Climate Crisis, Biosphere & Societal Collapse

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/18026761

A new analysis by Hansen and colleagues concludes that both the impact of recent cuts in sun-blocking shipping pollution, which has raised temperatures, and the sensitivity of the climate to increasing fossil fuels emissions are greater than thought.

The group’s results are at the high end of estimates from mainstream climate science but cannot be ruled out, independent experts said. If correct, they mean even worse extreme weather will come sooner and there is a greater risk of passing global tipping points,

Evwrtyhings on course for the collpaee if civilisation under the weight of human stupidity :)

A new analysis by Hansen and colleagues concludes that both the impact of recent cuts in sun-blocking shipping pollution, which has raised temperatures, and the sensitivity of the climate to increasing fossil fuels emissions are greater than thought.

The group’s results are at the high end of estimates from mainstream climate science but cannot be ruled out, independent experts said. If correct, they mean even worse extreme weather will come sooner and there is a greater risk of passing global tipping points,

Evwrtyhings on course for the collpaee if civilisation under the weight of human stupidity :)

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/28977775

In the European Union (EU), 47% of electricity now comes from renewable sources like wind and solar, a new record according to a report from the think tank Ember. This is a far higher percentage than in other countries, including the United States and China, where about two-thirds of energy comes from fossil fuels such as oil, coal, and gas.

For the first time in 2024, solar energy surpassed coal in generating electricity across all 27 EU member states, while natural gas production of electricity fell for the fifth year running.

Climate change experts are encouraged by Europe’s continued push toward cleaner energy, especially as the new U.S. administration pushes for increased fossil fuel use.

“Fossil fuels are losing their grip on EU energy,” said Chris Rosslowe, the lead author of Ember’s ‘European Electricity Review’. “Back in 2019, at the start of the European Green Deal, few believed the energy transition would be where it is today: wind and solar are replacing coal and driving gas into a structural decline.”

The share of electricity produced by renewables jumped to 47% last year compared to 34% in 2019, in large part due to strong growth in solar and wind energy. In 2024, 11% of the EU’s electricity came from solar power, 17% from wind, and 24% from nuclear. The share produced by traditional fossil fuels dropped from 39% in 2019 to 29% in 2024.

...

[Edit typo.]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/28973386

Archived

An Australian economist has argued China has “hoodwinked” the world on net zero in what he acknowledges could be seen as a “controversial” take.

Leith Van Onselen, chief economist at the MB Fund and MB Super and co-founder of MacroBusiness, told 4BC host Mike Jeffreys that while Australia and other countries are making sacrifices for the good of the planet, the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter is not, and therefore “we’re basically shooting ourselves in the foot”.

“I’d argue China is the largest beneficiary of the West’s net zero policies,” Mr Van Onselen said on the radio show.

“It’s not abiding by the same rules and what we’re effectively doing is, while we’re reducing our carbon footprints through these sorts of policies and giving us expensive energy and shutting down manufacturing and becoming less diversified economies, China is simply expanding its carbon output and expanding its manufacturing sector at our expense.

“The world’s not getting cleaner. We’re just shifting the pollution away from us, to China, and it’s actually less regulated in China.”

...

He referred to a Reuters report from August that found China had boosted domestic coal production and imports to record highs.

It said production from China’s mines hit a seasonal record of 390 million tonnes in July 2024, up from 378 million in the same month a year earlier, and imports surged to a seasonal record of 296 million tonnes in the first seven months from 261 million tonnes in 2023.

Mr Van Onselen concluded: “I think we can all agree we’d like to have a cleaner planet but the whole idea of net zero is completely impossible or ridiculous if China is not involved.

“If we’re going to make sacrifices, China has to make sacrifices.”

This was due to:

• The increase of nuclear arms worldwide, and the ever decreasing control of them
• Climate change getting worse, due to it being seen as a low priority by many countries
• The possibility of bird blu causing a pandemic, and safety regimes not keeping pace with biological laboratories (Increasing the possibility of a containment breach)
• AI in military targeting, and the possiblity of nuclear arms in orbit
• AI being used to create and spread misinformation, including by world governments

"Blindly continuing on the current path is a form of madness. The United States, China, and Russia have the collective power to destroy civilization. These three countries have the prime responsibility to pull the world back from the brink, and they can do so if their leaders seriously commence good-faith discussions about the global threats outlined here. Despite their profound disagreements, they should take that first step without delay. The world depends on immediate action."

Original article here

https://www.ft.com/content/4697b647-6524-4e4a-aef7-50c1bda21ab3

We have acclimated to the ease of not having to deal with the problem, so we don’t internalise how likely it is. It’s a failure of imagination. We’re just really bad at understanding these slow-moving risks,” he says.

I can only agree albeit I still find it astounding.

The archived link was done before most of the comments. Apparently the flooding in the UK, Valencia and the hurricanes in Florida were because they didn't elect Trump to manage fire risk properly.

Its an interesting take I've agreed with but it does come up againt the why do people insure if they cant think of long term risk? . I do that thats a triumph of marketing though, not anything else.

Edit: normally I don't mind people doing shit and injuring harming themselves but in this instance their denial and stupidity puts human civilisation at an exstentail risk, as well as the rest of the biosphere and perhaps even humanity itself.

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/18156626

Archived

Despite local protests, India is building a giant hydro dam on the Siang River to counter a Chinese dam – the world’s largest – upstream in Tibet. Millions of people in India and Bangladesh could be hurt.

The Siang River, cutting through serene hills, has been considered sacred for centuries by Jijong’s ancestors in the Adi tribal community – farmers whose livelihood depended on its water.

But all of that is now at risk [...] as India moves to build its largest dam over their land.

[...]

[But a local Indian minister] has insisted that it is “not just a hydro dam,” but that its “real objective is to save the Siang River”.

From China.

[...]

At the heart of the Indian dam project that Jijong and his community are opposing is a geostrategic contest for water and security between New Delhi and Beijing, who are locked in a tense rivalry that, in recent years, has also at times exploded into deadly border clashes.

The Siang River originates near Mount Kailash in Tibet, where it is known as the Yarlung Zangbo. It then enters Arunachal Pradesh and becomes much wider. Known as the Brahmaputra in most of India, it then flows into Bangladesh before sinking into the Bay of Bengal.

Last month, China approved the construction of its most ambitious – and the world’s largest – dam over the Yarlung Zangbo, in Tibet’s Medog county, right before it enters Indian territory.

Soon after China first officially announced its plan to construct the dam in 2020, officials in New Delhi started seriously considering a counter-dam to “mitigate the adverse impact of the Chinese dam projects”. The Indian government argues that the Siang dam’s large reservoir would offset the disruption in the flow of the river by the upcoming Medog dam, and safeguard against flash floods or water scarcity.

But the presence of two giant dams in a Himalayan region with a fragile ecosystem and a history of devastating floods and earthquakes poses serious threats to millions of people who live there and further downstream, caution experts and climate activists. And India and China’s dangerous power tussle over Himalayan water resources could disproportionately hurt Indigenous communities.

[...]

Like many, I did buy into the idea that big catastrophes would do something to politics,” said Luisa Neubauer from Fridays for Future Germany. “I bought into that – and I’m glad about it – because I was naively believing there was a democratic responsibility that would live through coalition changes and climate changes.”

The 28-year-old activist, who spent three months in the US before the presidential election, said she had been shocked to see the destruction from Hurricane Helene “play into the cards of those denying climate disasters”.

Far-right influencers and conspiracy theorists used the wildfires that ravaged California this month to attack efforts to stop the planet from heating. Similar disinformation was seen in Spain after deadly floods struck Valencia in October.

Deprived of sunlight, plankton that absorb carbon dioxide died off. At the same time, plankton that release carbon dioxide multiplied. In the space of a few months, thousands of lakes went from being carbon sinks to being carbon sources, according to the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Such a widespread transformation would typically take centuries, said lead author Jasmine Saros, of the University of Maine. “The magnitude of this and the rate of change were unprecedented,” she said. “It was such an overwhelming climate force that drove all the lakes to respond in the same way.”

source

Into that maelstrom came a renowned scientist and engineer named Howard Scott. With a doctorate from the University of Berlin, he’d commanded complex projects around the globe, including British munitions plants and industrial projects for U.S. Steel. Scott and a small group of fellow engineers and scientists had made a diagnosis of civilization’s ills and a prescription for relief. The current capitalist system, they said, was irrevocably broken, and—as one magazine summarizing the movement put it—“we are faced with the threat of national bankruptcy and perhaps general chaos within eighteen months.” Scott described the solution in the language of an engineer—a civilization “operated on a thermo-dynamically balanced load.”

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/18095575

Archived

Viktor Danilov-Danilyan, head of the Institute of Water Problems at the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), has called the recent Black Sea oil spill “the most serious environmental disaster in Russia since the beginning of the 21st century.” His comments came in an interview with Kommersant published on Jan. 17.

The story began on Dec. 15, when two tankers — Volgoneft-212 and Volgoneft-239 — sank in the Kerch Strait, releasing approximately 8,000 tons of heavy fuel oil into the Black Sea. Danilov-Danilyan called the resulting environmental catastrophe an “unprecedented event”:

“This is the first time such a large amount of fuel oil has been spilled. In my view, this is the most serious environmental disaster in Russia since the beginning of the 21st century… The diesel fuel spill in Norilsk in 2020 cannot be compared to today's situation. That incident was localized and quickly addressed due to favorable natural and weather conditions, as well as the availability of sufficient equipment.”

According to the scientist, the pollution threatens not only Russia's coastline but also Ukraine’s port city of Odesa, along with coastal areas in Bulgaria, Romania, and even Turkey.

The oil spill is expected to cause significant wildlife losses, including the death of birds and fish. Cleanup operations are anticipated to reshape the shoreline, resulting in unexpected costs for local municipalities. Danilov-Danilyan noted that the removal of contaminated sand has already shifted the coastline 30-50 meters inland in some areas.

“At the very least, vessels that should have been decommissioned as unfit for use 20 years ago should not have been used… It is impossible to prevent catastrophic consequences with such an approach: sooner or later, they were bound to happen.”

[...]

This ability to infect, spread between, and kill such a wide range of creatures has prompted some scientists to call H5N1 a “panzootic”: an epidemic that leaps species barriers and can devastate diverse animal populations, posing a threat to humans too. As shrinking habitats, biodiversity loss and intensified farming create perfect incubators for infectious diseases to jump from one species to another, some scientists say panzootics could become one of the era’s defining threats to human health and security.

Something to look foward to /s