Sometimes a series of photos can tell you all you need to know. These come from a surfing photoshoot in Indonesia, and probably have a very different impact (though more powerful) than photographer Zac Noyle originally intended.
Category: Environment
Phew, Glad We Settled That
Because it would nice to stop arguing about this and focus on solutions:
An international panel of scientists has found with near certainty that human activity is the cause of most of the temperature increases of recent decades, and warns that sea levels could conceivably rise by more than three feet by the end of the century if emissions continue at a runaway pace.
The scientists, whose findings are reported in a draft summary of the next big United Nations climate report, largely dismiss a recent slowdown in the pace of warming, which is often cited by climate change doubters, attributing it most likely to short-term factors.
The report emphasizes that the basic facts about future climate change are more established than ever, justifying the rise in global concern. It also reiterates that the consequences of escalating emissions are likely to be profound.
“It is extremely likely that human influence on climate caused more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010,” the draft report says. “There is high confidence that this has warmed the ocean, melted snow and ice, raised global mean sea level and changed some climate extremes in the second half of the 20th century.”
I suppose there will next be a demand for ABSOLUTE certainty. In the meantime here is a partial glimpse of what we are destroying:
Grist’s List Of 16 Things Climate Change Is Screwing Up
On the one hand the list is interesting (sort of) for the diversity of things on it (from fireworks to the Tour De France), which drives home the point that climate change is almost infinite in its impacts.
On the other hand, the list is mostly about how climate change will affect us humans and the things we like. Wine, for example:
In 2011, former U.N. Secretary Kofi Annan delivered the keynote address at the the third Climate Change and Wine Congress in Spain. What he knew, and the attendees knew, is that wine is particularly susceptible to a changing climate. Most crops find increasing heat waves, flooding, and droughts difficult to endure, but wine is special. Grapes are grown in specific fields for hundreds of years because that particular place is particularly good at producing a particular varietal of wine. When areas get warmer or drier, the grapes change, and then the wine’s taste and color changes. Some vineyards are trying to move uphill to take advantage of thinner, cooler air, but it doesn’t always work. Some varietals are simply trying to move north, and a few vintners have already planted “champagne” vineyards in England.
Here’s the problem: Until the way we look at the climate stops being all about us, until the way we look at the planet and life on the planet stops being all about us, there isn’t much hope of addressing climate change. Because addressing climate change means starting to care less about ourselves, and our own needs and desires, and more about the rest of the species on the planet and the habitats they live in. This list suggests we aren’t quite there yet.
The Pros And Cons Of Pesticide Use
Well, while we know most of the pros, there are plenty of cons (like maybe wiping out out bee populations) that we don’t really yet understand.
Here’s a good summary of what we do and don’t know:
Pesticides have become an enduring feature of modern life. In 2007, the world used more than 5.2 billion pounds of weed killers, insecticides, and fungicides to do everything from protecting crops to warding off malaria.
And that’s led many researchers to wonder what sorts of broader impacts all these chemicals are having. They’ve helped feed the world, yes, but they may also be causing health problems elsewhere. To that end, the latest issue of Science has a fascinating special section on the world’s pesticide use.
This is a great example of how we push technology forward because we can (and we can see immediate benefits, and profits) without always grasping the net cost on health or the planet. And the thing that has always troubled me is that instead of the burden of proof being on those who want to develop and use a technology (to prove it is safe and a net benefit), the burden of proof tends to fall on those who suspect there are problems (to prove it is not safe or a net benefit). Smoking is another great example.
Sometimes, of course, we can’t assess the full impact of a technology, pesticides in this case, until it has been field tested on the planet (and on us). But it would be nice if the system was set up to better monitor and assess the balance of good and bad any technology does. And it would be nice if the environmental and health impacts of any given technology were priced into the actual cost. Right now, the industries that reap the benefits of using potentially harmful technologies have too much influence over how the technology is assessed (and regulated).
Here, for example, is what science is starting to show about pesticides:
Three long-term cohort studies now suggest that certain chemical pesticides can interfere with brain development in young children. And some experts suspect that a class of pesticides known as neonicotinoids are at least partly responsible for the recent collapse in bee populations (though this is still disputed).
There are other, lesser-known impacts as well. Australia’s wheat farmers are now dealing with one of the worst weed infestations in the world — an issue caused in part by overuse of herbicides, which led to resistant weeds. And some 300,000 people kill themselves each year by ingesting pesticides, largely in Asia. That’s one third of the world’s suicides.
And those are just the effects scientists know about. A notable paper from Heinz-R. Köhler and Rita Triebskorn points out that researchers still don’t understand the full impact of many chemicals on broader ecosystems. “Although we often know a pesticide′s mode of action in the target species,” they write, “we still largely do not understand the full impact of unintended side effects on wildlife.”
It’s the unintended side effects that get you every time.
The Meat Files
“The fact is that the blue planet is literally being destroyed by meat production.”
That’s a slightly more edified version of my blunt mantra: “Meat is killing the planet.” (It’s also killing lots of people, but even that doesn’t seem to get a meat-lover’s attention).
Think it’s hyperbole? Not really–though it is a very hard reality to accept:
A Food Writer’s Manifesto
We all need one, and Grist’s new food writer lays his out:
Many food controversies tend to boil down to the same debate: One side insists on the necessity of progress through the application and advancement of ever more intrusive forms of technological control. The other extreme wants to chuck it all and go back to Eden.
This looks like a stark choice in the abstract, but in application, things always end up being a mix. I think we need to make every acre produce as much as possible, but that shouldn’t be our only goal. Our food should make the world cleaner and more beautiful rather than uglier and more polluted. Our food should support a broad middle class rather than tycoons and destitute laborers. Our food shouldn’t require the torture of animals. Our food should make us healthier.
Mainstream agriculture fails to deliver on any of these counts. The question is, can we come up with something that does any better?
Sounds good to me. In many ways this is the most important environmental and ethical question of our time.
Palm Oil Plague
Palm oil is so pervasive, it’s not easy to keep it (and dead orangutans, among other species that suffer when forests are cut down to grow palm plantations) out of your food.
It’s annoying that the food industry makes us work so hard to do no harm. But here’s the best set of guides I have seen so far if you want to make the effort to eat without a nagging, palm oil-soaked, conscience.
The guides are broken down in to different categories. For example, here is the guide to palm oil free soaps/shampoos/beauty products:
It’s (Still) Getting Hot Up In Here
The latest World Energy Outlook is out. And it ain’t looking so good:
Global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions increased by 1.4 percent in 2012, a pace that could lead to a temperature increase of as much as 5.3 degrees C (9 degrees F) over pre-industrial times, according to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) latest World Energy Outlook. Despite significant improvements in some regions, including the U.S. and Europe, a record 31.6 gigatons of carbon dioxide were emitted worldwide during the year, including a 5.8-percent increase in Japan, where more fossil fuels were burned to compensate for reductions in nuclear power. While the rate of emissions growth in China was dramatically lower than in recent years, it still emitted 3.8 percent more carbon dioxide in 2012 than in 2011.
The Ghost In The Water
A powerful look at how Gulf Coast communities are struggling to deal with the aftermath of the BP Deepwater Horizon blowout, and the oil–the “ghost in the water”–which continues to haunt their lives.
The nation’s attention and the media spotlight have moved on. But the hidden costs of this inevitable unintended consequence or our reliance on oil will keep piling up for decades. This is just part of the real price of oil and gas, the price that no political leader is willing to admit or apply at the pump.
The Earthist Chronicles 