In December we visited Uttarakhand state: Rudraprayag, Ukhimath, Agatstymuni and returned via Devprayag, Rishikesh route to Delhi. The scene was painful to say the least. Mountains were being grilled and drilled. It was completely devastating. Everyone wants safer roads but we have to also respect the environmental issues of the region.

Every 5-10 kilometres, we saw dumping of the muck in the beautiful rivers. Why do we allow this muck to be flown into our rivers there? Nobody would justify the mindless ‘development’ there which is imposed due to the advice from some ‘experts’ in Delhi or Dehradun. Uttarakhand’s mountains are definitely beautiful though fragile.

This land was spiritual too but the last five six years have seen the growth of religious tourism with scant respect for the environment as well as local traditions. The religious tourism being encouraged by the current regime is for their ‘grand Hindutva’ project. These were not known in the hill state which has a very vibrant and open food culture. People are religious but it is their faith and not hatred towards any one. They are simple and mostly accustomed to their own traditional lifestyle, with definitely a proud feeling of being an Uttarakhandi. Rivers, mountains give a spiritual look. They are so beautiful that one wish to just sit and feel the power of their ‘energy’. Do we need luxurious cottages and roads to enjoy the tranquillity of the hills? I am not suggesting that people should face difficulties but that is also true when you go to such places. The beautiful places can not be ‘picnic’ spots where you come, throw the garbage and return to your home.

Religious tourism has not really helped the tourism sector in the hills as most of them come in groups, have least respect for the environment and still look for their ‘country food’. It means that they don’t want to enjoy the local delicacies of our environment but even for one day they want to have ‘homelike’ stuff. This has resulted in various states and communities creating their own ‘dharmshalas’ as well as mushrooming of ‘vaishnavite’ and Punjabi Dhabas. If you promote tourism which respects the environment and ecology, I can definitely say, there are thousands of such people who would love to visit here. But religious tourists rarely ask questions about environmental degradation and everything is blamed on God’s wrath, and focus is more on rescue operations and their bravery. After some time, we forget and will claim that we are ‘capable’ of handling such a crisis. Question is why should we allow such a crisis?

The numerous dams that are coming up on various rivers of Uttarakhand particularly Alakananda, Mandikini and others are just destroying them. It is controlling them. Why should we control the natural flow of such supremely pristine rivers? We are fortunate to have seen and felt the beauty of these rivers which are our spiritual strength. That built the civilization in the Himalayan region which we can safely call Uttarakhand’s river valley civilization. Without mountains and rivers, Uttarakhand is nothing. It is our culture and our life and if any one wants to visit these places, he or she needs to face some hardships, otherwise what is the use?

To give the religious people luxury so that they come in large numbers is pure commercialisation of the place. Uttarakhand land is more spiritual and hence religiosity here was not that visible in public as you can witness in UP, Bihar, Rajasthan, Gujarat etc. Even a place like Rishikesh is different from Varanasi where people throng to wash away their ‘sins’. The crowd in various ashrams in Muni ki reti used to be more interested in spiritual discourse than noisy Bollywood bhajans being played in other parts of North India. But that is slowly changing because of ‘project’ Hindutva reaching the upper part of Uttarakhand and through this the contractors who want to profiteer from the rich civilisation source, they term it ‘resource’ like water and minerals.

If the roads were being widened, where was the need for a train project? From RudraPrayag to Agastyamuni-Ukhimath, which is basically the valley of river Mandakini, it was an absolute disaster. The beautiful river was being killed. I remember many of those who fought against this mindless and insensitive development were made villains. Despite the 2013 disaster no lessons were learnt as mushrooming of hotels and restaurants, rafting etc increased while the biggest threat came from the numerous dams being built.

What is the message from Reni village? It is a historic village where Gaura Devi founded the Chipko movement. She fought the battle to protect the forest here from going in the hands of petty contractors in 1974. Gaura Devi died as an isolated woman in 1991 but people are now realising how true she was.

In 2019, the villagers of Reni filed a petition against the Rishi Ganga Power Project but it was rejected by the Uttarakhand High Court. Reports are coming in about how mercilessly these power projects, contractors have been drilling mountains and killing the river. The Supreme Court too allowed these mindless projects to continue even when various expert committees have indicated that it is high risk to have big dam projects in Uttarakhand. Scientists are suggesting what is the use of their opinion if the government continues to ignore them?

When I saw the highway from Rishikesh to DevPrayag, it deeply saddened me. Ganga looks stunning at various locations here. The curves you will find nowhere but when you kill the mountains and dump the dirt in the beautiful river, you are not merely destroying the mountains or river but a whole civilization. I say it with conviction, that without these beautiful rivers and mountains, Uttarakhand means nothing. It is these mountains that fascinated us and made us proud to be called a Pahadi.

I don’t think our rulers will ever learn a lesson because rivers, mountains, gods and goddesses, everything has become a money minting machine. I have said numerous times how fascinating it is to be in the areas where these beautiful rivers flow. They look youthful, joyous and energetic. Why are we killing them for profit? It is time for the government to seriously think over these issues. Protect the mountains and rivers of Uttarakhand as they are our biggest identity and asset. They are our civilization. Stop mindless ‘construction’ in the name of ‘development’. I am sure, people will realise they are better without ‘it’.

We laud the effective action of the state government and round the clock rescue operation done by the ITBP, NDRF, SDRF and other agencies. They deserve our appreciation but for the rulers, I just want to request please don’t impose a ‘developmental’ module from Delhi or Dehradun. Stop this destruction immediately and protect Uttarakhand from this crude and vulgar assault in the name of ‘development.

*Views expressed are the author’s own. 

Other articles by Vidya Bhushan Rawat:

Attempt to vilify the farmers protests will create unhealthy atmosphere for negotiations

Tribal man dies under mysterious circumstances in UP

Who is Responsible for the Current Climate Crisis in Delhi?

The post Stop mindless concretisation ‘projects’ in Uttarakhand appeared first on SabrangIndia.

In a recent study, researchers from the Indian Institutes of Technology at Indore and Guwahati have uncovered how human activities affect the ability of river catchments to cope with climate change. The study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, has investigated the ability of these catchment areas to be resilient with disturbances in the natural water cycles. The team studied 55 catchment areas in peninsular India and found that more than 60% of them cannot cope with the changing climate, and may soon dry up.

Most rivers in peninsular India are rain-fed. The rainwater that discharges into the catchment areas feed these rivers. Besides, there is also a part of it that gets back into the atmosphere. “After falling on the ground, the rainwater gets divided into runoff and actual evapotranspiration—the amount of water that is transferred to the atmosphere via evaporation and transpiration”, notes Prof Manish Kumar Goyal from IIT Indore, who is an author of the study.

However, when a catchment becomes drier, a larger portion of the precipitation ends up as evapotranspiration, thus decreasing the runoff. River catchments can be affected by human activities and the changing climate. Unless rivers are resilient to these changes and bounce back to normal functioning, they get stuck in this cycle of becoming drier, eventually ebbing away.

The researchers of the current study analysed the influence of human activities and climate change on the resilience of 55 catchments areas from 17 river basins, including the Kaveri and Godavari. They examined the difference in the water that flows into a river (run-off) of these catchments between two periods to understand which of the two affect them more significantly. The first analysis was between 1988 and 1997 when there was less human activity in these regions, and again from 2001 to 2011, a period that witnessed a substantial rise in anthropogenic activities.

The researchers quantified the resilience of the river catchments in two ways. One, based on the deviation of the catchment’s response from its normal behaviour during the climate warming period. This period corresponds to the time where the annual temperature over India has increased by 0.22°C for every 10 years since 1971 compared to 0.05°C increase previously. The second approach was based on the catchment’s ability to maintain the partitioning between run-off water and evapotranspiration during the warming period in a way compatible with normal behaviour.

The results show that only 23 catchments are resilient to changes in climatic warming. Though none of them was seen to be completely resilient, more than 60% of those dominated by human settlements were not at all resilient. Almost all the catchments of river basins, like Baitarni, Brahmani, Godavari, Krishna, Mahi, Narmada, Sabarmati and Tapi, had a downward trend in their runoff generation.

“The annual runoff of many catchments have undergone downward trend, but their annual precipitations have shown an increasing rate, indicating that precipitation is not the sole reason for changes in the long-term runoff generation”, say the researchers.

On the contrary, around 60% of the catchments dominated by climatic changes are resilient, say the researchers. Most of these include regions from the eastern and upper southern part of India, whereas most of those in the western part were found to be non-resilient. All but ten catchments saw a decrease in the runoff generated during the period with increased human activities.

“Though the study considers climatic variability and human-induced distress on the catchment as independent of each other, the relationship between the two is very intricate and is never independent”, say the Prof Manish Kumar Goyal.

The researchers suggest that steps like planting grass, shrubs or trees to control soil erosion, water conservation techniques like roof water harvesting and harvesting ponds, and better management of forests are needed to mitigate the negative impact of human activities. “There should be guidelines to ensure sustainable extraction of water from rivers so that the rivers can maintain the flow that is key to sustain the aquatic ecosystem in it”, asserts Prof Goyal. In the next part of the study, the researchers hope to explore the influence of various human activities, such as pollution and deforestation of wetlands, on the catchment.

Courtesy: Counter View

The post India’s river catchments are drying up, too many too soon: Only 60% are climatic change resilient appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Gorlov-KV/Shutterstock

Newly published research calculates that across their lifecycle, plastics account for 3.8% of global greenhouse gas emissions. That’s almost double the emissions of the aviation sector. If it were a country, the “Plastic Kingdom” would be the fifth-highest emitter in the world.

Demand is set to rise, too. At 380m tonnes a year, we produce 190 times more plastic than we did in 1950. If the demand for plastic continues to grow at its current rate of 4% a year, emissions from plastic production will reach 15% of global emissions by 2050.

Plastic across the lifecycle

More than 99% of plastics are manufactured from petrochemicals, most commonly from petroleum and natural gas. These raw materials are refined to form ethylene, propylene, butene, and other basic plastic building blocks, before being transported to manufacturers.

The production and transport of these resins requires an awful lot of energy – and therefore fuel. Greenhouse gas emissions also occur during the refining process itself – the “cracking” of larger hydrocarbons from petrochemicals into smaller ones suitable for making plastic releases carbon dioxide and methane. According to the study, about 61% of total plastic greenhouse gas emissions comes from the resin production and transport stage.

A further 30% is emitted at the product manufacturing stage. The vast majority of these emissions come from the energy required to power the plants that turn raw plastic materials into the bottles, bin bags and bicycle helmets we use today. The remainder occurs as a result of chemical and manufacturing processes – for example, the production of plastic foams uses HFCs, particularly potent greenhouse gases.

Ignition of trapped methane pockets in landfills can set off massive fires, releasing the carbon stored in plastic. SmerbyStudio/Shutterstock

The remaining carbon footprint occurs when plastics are thrown away. Incineration releases all of the stored carbon in the plastic into the atmosphere, as well as air pollutants such as dioxins, furans, mercury and polychlorinated biphenyls, which are toxic and damaging to human health.

As plastics take centuries to degrade, disposal in landfill makes only a small contribution to emissions in theory. However, as much as 40% of landfill waste is burnt in open skies, dramatically speeding up the release of otherwise locked-up carbon.

Making plastic climate-friendly

If we are to combat climate breakdown, reductions in plastic emissions are clearly needed. Thankfully, the solution with the biggest potential is already in motion, albeit slow. In showing that transitioning to a zero carbon energy system has the potential to reduce emissions from plastic by 51%, the study provides yet another reason to rapidly phase out fossil fuels.

However, beyond urgently required global decarbonisation, we need to reduce our seemingly insatiable demand for carbon-based plastic.

Increasing recycling rates is one simple way of doing this. The highest-quality plastics can be recycled many times, and nearly all plastic can be recycled to some extent – but only 18% was actually recycled worldwide in 2015. Although each recycle process requires a small amount of new plastic, we can greatly increase the life cycle of the material by efficiently reusing what we make.

A more fundamental solution is to switch to making plastics from biodegradable sources such as wood, corn starch, and sugar cane. The materials themselves are carbon neutral, although renewable power is essential to eliminate the climate impact of energy costs during production, transport and waste processing.

However, a massive ramping up in the production of bioplastics – which currently make up less than 1% of total plastic production – would require vast swathes of agricultural land. With the population set to rise dramatically, increasingly coveted arable space may not be able to satisfy demand.

No fossil fuels required. Studio BKK/Shutterstock

The bottom line, therefore, is that we will need to reduce our demand for plastic. According to the study, simply reducing the annual growth in plastics demand from 4% to 2% could result in 60% lower emissions from the sector in 2050. While a life without plastics may seem unimaginable, its worth remembering that their prevalence is a relativity recent phenomenon. The first artificial plastic, Bakelite, was developed in 1907, but it wasn’t until the 1950s that the age of plastic began. If we show a genuine appetite to address plastic pollution, the world could change again just as quickly.

Governments, corporations, and individuals must make research into alternatives a priority, and support alternatives to needless plastic waste. Were most people to carry a reusable water bottle, for example, we could eliminate the need for the estimated 20,000 single-use bottles bought each second around the world.

Of course, any of these solutions alone will not be enough. As the recent study notes, only by combining reduction in demand, top-notch recycling, decarbonisation of energy, and large-scale adoption of bioplastics can we tackle plastic’s contribution to the climate crisis. But if we manage to do all of this, then we can cut plastics emissions to just 7% of current levels.

Plastics need not be completely demonised as environmental scourges. Affordable, durable, and versatile, they bring a raft of societal benefits, and will undoubtedly serve an important role where replacements are unable to be found. But decades of unbridled use and a throw-away culture are having grave consequences that go far beyond the visible pollution of our land and water. It is essential that we drastically reduce our use of avoidable plastics, and eliminate the carbon footprint of the ones we need to use. Our relationship with plastic may be toxic, but it doesn’t need to be forever.

Courtesy: The Conversation

The post Plastic warms the planet twice as much as aviation – here’s how to make it climate-friendly appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Danish scientists report a significant increase in winter rain over Greenland.  The rain-induced melt refreezes forming a dark crusty layer which acts as a greater heat absorber than white fresh snow.  After decades of more frequent winter rain, the snow-pack contains many such layers speeding up its melting under the summer sun.

Rain has also increased during the rest of the year and the average air temperature in the last three decades is up 1.8C in summer and 3C  in winter.  The warm moisture-laden winds from the south are not new but rising ocean temperatures mean their moisture content is greater.   More clouds lingering longer form a blanket over the warm air bringing them, increasing the melt even after the rain abates.

It used to be that most of the loss of ice came in the dramatic form of large icebergs shearing off with thunderous cracks, and floating away on the sea.  But satellite monitoring in recent years has shown that 70 percent of the loss is due to ice melt.

The 270 billion tons lost between 1992 and 2011 from Greenland’s 1.7 million square kilometers of ice has raised sea levels by 7.5 mm.  The rest could raise it another 7 meters obliterating many island nations and submerging lower Manhattan and coastal areas.  The eventual consequences are indeed alarming.

Also this week the Environmental Integrity Project, assisted by Earthjustice, concluded a study of ash pollution from coal-fired electricity generating plants across most US states.  Using industry data recently made available through news regulations, they analyzed data from 4600 groundwater monitoring wells around the ash dumps of approximately three-quarters of US coal-fired stations.  Their findings are disquieting.
The coal ash waste ponds are poorly and cheaply designed with less than 5 percent having waterproof liners, and most built to levels near or lower than the groundwater tables.  It is not a surprise then to find 60 percent of the plants polluting the groundwater with dangerous levels of lithium (associated with neurological damage) and 52 percent with unsafe levels of arsenic, which can cause cancer and impair the brains of developing children.  The worst ones have lithium at 150 to 200 times safe levels, cobalt, molybdenum, cadmium and selenium (lethal to fish) also at similar or higher levels.

The third study this week by Bangor University in Wales and Friends of the Earth has found microplastics pollution (pieces per liter) in all the ten sites studied:  from pristine Loch Lomond (2.4) and Wordsworth’s beloved Ullswater (29.5) in the Lake District to the River Thames (84.1) and the awful River Tame (>1000) in Greater Manchester.

The scientist who coined the term “global warming” left a message for the world before he passed away at the age of 87 last month.  He was the first to predict rising CO2 levels would be the cause at a time when many saw it as a boon to enhance forests, crops and produce.

The message he left calls for the world’s scientists to study and prepare extreme measures because our decision-makers are not confronting the problem and within a decade it will be too late.  According to him creating a solar-shield will become vitally necessary.  The general idea is a sulfur blanket in the earth’s atmosphere to stop the sun’s rays, a blanket that can be dispersed after the earth has cooled sufficiently.  How this will be done is up to scientists and engineers unless nature obliges with another Mt. Pinatubo-like eruption.

Dr Arshad M Khan (http://ofthisandthat.org/index.html) is a former Professor based in the U.S. whose comments over several decades have appeared in a wide-ranging array of print and internet media.  His work has been quoted in the U.S. Congress and published in the Congressional Record.

Courtesy: Counter Current
 

The post New Environmental Studies Raise Alarms appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Climate science is a complex discipline, yet politicians, economists and journalists appear to believe they understand it, rushing to conclusions based on partial knowledge or ignorance. Lately government members have been referring to climate science as an “ideology”.  Looking at the plethora of misconceptions regarding the accelerating climate crisis in the atmosphere-ocean-land system, it is not clear where to start.:
 

1. Linear temperature rise projections issued by the IPCC summaries for policy makers take little account of the non-linear to abrupt behaviour of atmospheric conditions, as indicated by sharp climate instabilities during the last glacial-interglacial ages, consequent of amplifying feedbacks from land and ocean.IPCC reports, based on credible scientific peer review papers, have been prefaced bysummaries for policymakers, in part edited by governmentrepresentatives. Consequently the urgency of the climate crisis has been underestimated. Temperature goals such as 1.5^oC or 2.0^oC constitute political goals, not science-based values.The concentration of atmospheric CO₂+Methane of >450 ppm is driving amplifying feedbacks to global warming, namely from warming oceans, melting ice, methane release, fires, desiccated vegetation, push temperatures upwards – unless and until a method is found to draw-down atmospheric CO₂.

B, By analogy a measurements of a patient’s body temperature after they have taken a dose of aspirin, measurements of terrestrial temperatures under the masking effect of a high concentration of sulphur aerosols does not give a true measure of atmospheric temperature. For example, following the post 9/11 cessation of air traffic and of contrails over the US, measured temperatures rose significantly. When taking account of this discrepancy, mean global temperatures are tracking closer 2 degrees Celsius (Hansen et al. 2008. Target atmospheric CO₂: Where should humanity aim?https://arxiv.org/abs/0804.1126)

C. For the above reasons,talk of restricting mean global temperatures to any particular figure, such as 1.5^oC or 2^oC above preindustrial levels, ignores the scientific evidence as to how the atmosphere behaves.The “Paris target” of 1.5^oC is meaningless since: (1) no mechanism is known to arrest amplifying feedbacks rom rising above this limit, and (2) no plans for draw-down of atmospheric CO₂ appear to be at hand, the $trillions required for such endeavor being spent on the military and wars.
Rarely has the full extent of the climate catastrophe been conveyed by the mainstream media, including the ABC, as contrasted with the proliferation of pseudo-science infotainment programs, where attractive celebrities promote space travel.Rarely do the major panels include scientists.

Given a 2 to 3-fold rise in extreme weather events, signs of the impending global climate tipping points are everywhere, from hurricane-hit Caribbean islands and southeast US, to cyclone-ravaged and sea level rise-affected southwest Pacific islands, to flooded south Asian regions such as Kerala and Pakistan, to fire-devastated regions in southern Europe and California, to the Australian and east African droughts. The list goes on. To date it is estimated some 400,000 deaths arelinked to climate change each year (https://newrepublic.com/article/121032/map-climate-change-kills-more-people-worldwide-terrorism)

Yet the warnings are shunned, in particular in rich western countries. Whenever the term “future” is expressed in the mainstream media and in Parliaments, it is rare that a caveat is made regarding the effects of global warming, Should there be a future investigation of those who have been, continue to, promote and preside over the rise in carbon emissions, with the consequent climate calamity,this would be recorded by survivors as the greatest crime ever perpetrated by the Homo “sapiens”.

 
“To ignore evil is to become an accomplice” (Martin Luther King)

Andrew Glikson, Earth and paleo-climate scientist

The post The IPCC’S final warnings of extreme global warming appeared first on SabrangIndia.

This and other strong actions — reducing coal usage for energy production by 78% and ensuring that 60% of electricity supply comes from renewables — are essential to limit the environmental impact of human activities that have pushed up the global temperature by 1 degree C above the pre-industrial levels (before 1800s), according to the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

At the current rate, global warming will reach 1.5 deg C by 2040, said the report. This red line will emerge quicker and with more widespread effects than previously predicted for a 2-deg-C rise.

“The time is not very far when we will experience the climate impacts of our own choices and actions,” said Aromar Revi, founding director of the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS), Bengarulu and coordinating lead author of the IPCC’s report, released on October 8, 2018.

With 1-deg-C rise in global warming, India has experienced extreme weather events such as floods in Kerala, wildfires in Uttarakhand and heat waves in the north and east, demonstrating its vulnerability. About 600 million Indians are at risk from the fallout of a rise in global mean temperature.

Further rise in temperatures will worsen food and water availability and lead to more vector-borne diseases in countries like India, as per the IPCC report, which summarised the prospects and benefits of limiting mean global temperature rise to 1.5 deg C. Past and ongoing emissions have caused current global temperature to rise and continue rising by 0.2 deg C per decade.

The strict action recommended by climate change scientists comes as grim news for India, as we reported on October 7, 2018. India is the world’s third largest carbon polluter and second largest coal consumer and about 15 million households (as on October 7, 2018) still do not get any electricity.

“The IPCC text sends out a clear signal that we need to radically reduce coal use,” said Tim Buckley, director of energy finance studies at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, Sydney. “It means there is no space for new coal and it means governments have to start replacing their existing coal plants with renewables.”

The stated mitigation ambitions of nations until 2030 are simply not enough, as per the report’s findings. Even if they are fulfilled there will be global warming of about 3°C by 2100, with warming continuing afterwards. The more demanding pathways suggested in the IPCC report to limit global warming to 1.5 deg C could help slow down the rise in ocean levels, reduce the number of extreme warm days and save several species from extinction by 2100.

“We have little time left to make large shifts in the way our economy is run, society and the governance functions,” said Revi. “Limiting global warming to 1.5 deg C operationally means that we have to transform four big systems: our energy and industrial systems that produce much of the greenhouse gases, agricultural and forests systems, and our cities that concentrate much of the risk, but provide opportunities for transformatory change.”

To enable this, we need to change our frame of governance, rework the way projects are financed, build the institutional capacity to do this at all levels, from villages and municipalities, through states, to all the way up to the national level, he added.

What the world can save by limiting temperature rise to 1.5 deg C
Several drastic natural events caused by global warming can be limited, both in gravity and frequency, if the temperature rise is limited at 1.5 deg C and not 2 dec C, the earlier limit set by the Paris Agreement of 2015. Some benefits are:  

Fewer extreme warm days on land: Extreme hot days in mid-latitudes (including India) will get warmer by upto around 3 deg C if global warming is limited to 1.5 deg C, about a degree less than the 4 deg C rise that will come with the 2 deg C scenario. The number of hot days is projected to increase in most land regions, with highest increases in tropical countries such as India.

Limited rise in sea levels: Projections suggest that a 1.5 deg C rise will raise the mean global sea level by 0.26-0.77 meter by 2100, about 0.1 meter less than the rise that could result in the 2 deg C scenario.  

“A reduction of 0.1 meter in global sea level rise implies that up to 10 million fewer people would be exposed to related risks, based on the population in the year 2010 and assuming no adaptation,” said the report.  It amplifies the exposure of small islands, low-lying coastal areas and deltas to increased saltwater intrusion, flooding and damage to infrastructure.

Double the number of species saved: Of the 105,000 species studied by the report, 9.6% of insects, 8% of plants and 4% of vertebrates are projected to lose over half their climatically determined geographic range if global warming is limited to 1.5 deg C. But under the 2 deg C scenario, double the numbers — 18% of insects, 16% of plants and 8% of vertebrates — will lose their homes.

Less water stress: Limiting global warming to 1.5 deg C can reduce the number of people who will be exposed to water stress caused by climate change by up to 50%, with considerable regional variability, as per the report.

Fewer vector-borne diseases: Any increase in global warming can affect human health, as per the report. Lower risks are projected at 1.5 deg C than at 2 deg C for heat-related morbidity and mortality. Risks from some vector-borne diseases, such as malaria and dengue fever, are projected to increase with warming in the 1.5- 2 deg C range.

Lower reduction in crop yields: Limiting global warming to 1.5 deg C will result in smaller net reductions in the yield of maize, rice, wheat, and other cereal crops, particularly in sub- Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, and Central and South America. It will also result in net reductions in the loss of nutrition in rice and wheat which is affected by carbon dioxide (CO2) levels.

Lower impact on livestock: Livestock will be affected everywhere in the world by rising temperatures depending on the extent of changes in feed quality, spread of diseases, and water resource availability, as per projections. This damage can be curbed by limiting global warming further. This gives India special cause for worry — it is home to one of the largest livestock populations (12% ) in the world.

What it takes to limit global warming further
After reviewing dozens of scenarios, IPCC scientists have concluded that limiting global warming to 1.5 deg C with no or limited overshoot will require huge, ambitious global shifts in energy and land use.

The removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is essential in all scenarios. Its emissions will have to be reduced by 58% (relative to 2010) over 12 years to 2030, 60% of electricity supply will have to come from renewables and there has to be a 78% reduction in coal usage for primary energy, as mentioned earlier. These conditions constitute a model scenario (P1) wherein social, business, and technological innovations result in lower energy demands upto 2050 even as living standards rise, especially in developing nations. A downsized energy system enables rapid decarbonisation of energy supply while afforestation is the only option considered for carbon dioxide removal.

Scenario P1 does not require carbon capture and storage (CCS) techniques — the capture of CO2 from the atmosphere followed by its dumping in storages under soil or ocean — to achieve net zero emissions by the year 2100.

The other extreme scenario is the energy and resource-intensive P4 wherein economic growth and globalisation will lead to the widespread adoption of lifestyles that require high levels of greenhouse gas emissions. This will be caused by high demand for transportation fuels and high consumption of livestock products.

Under this scenario, about 1,218 Gigaton of CO2 (GtCO2) from the atmosphere will have to be eliminated by CCS technologies along with the extensive use of bioenergy. Under P4, by 2030, CO2 emissions will be 4% more than 2010 levels, 25% of electricity supply will come from renewables and there will be a 59% reduction in coal usage for primary energy.

Why the world needs cleaner industrial systems
In pathways strictly limiting global warming to 1.5 deg C, CO2 emissions from industry are projected to see a 75–90% cut in 2050 from 2010 levels; if the goal is scaled down to 2 deg C,  emissions will have to see a 50–80% cut.

Electricity’s share of energy demand in buildings would have to be about 55–75% in 2050 to limit global warming to 1.5 deg C, compared to 50–70% for 2 deg C. In the transport sector, the share of low-emission energy used would rise from less than 5% in 2020 to under approximately 35–65% in 2050 if the world is to consider a 1.5 dec C global warming scenario. For a 2-deg-C warming, this increase would be 25–45%.

(Tripathi is a principal correspondent with IndiaSpend.)

Courtesy: India Spend

The post Food, Water, Disease Crises For Nations Like India If Global Warming Not Quickly Contained: UN Report appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The post Our Planet Is Angry appeared first on SabrangIndia.

To be rational is to know that weather events cannot be causally related to climate change, although exacerbation is another issue.  Yet when the news is full of record setting fires in California and Greece and Australia, temperature records tumbling, and typhoons and hurricanes relentless in their intensity, one might be forgiven for wondering.

Those who are not climate scientists can only interpret research done by others for the general public and form opinions colored by their work.  That sum of work as it develops becomes more frightening by the day, with a strong fear the predictions will come true earlier than anticipated.
Now there is new climate research on the troposphere, a region extending from the surface of the earth to 16 km (10 miles) at the tropics and 13 km at the poles.  Researchers have studied the amplitudes of the annual cycle of tropospheric temperatures, the highs and the lows, and how these have changed over time.  Above all, they have examined human agency.

The news, as they say, is not good.  Their results the authors state, “provide powerful and novel evidence for a statistically significant human effect on earth’s climate.”  They call it ‘anthropogenic forcing’.

As a consequence we have “pronounced midlatitude increases in annual cycle amplitudes in both hemispheres.”  These are repeated in satellite data.  It means higher tropospheric temperatures in summer and lower in winter.

Not only is there “seasonality in some of the climate feedbacks triggered by external forcings” (read human fingerprint), say the authors, but worse “there are widespread signals of seasonal changes in the distribution and abundance of plant and animal species.”  In other words, we are screwing up wildlife, both plant and animal.

It is as if the air in the earth’s attic is warmer in summer and colder in winter.  And its air conditioner, the tropical rainforest is on the blink.  Greed for hardwoods and farmland has resulted in serious depletion.

Meanwhile, carbon dioxide levels continue to soar, exceeding 412 ppm on May 14, 2018.  The last time the earth reached a 400 ppm threshold was several million years ago.  The human footprint here is proven through the negative delta13C levels caused by fossil fuel use because plants are lacking in the 13C isotope of carbon.  Combining the CO2 rise with increasing tropospheric temperature cycle amplitudes can only magnify the problem.  A new report in the Proceedings of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences lays out a scenario for a self-reinforcing feedback loop, a ‘hothouse earth’ at which point no human action could prevent catastrophe.

A quick glance at recent weather disaster reports, several within a week, should satisfy skeptics of the exacerbation of extreme events:
The Mendocino Complex fire in California is the largest in the state’s history.  It is uncontrollable and expected to burn through August.

Record breaking rains in Western Japan have resulted in floods causing over 150 fatalities and mudslides knocking over and destroying homes.  “We’ve never experienced this kind of rain before,” said a weather official.

Floods in France have led to the evacuation of 1600 people.  The flooding comes after the area and much of Europe suffered extremely hot weather.  Thus in July, devastating wildfires in Greece killed 92 people.  And as warning in Southeastern Australia, the bushfire season has been brought forward two months from October due to excessively dry hot weather.

Extremely heavy rains in Toronto have flooded the city.  Two men trapped in a basement elevator were rescued through the heroic efforts of first responders, who swam to the elevator and used a crowbar to open the doors.  There was just a foot of breathable air when the men swam out.

The climate story is not new; from Svante Arrhenius, the Swedish scientist who foresaw global warming from the use of fossil fuel (and thought it to be fortunate for Northern Europe) to James E. Hansen the climate scientist who, in historic Senate testimony on June 23, 1988, gave clear warning of the greenhouse effect that was changing the earth’s climate.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was established later that year, although the Montreal Protocol a year earlier had set the stage.  The Fifth IPCC Assessment was published in 2014 and the next one is due in 2022.  Yet, what have we learned?

On July 19, 2018, the House of Representatives passed a non-binding resolution, H.Con.Res.119, denouncing a carbon tax as detrimental to the U.S. economy.  As we march to climate self-destruction, the president wants to increase the use of coal and has withdrawn from the Paris Agreement.

So there we are …  the ostrich syndrome in full effect.

Dr Arshad M Khan (http://ofthisandthat.org/index.html) is a former Professor based in the U.S. whose comments over several decades have appeared in a wide-ranging array of print and internet media.  His work has been quoted in the U.S. Congress and published in the Congressional Record.

Courtesy: https://countercurrents.org
 

The post Undeniable Human Agency in Climate Change While Disasters Multiply appeared first on SabrangIndia.

1.)  In the US Virgin Islands if you dig downward for water, you get salt water. So you need rain water, especially for drought periods. So my Dad put in a system wherein the water came off of the roof and had four cisterns totaling 30,000 gallons. If you can’t afford cisterns, put it in barrels. Have a gutter system that puts the water in barrels or cisterns from your roof. He gave his water away to anyone who wanted it as he had so much.
US Virgin Islands have these all over the place on slopes: They are slabs of concrete or pavement on incline. It should be built to drain in one corner into a tube that runs into barrel or cistern. It is a great community resource for times of communal water deficit.

2.)  Our government in MA pays for swimming pools and beaches open to the public and pays for life guards. Yet there has to be a way to make sure that every region in a country prevents heat stroke and death. So have charities put tubs everywhere. FORCE your local and national governments to pay for them. So when someone starts to succumb to the heat, he should get in a tub to lower body’s core temperature. Especially financially poor people without bathtubs will appreciate these community tubs.

3.)  Look online for heat and drought resistant seeds. If you live on a coast, they should also have the feature of being able to be watered with salt water. DO NOT BUY GMO SEEDS!

4.)  Do not buy manufactured products. The companies rape the Earth for resources, take money away from communities for their own coffers since primary motive is maximum profits and heavily carbon load. So keep money local. Buy and sell locally. Do not purchase imported goods.

5.)  Start up transition towns NOW. You will then even be better prepared to deal with worsening climate change issues.

6.)  Do the Earth a favor. Cut back on your own eco footprint and carbon foot print. Do all that you can, including using less energy and traveling less, to help.

Sally Dugman is a writer from MA, USA
 

The post Six Ways To Deal With Worsening Climate Related Problems appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Scientists on Arctic sea ice in the Chukchi Sea, surrounded by melt ponds, July 4, 2010. NASA/Kathryn Hansen

This expectation has become a reality that I describe in my new book “Brave New Arctic.” It’s a visually compelling story: The effects of warming are evident in shrinking ice caps and glaciers and in Alaskan roads buckling as permafrost beneath them thaws.

But for many people the Arctic seems like a faraway place, and stories of what is happening there seem irrelevant to their lives. It can also be hard to accept that the globe is warming up while you are shoveling out from the latest snowstorm.

Since I have spent more than 35 years studying snow, ice and cold places, people often are surprised when I tell them I once was skeptical that human activities were playing a role in climate change. My book traces my own career as a climate scientist and the evolving views of many scientists I have worked with. When I first started working in the Arctic, scientists understood it as a region defined by its snow and ice, with a varying but generally constant climate. In the 1990s, we realized that it was changing, but it took us years to figure out why. Now scientists are trying to understand what the Arctic’s ongoing transformation means for the rest of the planet, and whether the Arctic of old will ever be seen again.

Arctic sea ice has not only been shrinking in surface area in recent years – it’s becoming younger and thinner as well.

Evidence piles up

Evidence that the Arctic is warming rapidly extends far beyond shrinking ice caps and buckling roads. It also includes a melting Greenland ice sheet; a rapid decline in the extent of the Arctic’s floating sea ice cover in summer; warming and thawing of permafrost; shrubs taking over areas of tundra that formerly were dominated by sedges, grasses, mosses and lichens; and a rise in temperature twice as large as that for the globe as a whole. This outsized warming even has a name: Arctic amplification.

The Arctic began to stir in the early 1990s. The first signs of change were a slight warming of the ocean and an apparent decline in sea ice. By the end of the decade, it was abundantly clear that something was afoot. But to me, it looked like natural climate variability. As I saw it, shifts in wind patterns could explain a lot of the warming, as well as loss of sea ice. There didn’t seem to be much need to invoke the specter of rising greenhouse gas levels.

Collapsed block of ice-rich permafrost along Drew Point, Alaska, at the edge of the Beaufort Sea. Coastal bluffs in this region can erode 20 meters a year (around 65 feet). USGS

In 2000 I teamed up with a number of leading researchers in different fields of Arctic science to undertake a comprehensive analysis of all evidence of change that we had seen and how to interpret it. We concluded that while some changes, such as loss of sea ice, were consistent with what climate models were predicting, others were not.

To be clear, we were not asking whether the impacts of rising greenhouse gas concentrations would appear first in the Arctic, as we expected. The science supporting this projection was solid. The issue was whether those impacts had yet emerged. Eventually they did – and in a big way. Sometime around 2003, I accepted the overwhelming evidence of human-induced warming, and started warning the public about what the Arctic was telling us.
 

Seeing is believing

Climate change really hit home for me when when I found out that two little ice caps in the Canadian Arctic I had studied back in 1982 and 1983 as a young graduate student had essentially disappeared.

Bruce Raup, a colleague at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, has been using high-resolution satellite data to map all of the world’s glaciers and ice caps. It’s a moving target, because most of them are melting and shrinking – which contributes to sea level rise.

One day in 2016, as I walked past Bruce’s office and saw him hunched over his computer monitor, I asked if we could check out those two ice caps. When I worked on them in the early 1980s, the larger one was perhaps a mile and a half across. Over the course of two summers of field work, I had gotten to know pretty much every square inch of them.

When Bruce found the ice caps and zoomed in, we were aghast to see that they had shrunk to the size of a few football fields. They are even smaller today – just patches of ice that are sure to disappear in just a few years.

Hidden Creek Glacier, Alaska, photographed in 1916 and 2004, with noticeable ice loss. S.R. Capps, USGS (top), NPS (bottom)

Today it seems increasingly likely that what is happening in the Arctic will reverberate around the globe. Arctic warming may already be influencing weather patterns in the middle latitudes. Meltdown of the Greenland ice sheet is having an increasing impact on sea level rise. As permafrost thaws, it may start to release carbon dioxide and methane to the atmosphere, further warming the climate.

I often find myself wondering whether the remains of those two little ice caps I studied back in the early 1980s will survive another summer. Scientists are trained to be skeptics, but for those of us who study the Arctic, it is clear that a radical transformation is underway. My two ice caps are just a small part of that story. Indeed, the question is no longer whether the Arctic is warming, but how drastically it will change – and what those changes mean for the planet.
 

Mark Serreze, Research Professor of Geography and director, National Snow and Ice Data Center, University of Colorado

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The post Melting Arctic sends a message: Climate change is here in a big way appeared first on SabrangIndia.