Top news and views about Environment and Cleantech for 18 Jul 2017
CrowdifyClub Category: Environment and Cleantech
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Antarctica's ice-free areas to increase by up to a quarter by 2100, study says
Climate change will cause ice-free areas on Antarctica to increase by up to a quarter by 2100, threatening the diversity of the unique terrestrial plant and animal life that exists there, according to projections from the first study examining the question in detail.
If emissions of greenhouse gasses are not reduced, projected warming and changes in snowfall will cause ice-free areas – which currently make up about 1% of Antarctica and are home to all of the continent’s terrestrial plants and animals – to increase by as much as 17,000 square kilometres.
Since many of the ice-free areas on Antarctica are isolated from one another, they have acted like islands in the ocean, with the life existing in each one forming distinct groups. As those areas expand in the future, they will become closer to one another, with many coalescing, allowing the distinct groups to mix and potentially homogenise.
By 2100, if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, the expansion of ice-free patches will lead to their overall number decreasing from more than 5,500 to fewer than 3,000, according to the work by Jasmine Lee from the Australian Antarctic Division and colleagues published in the journal Nature.
Full story at http://bit.ly/2sj5KHZ
Source: The Guardian
How Climate Change Will Transform the Way We Live
Earlier this week, nearly 50 flights out of Phoenix were cancelled. At 120 degrees, the temperature forecast exceeded the airline’s 118 degrees maximum operating temperature.
It’s difficult not to connect the delays to climate change—scientists estimate the planet’s overall temperature has increased by 1.8 degrees since preindustrial times. Last year was the hottest on record, followed by 2015, followed by 2014.
As the world continues to warm, such plane delays will become more common, says Camilo Mora, an associate geography professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. And that’s just the beginning.
Here’s how he predicts global warming will impact day-to-day life in the U.S. within the next century.
Full story at http://for.tn/2rWHhYM
Source: Fortune
Trump called 'threat to every coastline' as he pushes ocean drilling plan
Environmentalists have condemned Donald Trump as a “threat to every ocean and coastline in the country”, after the president pushed forward plans to expand oil and gas drilling in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans as part of what he called a new era of “American energy dominance”.
The Trump administration has taken the first steps to rewrite a five-year plan, put in place under Barack Obama, that banned drilling along the Atlantic seaboard and in large swaths of the Arctic. The interior department is opening a 45-day public comment period for a new plan that it says will help grow the economy.
Green groups have promised in response to mobilize the coastal communities that successfully implored the Obama administration not to open up new areas to drilling, due to fears over the effect of potential oil spills and noise pollution upon livelihoods and wildlife.
Full story at http://bit.ly/2tFlKYT
Source: The Guardian
Conservatives are again denying the very existence of global warming
As we well know, climate myths are like zombies that never seem to die. It’s only a matter of time before they rise from the dead and threaten to eat our brains. And so here we go again – American conservatives are denying the very existence of global warming.
The claim is based on what can charitably be described as a white paper, written by fossil fuel-funded contrarians Joseph D’Aleo and Craig Idso along with James Wallace III. Two months ago, D’Aleo and Wallace published another error-riddled white paper on the same website with fellow contrarian John Christy; both papers aimed to undermine the EPA’s Endangerment Finding.
The Endangerment Finding concluded that the scientific research clearly shows that carbon pollution endangers public health and welfare via climate change impacts, and therefore according to the US Supreme Court, the EPA must regulate carbon pollution under the Clean Air Act. Conservatives who benefit from the fossil fuel status quo and oppose all climate policies have urged the Trump administration to go after the Endangerment Finding.
Both papers are rife with flaws because they start from a desired conclusion – that the science underpinning Endangerment Finding is somehow wrong – and work backwards trying to support it. In this paper, the contrarians try to undermine the accuracy of the global surface temperature record, which has been validated time and time again. They don’t bother trying to hide their bias – the paper refers to “Climate Alarmists” and speaks of invalidating the Endangerment Finding.
Full story at http://bit.ly/2uzvp46
Source: The Guardian
How climate change will transform business and the workforce
When we think of climate change, most of us think of environmental consequences like rising sea levels, elevated temperatures and melting glaciers.
In some parts of the world, like south Florida or the mountains of Switzerland, those shifts already are affecting daily life. In Miami, for example, wastewater treatment plants are being re-built higher, seawalls raised and car parks designed with flood gates – not only in response to flooding today, but with an eye to the sea levels of tomorrow.
But experts say that those effects may only be the tip of the (melting) iceberg. Climate change is shaking up everything from finance to health. As a result, it isn’t only urban planners in at-risk areas who will have to shift their framework for planning for the future. From financial planners to farmers, civil engineers to doctors, an increasingly wide range of other professionals are likely to find their industries affected.
That means there may be another consequence of climate change that often gets overlooked: what it means for your career.
Full story at http://bbc.in/2uzxY6l
Source: BBC News
When corals die off, we die off
**(CNN) - **In 1998, the cruel heat of El Nino hit Seychelles hard. Sea surface temperatures rose around the Indian Ocean, bleaching 90% of coral reefs in the archipelago. Widespread flooding caused significant economic losses -- fishing and agriculture accounting for more than half of the total figure according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The meteorological event, a combination of ocean heat redistribution and wind reversal in the Pacific, occurs approximately every two to seven years and has far-reaching consequences. The last El Nino in 2016 was similarly dreadful, reducing coral coverage on Seychelles' reefs from 50% to 5%, say local researchers.
El Nino is a phenomenon: a devastating, uncontrollable exception to the norm. With carefully managed conservation, Seychelles can survive its wild fluctuations. But not if global warming continues. As baseline temperatures creep up, the ecosystem loses its ability to recover. Eventually El Nino could prove terminal.
Climate change has become the day-to-day struggle for this tiny nation -- an island nation that faces erasure should the problem remain uncurbed.
Full story at http://cnn.it/2uzJ3Ee
Source: CNN
Prepared by @SydesJokes
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I know it's a serious and a very disheartening situation. The more awareness the better. It's just so sad how so many are not open minded about this terrible truth.