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Category: Climate, Environment & Pollution (Page 2 of 10)

Climate change refers to long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns. Since the 1800s, human activities have been the main driver of climate change, primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas.

International report confirms record-high greenhouse gases, global sea levels

2023-09-06 /

NOAA »

The international annual review of the world’s climate, led by scientists from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) and published by the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (AMS), is based on contributions from more than 570 scientists in over 60 countries. It provides the most comprehensive update on Earth’s climate indicators, notable weather events and other data collected by environmental monitoring stations and instruments located on land, water, ice and in space.

  • Earth’s greenhouse gas concentrations were the highest on record.
  • Warming trends continued across the globe.
  • Ocean heat and global sea level were the highest on record.
  • Heatwaves shattered temperature records across the planet.
  • The Arctic was warm and wet.

Related » National Observer | Radio Free Asia

Tens of Thousands stuck amid heavy rainfall at Burning Man festival [Updated]

2023-09-02 /

Some 70,000 ‘burners’ are being urged to conserve food and water as rain and flash floods sweep Nevada.

Burning Man festivalgoers surrounded by mud in Nevada desert

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Law enforcement in Nevada are investigating a death of a man at the site of the Burning Man festival where thousands of attendees remained stranded on Saturday night as flooding from storms swept through the Nevada desert. More rain expected over the next few days.

Meanwhile, the official Burning Man live stream states “We wish you were here.”

CNN | Euronews | Reno Gazette Journal | Le Monde | NPR | Fortune | BBC

Why did tourists keep coming as Rhodes and Maui burned?

2023-09-02 /

Moya Lothian-McLean, The Guardian »

Why do we travel? Maui residents told media of their horror at seeing tourists “swimming in the same waters our people died in”. Surely, that level of compartmentalisation in dogged pursuit of a particular experience goes beyond the pursuit of “leisure”? That’s certainly the view of the anthropologist Dean MacCannell. His 1976 book The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class argues that in a post-industrial, increasingly secular world, travel occupies a ritualistic space. Modern western societies are defined by the “freedom” they offer us – but, he writes, this is accompanied by feelings of fragmentation and alienation. Sightseeing in far-off locales is, MacCannell observes, “a way of attempting to overcome the discontinuity of modernity, of incorporating its fragments into a unified experience” (albeit one “doomed to eventual failure”, he cheerily adds). How? Leisure travel gives us perspective, it makes us feel connected to history, and helps connect personal experience with other cultures, people and places – making us feel less isolated. Tourism gives us a sense of selfhood and purpose.

Added to this is the framing of travel as an “authentic” experience in an inauthentic world; a dichotomy that has only become more stark over time. Travel offers one-off experiences; things we can only do in one place. Modern life is marked by its impossible and contradictory obsession with the “authentic”, as any lifestyle marketing bod will testify to. We see travel, rather than our everyday existence, as the portal to “finding ourselves”.

African children bearing the brunt of climate change impacts

2023-09-02 /

Children in Africa are among the most at risk from climate change impacts but are being woefully deprived of the financing necessary to help them adapt, survive and respond to the crisis, reports UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

The African Climate Summit is taking place next week (4 – 8 September 2023) in Nairobi.

Children in 48 out of 49 African countries assessed were found to be at high or extremely high risk of the impacts of climate change, based on their exposure and vulnerability to cyclones, heatwaves and other climate and environmental shocks, and access to essential services.

Those living in the Central African Republic, Chad, Nigeria, Guinea, Somalia, and Guinea-Bissau are most at risk.

At the African Climate Summit, leaders from across the continent are expected to highlight the need for increased investment in climate action.

 

 

Ford’s new Nugget PHEV camper van

2023-08-31 /

New Atlas »

The three-zone layout allows campers to move around the cabin, cook breakfast, and get in and out of the vehicle without having to crawl all over each other, even if the beds are set up. The chef has full autonomy in the rear, unlike with a California-style kitchen smack bang in the middle of the living area and next to the bed.

BRICS welcome six emerging countries » including Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt » into the club of large and populous emerging economies

2023-08-24 /

At the summit in Johannesburg, BRICS » Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa » agreed to make Argentina, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates full members from January 1, growing the blocs role as a geopolitical alternative to Western-led world order.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping stated the world was undergoing major shifts and had entered a new period of “turbulence and transformation.” Ironically, Xi blamed countries that form “exclusive blocs” for the problems.

Can, will BRICS dethrone the US dollar? » The world’s reserve currency is facing increasing challenges from countries who want options beyond the greenback.

The leaders of Brazil, India, and China are all in South Africa — which is hosting the annual event this year — while Russian President Vladimir Putin is participating virtually to avoid arrest under an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant over war crimes in Ukraine.

The Guardian | Le Monde | DW | NY Times | RFi | Al Monitor | Al Jazeera

BRICS summit: Bloc announces 6 new members including Saudi Arabia and Iran • FRANCE 24 English

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Seems It Never Rains in Southern California

2023-08-21 /
It Never Rains in Southern California

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Seems it never rains in southern California
Seems I’ve often heard that kind of talk before
It never rains in California
But girl, don’t they warn ya?
It pours, man, it pours

Released » 1972
Artist » Albert Hammond
Album » It Never Rains in Southern California

Beyond the movie Oppenheimer, lies a deeper narrative

2023-08-19 /

Join Garry Jacobs, President and CEO of the World Academy of Art and Science, an organization co-founded by J. Robert Oppenheimer, Albert Einstein, and other notable scientists and thinkers whose creations weren’t just scientific feats; they were profound reminders of the need for human security.

Today, as AI poses new ethical challenges, Garry Jacobs invites us to carry forward the founders’ vision by joining the “Human Security For All” campaign, co-launched by the United Nations Trust Fund for Human Security and the World Academy of Art and Science.

Oppenheimer: The Untold Story

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It’s official. July was the hottest month on record. By far

2023-08-09 /

AP »

July’s global average temperature of 16.95 degrees Celsius (62.51 degrees Fahrenheit) was a third of a degree Celsius (six tenths of a degree Fahrenheit) higher than the previous record set in 2019, Copernicus Climate Change Service announced Tuesday. Normally global temperature records are broken by hundredths or a tenth of a degree, so this margin is unusual.

The United States is now at a record 15 different weather disasters that caused at least $1 billion in damage this year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Tuesday. It’s the most mega-disasters through the first seven months of the year since the agency tracked such things starting in 1980, with the agency adjusting figures for inflation.

“These records have dire consequences for both people and the planet exposed to ever more frequent and intense extreme events,” said Copernicus deputy director Samantha Burgess. There have been deadly heat waves in the Southwestern United States and Mexico, Europe and Asia. Scientific quick studies put the blame on human-caused climate change from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas.

Eight nations of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization are meeting in Belém to discuss the joint goals for rain forest protection

2023-08-08 /

AP »

The Amazon stretches across an area twice the size of India, and two-thirds of it lies in Brazil. Seven other countries and one territory share the remaining third — Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname, Ecuador and French Guiana. Presidents from all but Ecuador, Suriname and Venezuela are attending.

Massive destruction of the Amazon forest is a climate disaster and all the countries at the summit have ratified the Paris climate accord which requires signatories to set targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But that’s about as far as their shared policy goes.

Reuters »

On Wednesday, Amazon countries will meet with leaders of the Congo, the DRC and Indonesia, looking to issue a joint statement from the world’s three major rainforest basins. Norway and Germany, which have funded Amazon preservation, and France, which controls the Amazon territory of French Guiana, will also participate.

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