Tag Archives: warming

Lessons from coronavirus and climate change: Don’t be deceived by small numbers

by TaylahOrdonez Posted on March 19, 2020

Comparing the coronavirus pandemic to climate change is a fraught endeavor. Using one crisis to illustrate the dangers of another typically doesn’t work. For the most part, people only have the mental bandwidth for one life-threatening, world-altering crisis at a time. (Even one’s a stretch, if personal experience is any indication.)

But there is at least one major way in which coronavirus is similar to the climate crisis, and it’s worth talking about now, while the world’s collective missteps in containing COVID-19 are fresh in our minds: Small differences in numbers matter a lot.

When the coronavirus first began to spread beyond Wuhan, China, a misinformed bit of conventional wisdom started getting passed around: COVID-19 is just like the flu, and Americans survive flu epidemics on a regular basis. President Trump regurgitated this tidbit as recently as last week, tweeting, “So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!” (Trump’s tweet was almost right — the flu killed 34,000 Americans last year.)

The flu has a death rate of around 0.1 percent in the U.S. COVID-19 has put an estimated death rate between 1 and 3.4 percent, although we won’t know the true death rate until the outbreak is over. The difference between 0.1 percent and 2 percent may not sound like much. Indeed, some people on social media have opined that a 97 or 98 percent survival rate sounds pretty good to them.

But a report published Monday by an epidemic modeling group said that, in the absence of federal and individual measures, COVID-19 could kill 2.2 million people in the U.S. Some of that is because COVID-19 is more contagious than the flu — but it’s also because there’s a major difference between a 0.1 percent death rate and a 2 or 3 percent death rate.

And there’s a major difference between 1.5 degrees C and 2 degrees C. Experts agree that, in order to avert mass casualties, serious upticks in extreme weather events, and unending heatwaves, global warming needs to stay below 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F) over preindustrial levels. We’re currently on track to surpass 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F) of warming. Some studies show the world is on course for more than 3 degrees C (5.4 degrees F) of warming. So what’s in a half-degree? A whole lot, even if it doesn’t seem like it.

At 1.5 degrees C of warming, heat waves will affect 14 percent of the world’s population once every five years. At 2 degrees C, 37 percent of the world will be exposed to heat waves — 420 million more people. At 2 degrees C of warming, 61 million people more will be exposed to severe drought than if we kept warming to 1.5 degrees C. That half a degree could expose between 180 and 270 million more people to be exposed to water scarcity. At 1.5 degrees C of warming, coral reefs will decline 70 to 90 percent. At 2 degrees C, they become nonexistent. These are just a fraction of the findings in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2019 special report on global warming, but you get the idea. Small changes in climate equal huge impacts.

Maybe if people started thinking about 1.5 degrees C like it’s the flu, and 2 degrees C like it’s a life-altering pandemic, politicians will be compelled to take action. Right now, we’re moving too slowly to avoid a worst-case scenario.

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Lessons from coronavirus and climate change: Don’t be deceived by small numbers

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The future of food: droughts, wrecked crops, and empty plates

by CarinaAslatt Posted on November 28, 2018

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More droughts. More punishingly hot days killing farm workers and livestock. More allergen-spewing weeds. More crop-wrecking storms. And ultimately, more hunger.

According to the recently released National Climate Assessment, global warming is already making farming in the United States more difficult, and it’s likely to get worse. A steep decline in U.S. harvests would spur a worldwide crisis, because grains, oils, and meat from the United States ship to every continent. It would increase pressure to clear rainforests around the equator and the boreal forests of Canada and Russia to grow food. Falling yields would also drive up food prices, making it harder for the poor to afford meals.

“Food security, which is already a challenge across the globe, is likely to become an even greater challenge,” the report’s authors wrote.

The short-term outlook doesn’t look so scary. Climate change means a longer growing season, and conditions might actually improve in places like the Dakotas, where cold weather currently limits farming. Warming should also boost wheat and barley harvests. But rising temperatures and CO2 concentrations will also “enable ragweed and other plants to produce allergenic pollen in larger quantities,” for more months out of the year. And in the long term, harvests of all food crops, including wheat, are expected to decline unless farmers take unprecedented steps to adapt.

Radical adaptation could improve harvests and help solve the larger climate problem. Crops can suck carbon dioxide out of the air and store it in the soil. The report notes that “agriculture is one of the few sectors with the potential for significant increases in carbon sequestration.”

What would radical adaptation look like? The corn belt might move north from Kansas to Saskatchewan with the weather. Farmers could synch planting times and fertilizer application with precise weather forecasts. Governments might pay farmers for locking up carbon in their fields instead of maximizing profits. They could also provide the funding necessary for scientists to breed climate-adapted crops and animals.

In short, there are plenty of ways that agriculture can provide hope in place of worry. But without action, there’s going to be misery in farm country, according to the report. By 2050, climate change could shrink Midwestern harvests all the way down to the size they were during the farm crisis of the 1980s, when a surge of foreclosures led many farmers to take their lives. And with our global food market, misery in farm country would mean misery around the world.

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The future of food: droughts, wrecked crops, and empty plates

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Drawdown – Paul Hawken & Tom Steyer

by Myrna Posted on September 30, 2017

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Drawdown

The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming

Paul Hawken & Tom Steyer

Genre: Science & Nature

Price: $13.99

Publish Date: April 18, 2017

Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group

Seller: Penguin Group (USA) Inc.


•  New York Times  bestseller  • The 100 most substantive solutions to reverse global warming, based on meticulous research by leading scientists and policymakers around the world “At this point in time, the  Drawdown  book is exactly what is needed; a credible, conservative solution-by-solution narrative that we can do it. Reading it is an effective inoculation against the widespread perception of doom that humanity cannot and will not solve the climate crisis. Reported by-effects include increased determination and a sense of grounded hope.” —Per Espen Stoknes, Author,  What We Think About When We Try Not To Think About Global Warming   “There’s been no real way for ordinary people to get an understanding of what they can do and what impact it can have. There remains no single, comprehensive, reliable compendium of carbon-reduction solutions across sectors. At least until now. . . . The public is hungry for this kind of practical wisdom.” —David Roberts,  Vox “This is the ideal environmental sciences textbook—only it is too interesting and inspiring to be called a textbook.” —Peter Kareiva, Director of the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, UCLA In the face of widespread fear and apathy, an international coalition of researchers, professionals, and scientists have come together to offer a set of realistic and bold solutions to climate change. One hundred techniques and practices are described here—some are well known; some you may have never heard of. They range from clean energy to educating girls in lower-income countries to land use practices that pull carbon out of the air. The solutions exist, are economically viable, and communities throughout the world are currently enacting them with skill and determination. If deployed collectively on a global scale over the next thirty years, they represent a credible path forward, not just to slow the earth’s warming but to reach drawdown, that point in time when greenhouse gases in the atmosphere peak and begin to decline. These measures promise cascading benefits to human health, security, prosperity, and well-being—giving us every reason to see this planetary crisis as an opportunity to create a just and livable world.

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Drawdown – Paul Hawken & Tom Steyer

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Nearly all coral reefs will be ruined by climate change.

by MaritzaDesroche Posted on January 7, 2017

The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service has announced that 2016 will be the warmest year in recorded history — by a lot.

The Arctic had an especially warm year, and experienced the sharpest rise in temperatures, while Africa and Asia also felt unusually high temps. Globally, surface temperatures climbed to an average 58.6 degrees F, 2.3 degrees F higher than before the Industrial Revolution, when humans got serious about burning fossil fuels.

The warming temps continue a well-established trend: Last year was also the hottest year on record at the time, and 2014 was the hottest year on record before that. In fact, 10 of the hottest years on record have occurred since 1998.

This warming trend has name — it’s called climate change, if you weren’t aware — and these rapidly accelerating temperatures come with severe consequences, including worsening storms, wildfires, droughts, and other extreme weather events. And climate change isn’t just scary — it’s expensive.

Despite all the evidence, the incoming president and much of the GOP-controlled Congress either ignore climate change or thinks it’s a giant ruse created by Al Gore. As for how they explain another hottest year of record — well, maybe it’s the just heat from the burning dumpster fire that was 2016.

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Nearly all coral reefs will be ruined by climate change.

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Global Warming Will Intensify Drought, Says New Study

by Myrna Posted on December 23, 2013

A new paper concludes droughts will probably set in more quickly and become more intense. Flooding in New Delhi. Partha Sarkar/Xinhua/ZUMA When scientists think about climate change, we often focus on long term trends and multi-year averages of various climate measures such as temperature, ocean heat, sea level, ocean acidity, and ice loss. But, what matters most in our day-to-day lives is extreme weather. If human-caused climate change leads to more extreme weather, it would make taking action more prudent. It is clear that human emissions have led to increased frequencies of heat waves and have changed the patterns of rainfall around the world. The general view is that areas which are currently wet will become wetter; areas that are currently dry will become drier. Additionally, rainfall will occur in heavy doses. So, when you look at the Earth in total, the canceling effects of wetter and drier hides the reality of regional changes that really matter in our lives and our economies. Keep reading at The Guardian. Taken from: Global Warming Will Intensify Drought, Says New Study Related Articles A Glitter-Covered Banner Got These Protesters Arrested for Staging a Bioterror Hoax Oil and Dolphins Don’t Mix Dot Earth Blog: Climate Scientists, Then and Now, Espousing ‘Responsible Advocacy’

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Global Warming Will Intensify Drought, Says New Study

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The Supertyphoon and the Warming Globe

by Myrna Posted on November 12, 2013

Did climate change turn Haiyan into a monster? Fragile Oasis/Flickr Yesterday, the supertyphoon Haiyan made landfall in Vietnam and China. Reports are still coming in, but many are confirmed dead and there are certainly many more injured. There’s considerable damage to property, infrastructure, and so on. Luckily — if that word is even appropriate here — the storm had weakened considerably before hitting those countries. It was at its full and fearsome strength when it came across the Philippines last week, and the devastation there is almost beyond imaging. There are certainly thousands dead, with some estimates as high as 10,000. Over a half million people have been displaced, and millions more affected in one way or another. Humanitarian aid is pouring in, a bright spot in this dark moment. In situations like this, it’s common to ask why these things can happen, how these things can happen, and even to call them “an act of God.” To keep reading, click here. Originally posted here: The Supertyphoon and the Warming Globe Related Articles Philippines Urges Action to Resolve Climate Talks Deadlock After Typhoon Haiyan How Online Mapmakers Are Helping the Red Cross Save Lives in the Philippines MAP: Is Your State Ready for Climate Disasters?

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The Supertyphoon and the Warming Globe

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The Arctic Hasn’t Been This Hot for 44,000 Years

by roz3edl Posted on October 25, 2013

Photo: NASA / GSFC / Suomi NPP

Global warming is heating the planet, and the Arctic is getting the worst of it. Polar amplification means that the temperature in the Arctic is rising faster than anywhere on Earth and destabilizing the coast. All that excess heat is also melting ice and snow. While we’ve known that the Arctic is getting warm, according to new research, the weather in the northern regions is actually the warmest it’s been in the past 44,000 years, Christa Marshall reports at Climate Wire.

The average summer temperature in the Arctic over the past 100 years, say lead author Gifford Miller and his colleagues, is “now higher than during any century in more than 44,000 years, including peak warmth of the early Holocene,” a time known as the Holocene thermal maximum.

Getting actual temperature records going back that far is, of course, impossible. Instead, the scientists looked at the plants in the area. By looking at the plants that are emerging from beneath the thawing ice, the scientists can figure out when the ice last melted back this far. Miller and co.:

The ancient rooted plants emerging beneath the four ice caps must have been continuously ice-covered for at least 44 [thousand years]. However, because the oldest dates are near the limit of the radiocarbon age scale, substantially older ages are possible. Based on temperature reconstructions for ice cores retrieved from the nearby Greenland Ice Sheet, the youngest time interval during which summer temperatures were plausibly as warm as present prior to 44 [thousand years] is ~120 [thousand years], at, or near the end of the Last Interglaciation. We suggest this is the most likely age of these samples.

Regardless of the absolute age uncertainties, it remains clear that these four ice caps did not melt behind our collection sites at any time during the Holocene, but did do so recently, indicating that summer warmth of recent decades exceeded that of any interval of comparable length in >44 [thousand years.]

Marshall:

The fact that certain ice caps did not melt during the Holocene Thermal Maximum, despite the extreme warmth at the time, suggests that today’s unusual warming period can only be caused by greenhouse gases, Miller said.

“Nothing else out there can explain it,” Miller said.

More from Smithsonian.com:

Everything You Need to Know About Arctic Sea Ice Melt, in One 10-Second Animated Gif

A Warming Climate Is Turning the Arctic Green

Stunning View of Arctic Could Be Last of its Kind

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The Arctic Hasn’t Been This Hot for 44,000 Years

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