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With the world on the line, scientists outline the paths to survival

by AkilahGregson Posted on October 4, 2018

This week, scientists and representatives from every country on Earth are gathering in South Korea to put the finishing touches on a report that, if followed, would change the course of history.

The report is a roadmap for possible ways to keep climate change to 1.5 degrees C above pre-industrial levels. Anything beyond that amount of warming, and the planet starts to really go haywire. So the International Panel on Climate Change — a U.N.-sponsored, Nobel Peace Prize-winning assemblage of scientists — wants to show how we can avoid that. To be clear, hitting that goal would require a radical rethink in almost every aspect of society. But the report finds that not meeting the goal would upend life as we know it, too.

“This will be one of the most important meetings in the IPCC’s history,” said Hoesung Lee, the group’s chair, in his opening address on Monday.

The report will be released on October 8. From leaked drafts, we know the basics of scientists’ findings: World greenhouse gas emissions must peak by 2020 — just 15 months from now. The scientists also show the difference in impacts between 1.5 and 2 degrees would not be minor — it could be make-or-break for the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, for example, which would flood every coastal city on Earth should it collapse.

“The decisions we make now about whether we let 1.5 or 2 degrees or more happen will change the world enormously,” said Heleen de Coninck, a Dutch climate scientist and one of the report’s lead authors, in an interview with the BBC. “The lives of people will never be the same again either way, but we can influence which future we end up with.”

The report has been in the works since the 2015 Paris climate agreement. Three years ago, during the climate talks, leaders of a few dozen small island nations and other highly vulnerable nations, like Ethiopia, Bangladesh, and Vietnam, demanded the bolder 1.5 degrees C temperature target be included in the first-ever global climate pact. The group represents 1 billion people, and for some of the involved countries, like the Marshall Islands, their entire existence is at stake.

At the time, the lead negotiator from that tiny Pacific island nation used the word “genocide” to describe the inevitable process of forced abandonment of his country due to sea-level rise, should global temperature breach the 1.5 degree target.

Even taking into account the policies and pledges enacted globally since the Paris Agreement, the world is on course to warm between 2.6 to 3.2 degrees C by the end of the century, according to independent analysis by Climate Action Tracker.

According to a U.N. preview of the report, meeting the 1.5 goal would “require very fast changes in electricity production, transport, construction, agriculture and industry” worldwide, in a globally coordinated effort to bring about a zero-carbon economy as quickly as possible. It would also very likely require eventually removing huge amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere using technology that is not currently available at the scale that would be necessary. And there’s no time to waste: “The longer CO2 is emitted at today’s rate, the faster this decarbonization will need to be.”

The world has already warmed by about 1.1 degrees C, and the implications of that are increasingly obvious. In just the three years since the Paris Agreement was signed, we’ve seen thousand-year rainstorms by the dozens, the most destructive hurricane season in U.S. history, disastrous fires on almost every continent, and an unprecedented coral bleaching episode that affected 70 percent of the world’s reefs.

In this age of rapid warming, the IPCC report is inherently political — there are obvious winners and losers if the world fails to meet the 1.5-degree goal. If the world’s governments are to take the implications of IPCC’s findings seriously, it would be nothing less than revolutionary — a radical restructuring of human society on our planet.

Right now, scientists are trying to find the precise words to describe an impending catastrophe and the utterly heroic efforts it would take to avert it.

“We’re talking about the kind of crisis that forces us to rethink everything we’ve known so far on how to build a secure future,” Greenpeace’s Kaisa Kosonen told AFP in response to a draft of the report. “We have to try to make the impossible possible.”

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With the world on the line, scientists outline the paths to survival

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Everyone on Capitol Hill Needs to Go Backpacking ASAP

by BOHHugh0556068 Posted on February 5, 2017

Mother Jones

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Getting out into the wild is restorative. Fresh air, natural sounds and settings, a spot of exercise: It tends to free our mind, bring down our stress levels, and, with any luck, give us a break from work. The converse is also true. Excessive urban noise, for example, stresses us out and can wreak havoc on our psyches. These are things we know just based on everyday experience.

Author and journalist Florence Williams, whose last book was Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History, takes this knowledge way further in a new book that focuses on the science behind the health-wilderness link. For The Nature Fix, which hits bookstores this week, Williams bounced around the planet talking to naturalists, scientists, and government workers to get to the bottom of our complex relationship with our environment, which turns out to be both intensely physical and psychological.

I reached out to Williams to talk about the science—and why our government is in desperate need of a monthlong camping trip.

Mother Jones: You write about something called “biophilia.” What is that and why is it important?

Florence Williams: Biophilia is a concept popularized by Harvard biologist and naturalist E.O. Wilson that humans are deeply and instinctively bonded to living systems. It’s important because modern life has made us forget this. We think we are separate from nature, and we often treat the natural world as if that were the case. Our essential amnesia of biophilia has devastating consequences for both us and the natural world. Wilson believes that although the bond is instinctual, it must be cultivated from childhood or we lose it. If we really care about the future of our planet, we need start reconnecting little kids to nature. Unfortunately, many schools, neighborhoods and ever-tempting new technologies are moving kids in the opposite direction.

MJ: We’ve always known intuitively that nature has restorative effects, hence a turn in the countryside, but you really dug in. What surprised you?

FW: I figured being in beautiful environments would be good for our mood and mental health, but I wasn’t expecting the evidence that it also improves our attention and cognition. I was also kind of blown away by the so-called “awe studies” that show that when we experience even little shots of awe, like a sunset or an unexpected butterfly, it can make us actually more compassionate and generous. I have this new plan that we need to line the halls of Congress with potted ficuses and unleash some butterflies.

MJ: A lot of the health aspects of our exposure to nature seems to involve reducing our stress levels. Is there much else to it?

FW: There’s some debate about the mechanisms by which time in nature makes us feel better. It reduces our stress levels, but why? Some argue it’s because of the way information enters our brains. In ordinary life, we suffer from an onslaught of stimuli that taxes our frontal cortex, especially, leading to fatigue and a kind of general grumpiness. When we’re in nature, the frontal lobes get a break, and other parts of our brains get turned on, like parts governing empathy and daydreaming and self-concept.

Another theory is just that, hey, our nervous systems evolved in nature, not in Euclidean concrete cityscapes, and it just makes us feel good to be back in the green and the blue and the environments that sustained us for millions of years. Yet another piece of it is that being outside facilitates a lot of other effective happy-making things, like exercise and hanging out with fun people and seeing beauty. We can get those things in a city, too, but nature provides them for free and for all.

MJ: There’s a growing body of science supporting these health effects, but it seems like foreign scientists and governments are more serious about this stuff and more willing to act on it than Americans. What’s your theory on this?

FW: A lot of the countries I looked at have socialized medicine. It saves the system a lot of money to put some resources into preventing stress-related diseases and it increases worker productivity in the long run. As a psychologist in Finland told me, there just aren’t enough skilled workers to keep burning through them, like so many industries do in the US. So they invest in the workers, even giving them spa time and hiking days in the woods, so that they’ll keep working. And, oh yeah, they get a year off for parental leave—but don’t even get me started on that.

MJ: Tell me a bit about ways governments have taken action on this science, such as the “healing forests” of Japan and Korea.

FW: Japan has designated some 48 forest-therapy trails, mostly used by Tokyoites, who take the trains out of town and decompress from their demanding lives. South Korea now has three entire healing forests and another couple dozen planned. In both countries, healing rangers offer low-cost programs in stress management for everyone from firefighters with PTSD to school bullies to cancer patients. South Korea has explicitly made “green well-being” part of its forest management plan. Researchers have found that time in the woods improves cardiovascular health as well as mental health, so they’re really promoting it.

MJ: Richard Conniff wrote us an interesting piece a while back about how America’s national parks were inspired by Madison Grant, a prominent racist. To what extent is access to nature a social justice issue as it applies to public health?

FW: Madison Grant may have helped inspire the national parks, but so did Frederick Law Olmsted. Olmsted is well known for his love of boulders and big elms, but less known for his radical ideas about public space—especially green space—and democracy. He had toured the slave-holding South as a journalist and promoted the idea of parks as a mixing pot for the great American experiment. He understood that all men and women need to de-stress from the pressures of crowded and increasingly urban life. These notions are now back in vogue, and I don’t think there’s an environmental group out there—or a land-managing federal agency, or a kids’ health group—that isn’t looking at diversity in the outdoors as a core tenet. I’m really heartened by the efforts of groups like Outdoor Afro and GirlTrek and the scouting groups and a ton of others to improve access to nature for urban kids. And when the kids drag their parents outside, the benefits reach into their communities.

MJ: You also wrote a recent piece for Mother Jones, on how noise, which is defined as unwanted sound, appears to have significant negative effects on human health and learning capacity. Part of the equation is how sensitive a person is to noise. So what can a noise-sensitive urban dweller do? Is there a way to make peace with the leaf blowers or with the death metal our annoying housemates insist on blasting day and night?

FW: I wish that were true. I think once you’re bothered by noise, you’re probably always bothered by noise. The best we can hope for is to change up our personal soundscapes by wearing noise-canceling headphones, playing some nice birdsong or whatever music, and soundproofing your work space. Beyond that, we need to just get the heck out of dodge once in a while to recover some equanimity.

Florence Williams

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Everyone on Capitol Hill Needs to Go Backpacking ASAP

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NAFTA and China Aren’t Responsible for Our Steel Woes

by vernongrier9 Posted on June 29, 2016

Mother Jones

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Donald Trump stood in front of a pile of scrap metal yesterday in Pittsburgh and blasted both NAFTA and the accession of China into the World Trade Organization. He was positively poetic about how his trade policies would affect the steel industry:

A Trump Administration will also ensure that we start using American steel for American infrastructure.

Just like the American steel from Pennsylvania that built the Empire State building.

It will be American steel that will fortify America’s crumbling bridges.

It will be American steel that sends our skyscrapers soaring into the sky.

It will be American steel that rebuilds our inner cities.

There’s no question that the American steel industry has suffered over the past three decades, thanks to cheap steel imports from other countries. But this began in the 1980s and had almost nothing to do with either NAFTA or China. Take a look:

Do you see a sudden slump in US steel production after NAFTA passed? Or after China entered the WTO? Nope. Other countries simply produced steel more cheaply than we did. It started with Japan and South Korea in the ’80s and later migrated to other countries not because of trade agreements, but because Japan and South Korea got too expensive. And it’s not as if no one noticed this was happening. Ronald Reagan tried tariffs on steel and they didn’t work. George H.W. Bush tried tariffs again. They didn’t work. George W. Bush tried tariffs a third time. No dice.

For all his bluster, when it came time for Trump to lay out his plan to “bring back our jobs,” it was surprisingly lame. It was seven points long but basically amounted to withdrawing from the TPP and getting tough on trade cheaters. This would accomplish next to nothing. TPP’s effect is small to begin with, and we’re already pretty aggressive about going after trade violations.

The bottom line is simple: If we want access to markets overseas, we have to give them access to our markets. Donald Trump can claim he wants to bring back the jobs we’ve lost to overseas competition, but he’d have to back that up by essentially promising to withdraw completely from NAFTA and the WTO—and then promising to build a huge tariff wall around the entire country. He’s not willing to do that because even he knows it would trash the US economy. So instead he blusters and proposes a toothless plan. Sad.

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NAFTA and China Aren’t Responsible for Our Steel Woes

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Here’s How the Massive New Bird Flu Outbreak Could Affect You

by AbigailKennemer Posted on May 1, 2015

Mother Jones

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The US poultry and egg industries are enduring their largest-ever outbreak of a deadly (known as pathogenic) version of avian flu. Earlier this month, the disease careened through Minnesota’s industrial-scale turkey farms, affecting at least 3.6 million birds, and is now punishing Iowa’s massive egg-producing facilities, claiming 9.8 million—and counting—hens. Here’s what you need to know about the outbreak.

Where did this avian flu come from? So far, no one is sure exactly sure how the flu—which has shown no ability to infect humans—is spreading. The strain now circulating is in the US is “highly similar” to a novel variety that first appeared in South Korea in January 2014, before spreading to China and Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, according to a paper by a team led by US Geological Survey wildlife virologist Hon Ip.

How did it spread? The most likely carrier is wild birds, but it’s unclear how they deliver the virus into large production facilities, where birds are kept indoors under rigorous biosecurity protocols. On Thursday, the mystery deepened when birds in an Iowa hatchery containing 19,000 chickens tested positive for the virus. “This is thought to be first time the avian influenza virus has affected a broiler breeding farm in this outbreak,” Reuters reported. “Such breeding farms are traditionally known for having extremely tight biosecurity systems.” John Clifford, the US Department of Agriculture’s chief veterinary officer, recently speculated that the virus could be invading poultry confinements through wind carrying infected particles left by wild birds, taken onto the factory-farm floor by vents.

Can humans catch it? So far, no. But public health officials have been warning for decades that massive livestock confinements make an ideal breeding ground for new virus strains. In its authoritative 2009 report on industrial-scale meat production, the Pew Commission warned that the “continual cycling of viruses and other animal pathogens in large herds or flocks increases opportunities for the generation of novel flu viruses through mutation or recombinant events that could result in more efficient human-to-human transmissions.” It added: “agricultural workers serve as a bridging population between their communities and the animals in large confinement facilities.”

Is this bird flu affecting the poultry industry’s revenue? Yup. The specter of flu is already pinching Big Chicken’s bottom line. China and South Korea—which imported a combined $428.5 million in US poultry last year—have imposed bans on US chicken, drawing the ire of USDA chief Tom Vilsack, Reuters reports.

What’s the worst-case scenario? If the virus spread to the Southeast, Big Poultry will be in big trouble. Here’s a map showing where chicken production is concentrated (from Food and Water Watch). Already, the strain has turned up in wild birds as far south as Kentucky.

Map: Food and Water Watch

What are we doing to stop the flu from spreading further? All the flu-stricken birds not killed outright by the virus are euthanized—but beyond that, the strategy seems to be: ramp up biosecurity efforts at poultry facilities and cross your fingers. Flu viruses don’t thrive in the heat, so “when warm weather comes in consistently across the country I think we will stop seeing new cases,” USDA chief veterinarian Clifford recently said on a press call. But USDA officials recently told Reuters it’s “highly probable” that the virus will regain force when temperatures cool in the fall—and potentially be carried by wild birds to the southeast.

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Here’s How the Massive New Bird Flu Outbreak Could Affect You

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The International Cronut Wars Are On

by Aaren Smith Posted on July 31, 2013

Photo: WynLok

The cronut combines everything that is delicious and unhealthy about both a donut and a croissant. Created a few months back by a New York pastry chef at the Dominique Ansel Bakery, it consists of flaky, buttery croissant dough, folded into a classic donut shape and deep fried, then—as if that weren’t enough—injected with some sort of luscious cream and topped off with icing. Lines of people desperate to try one have formed two hours before the bakery opened.

Obviously, this pastry bonanza could not remain a secret for long. Asia, the Wall Street Journal reports, is already all over it. Bakeries from Hong Kong to Singapore to Japan to the Philippines have already churned out their own versions of the sugar bomb snack—inspiring their own block-long lines of hungry patrons. Some of these shops added a distinctly Asian flare to the scrumptious dessert:

Different bakeries have infused local flavors into their versions. Wildflour Cafe has a dulce de leche option. Banderole, which is already selling hundreds of its croissant doughnuts each day, has green-tea flavored ones and even one with a kawaii, or cute, smiley face on it. The Sweet Spot’s rendition has crushed peanuts, caramel and custard. The end product resembles a mini-doughnut burger with a custard patty.

Even Dunkin Donuts—at least those in Asia—are jumping on the cronut bandwagon. Here’s Quartz:

In South Korea, an adaptation of Ansel’s recipe is now being offered by a global donut and coffee chain, rather than a local baker or domestic pastry chain. A Dunkin Donuts spokesman told Quartz that the chain introduced the “New York Pie Donut” this past weekend. Dunkin Donuts also launched a “Donut Croissant” in Manila a few weeks ago but has no plans to introduce them in the US right now. In South Korea, the pastries are being sold in the high-end Seoul neighborhood of Gangnam, as well as Jamsil and Myungdong.

The original New York creators aren’t feeling too threatened, the Journal reports, given that most of the competition abroad hasn’t sampled the real deal, meaning their version of the cronut is just visual interpretations injected with some imagination. Technically, imitators aren’t allowed to use the name “cronut” since it’s been trademarked by Dominique Ansel, Quartz points out, though China in particular has never given much heed to copyrights. 

More from Smithsonian.com:

Kolaches: The Next Big Thing in Pastries and The Tex-Czech Community Behind Them
Can Starbucks Do for the Croissant What it Did for Coffee? 

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The International Cronut Wars Are On

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