by K.O. in Atmos…NEOM has been hailed as the future of the climate-resilient, smart city. But, for local communities, its construction threatens displacement and exploitation.
Silicon dreams and carbon nightmares: The wide boundary impacts of AI
by Nate Hagen in The Great Simplification…What are the environmental implications of a tool with unbound computational capabilities aimed towards goals of relentless growth and extraction? How could artificial intelligence play into the themes of power and greed, intensifying inequalities and accelerating the fragmentation of society? What role could AI play under a different set of values and expectations for the future that are in service to the betterment of life?
Column: How ‘Sesame Street’ can prepare kids for climate disasters
by Sammy Roth in the LA Times…Twenty-three years ago, “Sesame Street” aired a remarkable series of episodes during which the iconic puppets and their human friends must recover from a hurricane. One focus is Big Bird’s struggle to come to terms with the destruction of his nest.
Living Landscapes: rethinking biodiversity in Southern Africa
by Oak Foundation….One of the strengths of the course is that the students taking part already work in conservation areas where they can make a difference, such as biodiversity conservation, natural resource management, and governance (land, water, and the ocean).They come with a wide range of expertise – from government agencies, conservation organisations, climate justice, and not-for-profit organisations. This means they bring experience with them, which they can share with the group.
Extreme wildfires have doubled in frequency and intensity in the past 20 years
by Victor Fernandez Garcia & Christina Santin in Wired.com….The doubling in extreme wildfires adds to a complex picture of fire patterns and trends. This new evidence underscores the urgency of addressing the root causes behind worsening wildfire activity, such as land cover changes, forest policies and management, and, of course, climate change. This will better prepare us for these extreme fires, which are near-impossible to combat using traditional firefighting methods.
NEOM is a city of the future. The land is the cost.
by K.O. in Atmos….NEOM has been hailed as the future of the climate-resilient, smart city. But, for local communities, its construction threatens displacement and exploitation.
More in this category
Overshooting earth’s boundaries: an interview with Bill Rees
by Rachel Donald in World Sensorium Conservancy….Our impact on the planet cannot be understated. We have thrust Earth into a new geological period, destroyed the majority of the world’s wildlife, razed her forests, and rendered innumerable species extinct. We are expert consumers with no limits to our appetite, it seems. Unless the climate becomes so unstable our own systems break down. This, of course, is what we’re already seeing.
Rivers and water systems as weapons and casualties of the Russia‐Ukraine war
By Peter Gleick in Earth’s Future……Among the consequences of the conflict have been both direct and indirect effects on civilian populations, agriculture, military operations, water supplies and quality, and natural ecosystems. An historical review shows that such attacks have occurred in the past, but the extent and severity of the current violence appear unprecedented, raising important questions of international law and how international legal and scientific communities should respond.
Treading Thin Air
by Geoff Mann in Uncertainty and Climate Change….What we need is a much more honest assessment of what we do not or cannot know, which is, among other important things, where the edge is. We might, in fact, be past it already, treading thin air like Wile E. Coyote before the fall. Today’s politicians don’t like uncertainty: it introduces doubt. Yet we are in desperate need of a politics that looks catastrophic uncertainty square in the face.
I want a better catastrophe
by Andrew Boyd in bettercatastrophe.com…The apocolypse is already happening.
Heat is not a metaphor
by Alexis Pauline Gumbs in Harpers Bazaar….Let me be clear: “Living on a menopausal planet” does not mean the extreme heat we are experiencing is just a natural part of Earth’s life cycle, as climate-change deniers claim. The volatile temperatures we are experiencing are a result of toxic human actions—just like the hot flashes experienced by menopausal people (many women, many gender-expansive people, anyone who has ever had a uterus or ovaries or stewarded the hormone estrogen) may be impacted by the prevalence of hormone-injected animals and processed food in our diets.
Where dangerous heat is surging
by Niko Kommenda, et al in the Washington Post….The danger of climate change is often associated with huge disasters: floods, fires, hurricanes. Heat, on the other hand, is a creeping, quieter risk — but one that is already transforming lives around the world.
The fear of a nuclear fire that would consume Earth
by Thomas Moynihan at BBC.com…..Perhaps the lesson for AI is that the dramatic risks should command our attention, but so too should the more tangible, less attention-grabbing, ones. Neither should cancel the other out, especially when – once again – our world is possibly at stake.
America is using up its groundwater like there’s no tomorrow
By Mira Rojanasakul et al, in The New York Times…..“From an objective standpoint, this is a crisis,” said Warigia Bowman, a law professor and water expert at the University of Tulsa. “There will be parts of the U.S. that run out of drinking water.”
What the fossil fuel industry doesn’t want you to know
In TedX with Al Gore……In a blistering talk, Nobel Laureate Al Gore looks at the two main obstacles to climate solutions and gives his view of how we might actually solve the environmental crisis in time. You won’t want to miss his searing indictment of fossil fuel companies for walking back their climate commitments — and his call for a global rethink of the roles of polluting industries in politics and finance.
Canada in the year 2060
by Anne Shibata Casselman in Maclean’s….“Some years we’re going to have to restrict water and essentially ration it. And there’ll be other years when we’ll perhaps be one of the few places in the world that can still produce food reliably.”
Climate-changing human activity could lead to 1 billion deaths over the next century, according to new study
by Jeff Renaud in Phys.org…..”If you take the scientific consensus of the 1,000-ton rule seriously, and run the numbers, anthropogenic global warming equates to a billion premature dead bodies over the next century. Obviously, we have to act. And we have to act fast.”
We are witnessing the first stages of civilization’s collapse
by Michael T. Klare in The Nation….Will our own elites perform any better than the rulers of Chaco Canyon, the Mayan heartland, and Viking Greenland?
Global heating likely to hit world food supply before 1.5C, says UN expert
by Fiona Harvey in The Guardian….“Climate change is a pandemic that we need to fight quickly. See how fast the degradation of the climate is going – I think it’s going even faster than we predicted.”
Atlantic collapse: Q&A with scientists behind controversial study predicting a colder Europe
by Peter Ditlevsen in The Conversation…..But what we see now with more and more frequent extremes, heat waves and storms and floodings, is the possibility of actually hitting a nonlinearity, a tipping point. That’s a much more challenging phenomenon to model.
From debt to diversity: A journey of rewilding, carbon capture and hope
by Elizabeth Fitt in Mongabay….A study also shows that the rewilded farmland at Knepp absorbs more carbon dioxide than conventional farms, providing hope for climate change mitigation and soil restoration.