because action by one state is just a 'drop in the ocean'," This could have implications for the case taken by Mike Smith, which I included in the last newsletter. The court ruled that Switzerland had "failed to comply with its duties under the Convention concerning climate change" and that it had violated the right to respect for private and family life. It also found that "there had been critical gaps" in the country's policies to tackle climate change including failing to quantify reductions in greenhouse gases - those gases that warm Earth's atmosphere when we burn fossil fuels like oil, coal and gas. Check out the full article on the TVNZ website. This article on The Conversation website includes discussion about the possible implications of the Swiss case for the litigation that Mike Smith is taking here in NZ where he "....has sued the New Zealand government, claiming (among other things) that its inadequate emissions reductions framework breaches the rights to life and to practise culture under the Bill of Rights." 10) Ecosystems are deeply interconnected – environmental research, policy and management should be too. Below is an extract from an article in The Conversation authored by Rebecca Gladstone-Gallagher, Conrad Pilditch and Simon Francis Thrush. Why are we crossing ecological boundaries that affect Earth’s fundamental life-supporting capacity? Is it because we don’t have enough information about how ecosystems respond to change? Or are we unable, even unwilling, to use that information better? We have a lot to learn still, but as we show in our research, using current ecological knowledge more effectively could deliver substantial environmental gains. Our work focuses on improving links between research and ecosystem management to identify key trigger points for action in a framework that joins land, freshwater and sea ecosystems. Specifically, we investigate solutions to environmental and societal problems that stem from the disparities between scientific research, policy and management responses to environmental issues. We need managers and policy makers to consider ecological tipping points and how they can cascade though ecosystems from land into rivers and lakes and, ultimately, the ocean. Cyclones as a real-world example - As a result of massive soil erosion on the east coast of the North Island during Cyclone Bola in 1988, steep hillsides were retired from grazing and converted to pine plantations to help stabilise the land. Fast forward three decades and a large proportion of the forest reached harvest at the same time. The exposed soil associated with clear felling was left draped in woody debris to protect it from rain. However, Cyclone Gabrielle hit in February last year, with extreme rainfall washing both soil and woody debris into streams. This destroyed habitats, transported vast amounts of silt and wrecked lowland farms, orchards and critical infrastructure. The debris also clogged harbours and coastal beaches, smothered seafloor habitats, destroyed fisheries and affected cultural and recreational values. This real-world example demonstrates the severe consequences of lags in information flow and management responses. If land-use management decisions had considered the effects on other connected ecosystems and the potential for climate change to intensify those connections, the outcomes could have been different. We could have implemented more diverse strategies in land use and put emphasis on restoring native forest and coastal wetlands. INTERNATIONAL 11) Granting legal ‘personhood’ to nature is a growing movement – can it stem biodiversity loss? This article written by Viktoria Kahui and published in The Conversation highlights the importance of giving attention to legally defining who has liability in situations where natural objects are given legal personhood. Biodiversity is declining at rates unprecedented in human history. This suggests the ways we currently use to manage our natural environment are failing. One emerging concept focuses on giving legal rights to nature. Many Indigenous peoples have long emphasised the intrinsic value of nature. In 1972, the late University of Southern California law professor Christopher Stone proposed what then seemed like a whimsical idea: to vest legal rights in natural objects to allow a shift from an anthropocentric to an intrinsic worldview. Ecuador was the first country to enshrine rights of nature in its 2008 constitution. Since then, a growing number of countries have followed in awarding rights of nature. This includes Aotearoa New Zealand, where legal personhood was granted to the Whanganui River, the former national park Te Urewera and soon the Taranaki maunga. At its core, the rights-of-nature movement allows persons to take legal action on behalf of natural ecosystems, as opposed to on behalf of people affected by environmental degradation. Ecosystems can become separate entities with their own agency, in the same way other non-human entities such as charitable trusts and organisations can exist as separate entities in law. Liability matters - The recent overturning of two rights-of-nature decisions in particular puts the spot light on the importance of liability. In the US, farming operations challenged the Lake Erie Bill of Rights in 2020, which granted Lake Erie the right to “exist, flourish and naturally evolve”. Farmers argued the bill was too vague and would expose them to liability from fertiliser runoff. In India, the Ganges and Yamuna rivers were granted living-person status, where injury to rivers was to be treated equally to injury to human beings. The decision was challenged on the grounds of uncertainty about who the custodians are and who would be liable to pay damage to the families of those who drowned in the rivers. Both these were legally overturned, meaning these natural entities no longer have rights of nature. This suggests attention to legally defining who has liability for what may be an important building block for the movement to protect biodiversity in the future. Our recommendation is that future rights-of-nature frameworks need to have well-defined legal rights and include appointed guardians, established as separate legal entities with limited liability, as well as the support of representatives from interest groups. 12) Climate change from a wild animal's point of view: Adam Welz - I highly recommend this interview with Adam Welz, aired on RNZ on May 11th. In the interview Adam talks about his recent book titled "The End of Eden - Wild Nature in the Age of Climate Breakdown". Adam helps us to view our existence as a part of the greater miracle of life and emphasises how important it is to respect the right of all other lifeforms to coexist with us. I have tried hard to foster this in myself for many years against the constant pressure to consume more and to place our wants before the planet's needs. Are we able to change our mindset and behaviour and ensure we continue to play a part in this amazing cosmic play along with all the other lifeforms that have co-evolved with us? I live in hope that we can. 13) The Collapse Is Coming. Will Humanity Adapt? An evolutionary biologist and a science fiction writer walk into a bar... and mull over survival. Following on from the previous item here is a couple of extracts from a discussion between science fiction writer Peter Watts and evolutionary biologist Daniel Brooks. They discuss the book recently published by Daniel and his co-author Salvatore Agosta titled "A Darwinian Survival Guide - Hope for the Twenty First Century". You can read the full discussion on the MIT Press Reader website. It is fascinating and provides plenty of food for thought for those who, like me, might be "mulling over our survival". "....we should not be talking about sustainability, but about survival, in terms of humanity’s future. Sustainability has come to mean, what kind of technological fixes can we come up with that will allow us to continue to do business as usual without paying a penalty for it? As evolutionary biologists, we understand that all actions carry biological consequences. We know that relying on indefinite growth or uncontrolled growth is unsustainable in the long term, but that’s the behavior we’re seeing now. Stepping back a bit. Darwin told us in 1859 that what we had been doing for the last 10,000 or so years was not going to work. But people didn’t want to hear that message. So along came a sociologist who said, “It’s OK; I can fix Darwinism.” This guy’s name was Herbert Spencer, and he said, “I can fix Darwinism. We’ll just call it natural selection, but instead of survival of what’s-good-enough-to-survive-in-the-future, we’re going to call it survival of the fittest, and it’s whatever is best now.” Herbert Spencer was instrumental in convincing most biologists to change their perspective from “evolution is long-term survival” to “evolution is short-term adaptation.” And that was consistent with the notion of maximizing short term profits economically, maximizing your chances of being reelected, maximizing the collection plate every Sunday in the churches, and people were quite happy with this." AND "Everything that people did at any point in time seemed like a good idea at the time; it seemed to solve a problem. If it worked for a while, that was fine, and when it no longer worked, they tried to do something else. But now we seem to be at a point where our ability to survive in the short term is compromised, and what we’re saying is that our way to survive better in the short term, ironically, is now based on a better understanding of how to survive in the long run. We’re hoping that people will begin seriously thinking that our short-term well-being is best served by thinking about our long-term survival." 14) Post Carbon Institute. I've also recently come across the website of the "Post Carbon Institute", which has a view of our predicament with strong similarities to those espoused in the discussion in the previous item. So if you found the discussion between Peter and Daniel thought provoking then I recommend checking out the Post Carbon Institute website where they say -
Post Carbon Institute believes that the best way to confront this challenge is to build awareness of (a) the polycrisis, its drivers, and its trajectory, and (b) community resilience-building as an ideal response. Our specific areas of focus are:
15) Honey, I shrunk my life - Taking “degrowth” seriously. Finally on the topic of our future survival, here is a long read from Harry Flood for anyone who is wanting more on the theme of survival and the predicament in front of us. Here are a couple of extracts to give you some flavour - Of all the problems facing humanity, there’s arguably only one that really matters: how do we achieve carbon-neutrality quickly enough to save our bacon? People who haven’t just flat f...ing given up mostly count themselves as tech optimists; they believe we can science our way out of this mess – by pivoting to renewable energy, and tweaking our consumer behavior in the ways that matter most. But more and more people whose opinions count say such measures are doomed to fail. They amount to tapping the brakes, when there’s just not enough runway left for that. We need to slam on the emergency brake, as the Japanese philosopher Kohei Saito puts it – to avert environmental and social catastrophe. We’re talking about a major, really unprecedented paradigm shift. Which exposes the question under the question: Can it even be done? Is material growth inevitable? Or is it, as Wendell Berry once put it, “evitable”? AND The Franciscan monk Richard Rohr has some thoughts about a life well lived. You spend the first half of it acquiring things, and the second half giving them away. And the new space you have in the container, having got rid of your stuff, you fill with other people. If such an idea scales, we might come to think of the last century of escalating consumerism as the first half of life; it was all about acquiring power, consolidating our career, etc. And now we’re entering the second part ... a move from “I” to “we.” From building to sharing. From an ethic of power to an ethic of care. You have to take an idea like that seriously. Because the alternative is living with the dis-integration of our very souls. 16) Singing to protect nature's harmony! The Stop Ecocide team in Finland recently coordinated a 3 day program of press interviews and meetings with diplomats, politicians and eminent experts from various fields. This culminated with an amazing choral mega-concert. The "Choirs for Ecocide Law" concert was a wonderfully positive event. Lesley and I have listened to it and found it uplifting and inspiring. I love the idea of moving people's minds by moving their hearts. What a great initiative to support the cause of establishing Ecocide as a crime under international law. 3 packed days concluded with the extraordinary Choirs for Ecocide Law mega-concert on 27th April at the Helsinki Music Hall - 1000 singers and a completely sold-out auditorium! A recording of the entire glorious occasion, including the full concert and panel discussion is available on YouTube. Singing about something is a very powerful thing - especially with others. Research from the pilot Choirs for Ecocide Law project last year showed that 90% of those learning the songs said their worldview shifted… let's sing ecocide law into place! Choirs for Ecocide Law is an artistic choral project, whose main purpose is to spread awareness about the need to make large-scale environmental destruction (ecocide) an international crime. Choirs for Ecocide Law provides a sixty minute concert program, “Let us change the rules!”, ready to be rehearsed and performed by your choir – for free. The scores package includes music made by composers from different cultures, along with guidelines for an interactive rehearsal process, and with a script for bringing the concert storyline to stage. 17) Sail-powered cargo ship 'shows potential of wind' Retrofitting giant, rigid sails to a cargo ship has effectively cut its fuel use and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, shipping firm data shows. The Pyxis Ocean tested the British-designed WindWings for six months. Cargill says the data "underscores the potential" of wind to reduce the shipping industry's carbon footprint. Experts describe the results as "very encouraging", but say, at present, only a tiny volume of the international shipping fleet is using the technology. Sails have powered boats for millennia - but the type of sails trialled on the Pyxis Ocean are different to those normally seen on wind-powered vessels. Made of the same material as wind turbine blades, they are folded down in port then opened out to stand at 123ft (37.5m) on the open seas. Check out the full article on the BBC website. 18) Taxing big fossil fuel firms ‘could raise $900bn in climate finance by 2030’. A new tax on fossil fuel companies based in the world’s richest countries could raise hundreds of billions of dollars to help the most vulnerable nations cope with the escalating climate crisis, according to a report. The Climate Damages Tax report, published on April 29th, calculates that an additional tax on fossil fuel majors based in the wealthiest Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries could raise $720bn (£580bn) by the end of the decade. The authors say a new extraction levy could boost the loss and damage fund to help vulnerable countries cope with the worst effects of climate breakdown that was agreed at the Cop28 summit in Dubai – a hard-won victory by developing countries that they hope will signal a commitment by developed, polluting nations to provide financial support for some of the destruction already under way. Check out the full article in The Guardian. 19) Updates from James Hansen. For those who wish to keep up with the latest science observations from James and his team here are updates. Global Warming Acceleration: Hope vs Hopium Accumulating evidence supports the interpretation in our Pipeline paper: decreasing human-made aerosols increased Earth’s energy imbalance and accelerated global warming in the past decade. Climate sensitivity and aerosol forcing, physically independent quantities, were tied together by United Nations IPCC climate assessments that rely excessively on global climate models (GCMs) and fail to measure climate forcing by aerosols. IPCC’s best estimates for climate sensitivity and aerosol forcing both understate reality. Preservation of global shorelines and global climate patterns – the world humanity is adapted to – likely will require at least partly reversing global warming. Required actions and time scale are undefined. A bright future for today’s young people is still possible, but its attainment is hampered by precatory (wishful thinking) policies that do not realistically account for global energy needs and aspirations of nations with emerging economies. An alternative is needed to the GCM-dominated perspective on climate science. We will bear a heavy burden if we stand silent or meek as the world continues on its present course. Our paper, Global Warming in the Pipeline, was greeted by a few scientists, among the most active in communication with the public, with denial. Our friend Michael Mann, e.g., with a large public following, refused to concede that global warming is accelerating. We mention Mike because we know that he won’t take this notation personally. Accelerated global warming is the first significant change of global warming rate since 1970. It is important because it confirms the futility of “net zero” hopium that serves as present energy policy and because we are running short of time to avoid passing the point of no return. Check out the full March 29th update. Comments on Global Warming Acceleration, Sulfur Emissions, Observations. Global temperature (12-month mean) is still rising at 1.56°C relative to 1880-1920 in the GISS analysis through April (Fig. 1). [Robert Rohde reports that it is 1.65°C relative to 1850-1900 in the BerkeleyEarth analysis.] Global temperature is likely to continue to rise a bit for at least a month, peak this summer, and then decline as the El Nino fades toward La Nina. Acceleration of global warming is now hard to deny. The GISS 12-month temperature is now 0.36°C above the 0.18°C/decade trend line, which is 3.6 times the standard deviation (0.1°C). Confidence in global warming acceleration thus exceeds 99%, but we need to see how far temperature falls with the next La Nina before evaluating the post-2010 global warming rate. Present extreme planetary energy imbalance will limit La Nina-driven temperature decline. Thus, El Nino/La Nina average global temperature likely is about 1.5°C, suggesting that, for all practical purposes, global temperature has already reached that milestone. Temperature is temporarily well above the 50-100 percent increase that we projected (yellow region in Fig. 1) for the post-2010 warming rate. That projected increase is based on evidence that human-made aerosols and their cooling effect are in decline. In other words, we are beginning to realize the consequences of the Faustian bargain, in which humanity partly offset greenhouse gas warming with aerosol (particulate air pollution) cooling. Accurate evaluation of human-made aerosol forcing has double importance because of implications for climate sensitivity, as we have discussed elsewhere. If IPCC has underestimated aerosol forcing, they probably have also underestimated climate sensitivity. Check out the full May 16th update. 20) Russia reportedly finds vast oil and gas reserves in British Antarctic territory. Russia has reportedly found huge oil and gas reserves in British Antarctic territory, potentially leading to drilling in the protected region, according to the British publication The Telegraph and several online reports. The reserves uncovered are said to contain around 511 billion barrels worth of oil, equating to around 10 times the North Sea’s output over the last 50 years. The discovery, per Russian research ships, was revealed in evidence submitted to the British Commons Environment Audit Committee last week. The committee was assessing questions regarding oil and gas research on ships owned by the Kremlin’s Rosgeo, the largest geological exploration company in Russia. In particular, Rosgeo’s Alexander Karpinsky vessel is said to have conducted a number of surveys in the region. Check out the full article on the "Offshore" website. "Offshore" provides info to the offshore oil, gas and renewable energy industries. 21) Piloting underwater gliders into the heart of Earth's strongest current. RV Investigator set out from Hobart to investigate why the planet’s strongest current is leaking warm water into the polar seas. The Antarctic Circumpolar Current acts as a buffer between warm water to the north and the icy continent to the south. It helps keep Antarctica frozen. However, its whirling eddies and finer scale dynamics result in warm water seeping through this barrier towards Antarctica. The science team on board RV Investigator was led by the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership and CSIRO. Researchers wanted to paint a more detailed picture of these eddies and small-scale processes, to better understand the role they play in transporting heat across the current. The voyage sought to validate, for the first time, data of the Southern Ocean taken by the new Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite. SWOT is revolutionising how scientists observe Earth’s water elevation with 2 kilometres pixel, high-definition, topography. This is 10 times better than previously available. Check out the full article and excellent infographics on the CSIRO website. 22) Climate Change Is Likely to Slash Global Income. Here is more research highlighting that the cost of meeting disruptions arising from climate breakdown are far higher than the costs of making serious efforts to mitigate emissions now. It's logical of course, but unfortunately with the economic system we are addicted to, using money and resources today to improve the outcomes for our grandchildren tomorrow doesn't have a very high priority. Here's an extract from the article on the EOS website. EOS is published by AGU (Advancing Earth and Space Sciences), which is a global community supporting more than half a million advocates and professionals in the Earth and Space sciences. A new study estimates that climate change could cost $38 trillion per year, but emissions mitigation and adaptation strategies could limit future damages. Worldwide income may fall by 19% by 2049 because of changes in climate. That’s according to a new study published in Nature. Poorer countries in the tropics that have historically contributed the least to greenhouse gas emissions will experience the greatest economic burden, researchers said. The “huge” $38 trillion annual price tag of climate-related damages is 6 times greater than the cost of mitigating emissions to meet the targets in the Paris Agreement, said Anders Levermann, a climate scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and one of the study’s authors. The treaty aims to limit global average temperatures to 1.5°C–2°C above preindustrial levels by 2100. 23) The Hydrogen Stream: Stadler finalizes longest hydrogen train test. Stadler says it has wrapped up a hydrogen train test, while Ballard has secured a long-term agreement to supply 1,000 hydrogen fuel cell engines through 2027. Stadler said that the FLIRT H2 has made it into the Guinness World Records database for the longest distance traveled by a pilot hydrogen fuel-cell, electric multiple-unit passenger train without refueling or recharging, covering 1,741.7 miles (2,803 kilometers). The Swiss company presented the train at InnoTrans 2022 in Berlin. “A significant number of detailed solutions were developed to integrate fuel cells and hydrogen storage systems into the modern FLIRT commuter train product line,” said Stadler. “These solutions have since been tested thoroughly, first in Switzerland and more recently on a dedicated test ring in Colorado in the United States.” Check out the full article on the PV Magazine website for other H2 developments, if you're interested. 24) Plastic-production emissions could triple to one-fifth of Earth’s carbon budget - Report. By the middle of the century, pollution from plastic industry could ‘undermine world’s effort’ to control climate crisis. The production of plastic, which is made from fossil fuels, is greenhouse gas-intensive. Coal, oil or gas must first be mined or extracted, and then those materials must be refined and processed in another emissions-heavy procedure. In some cases, other chemical compounds such as formaldehyde must also be produced, creating more pollution. Fully decarbonizing the power grid – a key focus of global climate plans – could limit this climate impact, yet would still leave the world on a perilous path. As much as 70% of the fossil fuel used in plastic creation comes from the raw materials used in production – not the electricity used in processing – the authors write. The report was released before the 4th Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC4) meeting for a global plastics treaty set to start next week in Ottawa, Canada. Neil Tangri, science and policy director at the environmental justice group Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, who reviewed the report, said the findings made it clear that plastic production was a “wrecking ball for our climate” and that he hoped it would influence the forthcoming negotiations. “This report provides negotiators with the strongest scientific evidence to date on the need to stop and reverse the expansion of plastic production,” he said. Reading this article in the Guardian was a bit of an eye-opener, as I hadn't realised the GHG impacts of plastics production were quite so significant! 25) 77% of top Climate Scientists think 2.5°C of warming is coming – and they’re horrified. I know readers of this newsletter don't need reminding that we are facing a major crisis with climate breakdown and biodiversity loss, and that we don't have time to prevaricate. I've included this one article published on the Australian website "Pearls and Irritations." because I think the views expressed by a variety of climate scientists are worth sharing. Nearly 80% of top-level climate scientists expect that global temperatures will rise by at least 2.5°C by 2100, while only 6% thought the world would succeed in limiting global heating to 1.5°C above pre industrial levels, a survey published Wednesday by The Guardian revealed. Nearly three-quarters blamed world leaders’ insufficient action on a lack of political will, while 60% said that corporate interests such as fossil fuel companies were interfering with progress. “I expect a semi-dystopian future with substantial pain and suffering for the people of the Global South,” one South African scientist told The Guardian. “The world’s response to date is reprehensible—we live in an age of fools.” NASA climate scientist Peter Kalmus shared the article with a plea to “please start listening.” “Elected and corporate ‘leaders’ continue to prioritise their personal power and wealth at the cost of irreversible loss of essentially everything, even as this irreversible loss comes more and more into focus. I see this as literally a form of insanity,” Kalmus wrote, adding that “capitalism tends to elevate the worst among us into the seats of power.” However, he took issue with the idea that a future of unchecked climate change would be only “semi-dystopian.” “We’re also at risk of losing any gradual bending toward progress, and equity, and compassion, and love,” Kalmus said. “All social and cultural struggles must recognise this deep intersection with the climate struggle.”
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AuthorThese newsletters are put together by Budyong Hill in an attempt to help keep Marlborough people informed of issues both global and local. The aim is help raise awareness of the myriad challenges facing the essential life support systems that our amazing planet provides for us every day. Archives
August 2024
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