How's everyone enjoying their "Global Warming"?

[Avatar]

Some, (perhaps even many) species will be fine (for a given value of fine), but not all.

Our problem is we have a very narrow view of what a "normal" climate is, as well as a fairly narrow band of climate range in which we can sustain ourselves.

The planet's transition into different climate stages is well established and inevitable, all we have done is induce conditions which increase the rate of that change, perhaps extremely.

In a sense, I think Z is right...our only hope of either slowing that, or of adapting to a new climate reality, is human ingenuity.

Even now, countless people are working on technology intended to do just that, and if we manage to let life (our lives that is) carry on mostly as normal, it will be due to those innovations.

But make no mistake, there will be casualties. Perhaps billions of them.

--A

[Skyweir]

Its true we do need human ingenuity and action.

But to ensure our survival ... the environment seems pretty adaptive and regenerative.

I read an awesome article on agricultural farm land recover following cattle. And they countered to carbon footprint of the agricultural practices with compost. I know, right? I was kinda wowed.

So yes clever humans doing clever things ... and learning from our not so clever things.

[TheFallen]

I'll be a little more encouraged once we can start mining the atmosphere for coal in quantities that actually make a difference - as per a relatively recent post of Zee's (I think).

That'd be pretty damn cool (and cooling).

[Zarathustra]

Our problem is we have a very narrow view of what a "normal" climate is, as well as a fairly narrow band of climate range in which we can sustain ourselves.

Do we really? People live everywhere from the Arctic to the Sahara. We have sustained ourselves through Ice Ages and all sorts of global upheaval in the 2 million years or more that Hominids have existed, all without the benefit of modern technology. How can you say the range is narrow when we populate every niche of this planet, and have even left it to survive in space?

[Skyweir]

Perhaps because we as humans dont have a millenia perspective ... or a billenial perspective. Humans have only been actively collecting climate data for a very small window of time.

What has been many times criticised as a climate crisis in terms of increased temps for example sometimes turns out to a cyclical occurrence within what we can see as normal parameters ... even when seemingly extreme.

I know when the bushfires began in September 2019 down under ... people were doomsaying and crying apocalypse... and the extent of the fires was higher than ever could be anticipated.

It was dubbed by some as a climate crisis ... and maybe that is true ... but a lot of things contributed to their ferocity... like govt cutting funding to parks and wildlife areas ... where the most non human devastation occurred.

Parks had less resources to maintain fire breaks and containment lines ... fuel was un attended to.

This was the hugest threat to us where I live at the juncture of 3 natural forested areas.

Were temps higher than ... normal ... this year? Only marginally in truth.

We moved from a harsh and extended drought to fires ... then in Feb 2020 the rains came .. and boy did they come and we had extensive flooding. Sufficient to assist in the containment of the majority of the fires but not extinguish all.

Even 26 Feb 2020 after all that rain we still had hot spots to manage and extreme fire danger conditions.

But those conditions are a well established cycle of climate behaviour .. extreme heat, drought, fire, flood repeat.

At least for us.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Do we really? People live everywhere from the Arctic to the Sahara. We have sustained ourselves through Ice Ages and all sorts of global upheaval in the 2 million years or more that Hominids have existed, all without the benefit of modern technology. How can you say the range is narrow when we populate every niche of this planet, and have even left it to survive in space?

The alarmsts are now convinced, with the intensity of religious fervor, that any change to the climate is A Very Bad Thing (tm) and they want us to believe that any event which is even the slightest bit outside "the normal" is a result of "climate change".

The irony is that most alarmists are outside anything we would consider "the political norm". They think being outside the political norm is good but a storm outside the climate normal is bad. Whatever.

150 years from now people are going to look back at us and wonder why we were worried.

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

It's very simple. People are controlled by fear, and that's how governments control their masses. When the Cold War ended, we suddenly had no Big Bad. Enter the climate "crisis" and radical Islam. Trillions spent on nothing, but look at what we've allowed our government to do in the name of keeping us safe.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

In before someone suggests that coronavirus is a side-effect of climate change. "If only we had *real* winters this virus would not suvive as long"....

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

In before someone suggests that coronavirus is a side-effect of climate change. "If only we had *real* winters this virus would not suvive as long"....

Somehow it's Trump's fault.

[Skyweir]

No Trump has his faults and one is suggesting COVID a hoax. That was stupid and poorly considered. The second was cutting the CDC budget, the third is appointing Pence to head up the CDC response.

I read an article this morning where Pence and his team were praying away the virus. Ironic given if you believe a god created all ... then he created that too ... but I digress.

What is disappointing and concerning is that prAyer is on the agenda as part of a government response to a health crisis.

I mean jezus Trump said he was considering closing your southern border, as part of his COVID threat response cuz why now? Cuz COVID is rampant in Mexico? Cuz Asians carrying Corona virus are entering the US via the southern border?

Because of any evidence at all?

Thats the problem with humans ... particularly humans that dismiss the science, focus on their emotional attachment to their beliefs over all else.

The same is true of climate change

[Avatar]

Do we really? People live everywhere from the Arctic to the Sahara. We have sustained ourselves through Ice Ages and all sorts of global upheaval in the 2 million years or more that Hominids have existed, all without the benefit of modern technology. How can you say the range is narrow when we populate every niche of this planet, and have even left it to survive in space?

We survive there, we don't live there.

Everything that keeps us alive in space, and in the arctic and the deep desert is stuff that we take there ourselves, from more condign regions.

Now, maybe you could claim an exception for the Inuit, and the San, in those other two extreme environments, but the rigours of surviving in them mean that pretty much nothing except survival activity takes place. They (can) have no agriculture etc.

3 million years ago at the end of the Pliocene (when the hominids were in full swing) it was a bit warmer than it is now. 2 or 3 degrees. Sea levels were considerably higher. There was no agriculture then either, because the hominids never thought of it. Everybody was just surviving.

About 12,000 years ago, our earliest guess at when agriculture got started at about the beginning of the Neolithic, the last great ice age was just ending, and things were starting to warm up again, pretty much to the levels we had / have today.

It's been about the same ever since, and it hasn't been 2 or 3 degrees warmer since the Pliocene, because that ended with a global cooling that led to the ice ages etc. the end of which coincided with the rise of agriculture.

IPPC is expecting agricultural yields to drop on average by up to 2% per decade, while agricultural demand is rising by about 14% each decade.

The environmental conditions under which we can (currently, and hence my comments about human ingenuity), meet the demand for food (and therefore could be deemed necessary for human life) is indeed a fairly narrow band, and it's already shifting.

[Edit: Of course, 25% of all food produced on earth is currently wasted, so maybe we could do something about that too...)

--A

[Hashi Lebwohl]

I am not aware of any cases of corona virus in Mexico; calls to close the border because someone with it might try to sneak in on purpose is just fearmongering.

I agree--first we need to stop wasting food, then we need to set up vertical farming, which can take place in almost any climate, especially if you build it as a large-scale greenhouse. One hectare of land, five stories tall, is the equivalent of five hectares of arable land.

[Skyweir]

Agreed ... it IS fear mongering .. and yes we should stop wasting food, dumping food and vertical farming is a brilliant initiative.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

I have been on board with vertical farming since the concept was developed. Ideally, it can also reclaim currently-unused buildings in downtown areas as well as allow some of the homeless people in those locations get jobs there, etc.

[Skyweir]

Sounds phenomenal

[Wosbald]

+JMJ+

Cardinal Czerny: Love the Amazon and its people to save the planet [In-Depth]

Cardinal Michael Czerny


The Special Secretary of the Synod for the Amazon presents the exhortation that the Pope completed last December, which is being published today. It contains four great "dreams" of Francis for the region, including that of a missionary Church with an Amazonian face.


"The destiny of the Amazon affects us all, because everything is connected and the salvation of this region and its original peoples is fundamental for the whole world."

Cardinal Michael Czerny, special secretary of the Synod for the Amazon, in this interview with Vatican Media, presents the main content of Pope Francis' Apostolic Exhortation:

[...]

Q: What is the heart of the message of the exhortation, in your opinion?

The title of the Exhortation is Querida Amazonia, "Beloved Amazonia", and its heart is the Pope's love for the Amazon and the consequences of that love: a reversal of the common way of thinking about the relationship between wealth and poverty, between development and custody, between defending cultural roots and openness to the other. The Pope describes for us the "resonances" that the synodal process provoked in him. He does so in the form of four "great dreams". Pope Francis dreams that in the Amazon region there might be a commitment on the part of everyone to defend the rights of the poorest, of the original peoples, of the least. He dreams of an Amazon that preserves its cultural wealth. His ecological dream is of an Amazon that takes care of its abundance of life. Finally, he dreams of Christian communities capable of incarnating themselves in the Amazon and of building a Church with an Amazonian face. Personally, I was struck by the abundance of poetic quotations and of references to previous papal texts.

[...]

Q: Concretely speaking, what does "promoting" the Amazon mean, as we read in the text of the Exhortation?

As the Pope explains, promoting the Amazon means making sure that from it flows the very best. It means not to colonize it, not to plunder it with massive mining projects that destroy the environment and threaten the indigenous peoples. At the same time, however, it also means to avoid mythologizing the native cultures, excluding any intermingling, or falling into an environmentalism "that is concerned for the biome but ignores the Amazonian peoples". Identity and dialogue are two key words, and Pope Francis explains that they are not at all opposed. Caring about the cultural values of the indigenous peoples concerns us all: we must feel co-responsible for the diversity of their cultures.

From the pages of the Exhortation, the Christian commitment also clearly emerges, which is far from either a closed nativism or an environmentalism that despises human beings as the ruin of the planet. In addition, it proposes a bold missionary spirit -- to speak of Jesus and to bring his offer of new life to others -- life to the full each one and for everyone, taking care of creation, in relationship with God the Creator and with all our brothers and sisters.

Q: Why should the destiny of a particular region on earth touch us so deeply?

The fate of the Amazon affects us all, because everything is interconnected and the care of this precious "biome", which acts as a filter and helps us to avoid raising the earth's temperature, is fundamental to the health of the global climate. The Amazon, therefore, concerns us all directly. In that region of the world, we see the importance of an integral ecology which combines respect for nature with care for human dignity. The Amazon's future and the future of its peoples are decisive for maintaining the balance of our planet. In this perspective, it is important to allow indigenous peoples to remain on their territories and to take care of their lands. The educational aspect is also of primary importance: to promote new behaviours and new attitudes in people. Many people living in that area have assumed the typical customs of the big cities where consumerism and a throw-away culture reign.

[...]


Czerny: Love the Amazon and its people to save the planet [YouTube: 4.5 min]

[Wosbald]

+JMJ+

Francis issues 'urgent call' with plans for fifth anniversary of Laudato Si' [In-Depth, Video]

Renewing his "urgent call to respond to the ecological crisis," Pope Francis invited the 1.3 billion Catholics worldwide to join a week of celebration and action in May commemorating the fifth anniversary of his landmark encyclical Laudato Si', on Care for Our Common Home.

In a video message March 3, Francis officially announced Laudato Si' Week, set to take place May 16-24. Throughout the nine days, the pope has asked the global Catholic community to undertake ambitious actions to address the mounting environmental perils facing the planet and its people -- climate change; ecosystems in the Amazon, Australia and the Arctic approaching tipping points; and the unprecedented threat of biodiversity loss facing 1 million plant and animal species.

The initiative is the latest spearheaded by the Vatican under Francis, who throughout his seven-year papacy has persistently called Catholics and non-Catholics alike to an ecological conversion to safeguard the environment and preserve its natural resources for present and future generations.

[...]

Planning has been underway for months within the Vatican and numerous Catholic organizations around the world for ways to mark the anniversary of Laudato Si'. Those discussions have sought ways to catalyze the collective church to live out Catholic teaching on caring for creation by reducing environmental impact, and to press for substantial measures from world leaders to curtail a rapidly warming climate.

Laudato Si' Week is sponsored by the Vatican's Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, headed by Cardinal Peter Turkson. More than four dozen international and national Catholic organizations have already partnered for the event, including the Global Catholic Climate Movement, Renova +, Caritas Internationalis and the International Union of Superiors General.

[...]

A website for Laudato Si' Week will serve as a clearinghouse for the various actions and events planned by Catholics. It also includes resources to help parishes and other groups take steps to mark the encyclical turning five. Already, some have moved forward with plans.

In January, the U.S-based Catholic Climate Covenant unveiled its Catholic Climate Project, an intergenerational initiative to galvanize American Catholics to commit to and advocate for ambitious climate solutions. The project plans to coordinate such actions as prayer services, liturgies and service projects, public demonstrations, classroom instruction, and advocacy with church and political leaders.


Pope Francis invites you to celebrate Laudato Si' Week (English) [YouTube: 1 min]

[Wosbald]

+JMJ+

What we need is an 'integral economy' [In-Depth, Opinion]

(Unsplash/Kyle Glenn)


Pope Francis has consistently called for the human family to embrace an "integral ecology," a way of viewing the world anew and understanding that "everything is connected." Everything that affects the human domain is inextricably tied to the nonhuman world and vice versa.

The interdependence, interrelatedness and inseparability of our circumstances as part of a larger whole and members of God's broad family of creation have long been ignored or denied by many human beings for centuries. And now, in documents including "Laudato Si', on Care for Our Common Home" and Querida Amazonia, the pope has drawn our attention to the need for intellectual and moral conversion toward a more integral ecology that responds to "both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor."

But what are we to do once our perspectives have changed in this way? When we embrace an integral ecological approach to understanding the world and our place within the broader community of creation, what comes next?

Like his pontifical predecessor St. John XXIII, Francis has not shied away from emphasizing the need to put Christian principles into action. In fact, Chapter 5 of Laudato Si' is focused on promoting "lines of approach and action" that follow from what should be our renewed sense of interconnection between the human and nonhuman spheres.

I believe that an integral ecology means little if we do not translate it into concrete action, or what we might call an "integral economy."

Both ecology and economy share a common root word, one that signals the focus of the terms, that is the Greek word oikos, which means "household." In the case of "ecology" we have the etymological combination of oikos with the word logos, which in this case means to "study," "talk about," "understand" or "reason." Ecology is the manner in which we study or talk about "our common home."

In the case of "economy," you have the joining of oikos with nomos, which literally means "law" or "rule." But nomos comes from another Greek word, neimen, meaning "management," "oversight" or "distribution" and these valences give us a broader sense of the term's meaning.

Typically, the word "economy" is reduced to the world of financial transaction, international monetary policies and stock market performance. But the term itself avers to a more comprehensive vision. It references not only the financial norms and laws of a given "household" or society, but points to the inherent principles, foundations, presuppositions and policies that structure that society.

[...]

[Wosbald]

+JMJ+

Forest loss drives viruses as well as climate change, indigenous leaders warn

From left: Levi Sucre Romero, coordinator of the Mesoamerican Alliance of Peoples and Forests; Dinamam Tuxá, coordinator and legal adviser to the Articulation of the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil; and Mina Setra, deputy secretary-general of the Indigenous Peoples' Alliance of the Archipelago in Indonesia (Photos by Joel Redman)


New York -- The same forest destruction that accelerates climate change can also encourage the emergence of diseases such as the coronavirus, indigenous peoples' leaders said March 13 as they criticized Cargill and other multinational companies for replacing forests with soy, palm and cattle plantations.

"The coronavirus is now telling the world what we have been saying for thousands of years -- that if we do not help protect biodiversity and nature, then we will face this and worse future threats," said Levi Sucre Romero, a Bribri indigenous person from Costa Rica who is the coordinator of the Mesoamerican Alliance of Peoples and Forests.





The loss of habitat has brought wild animals into closer contact with humans and domesticated animals, research has found, enabling diseases such as the coronavirus to jump the animal-human barrier and spread through human-to-human contact.

"It is likely that an animal [is responsible for a virus that] has infected tens of thousands of people worldwide with coronavirus and placed a strain on the global economy," said Mina Setra, a Dayak Pompakng indigenous person from Indonesia who is the deputy secretary-general of the Indigenous Peoples' Alliance of the Archipelago, which represents 17 million indigenous peoples across Indonesia.

"If only the world [had] worked to strengthen the rights of indigenous peoples -- who have learned to live in nature with biodiversity and protect animal and plant species -- we would see fewer epidemics such as the one that we are currently facing."

Brazil in particular has experienced a growing assault on the rights of indigenous peoples, at some of the highest levels of government, according to Dinamam Tuxá, the coordinator and legal adviser to the Articulation of the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil. "Our people are being criminalized and murdered," Tuxá said.

"One of the main companies that has been financing genocide and destruction of indigenous lands is Cargill," Tuxá said. "What we are asking from the multinationals is that they not buy commodities that cause deforestation and conflict and that are produced on indigenous lands. We are also demanding that bilateral trade agreements ... demand respect for indigenous rights and ensure there are no products linked to deforestation coming into their countries."

Cargill did not respond immediately to a request from NCR for comment.

[...]

[Hashi Lebwohl]

We know that the current coronavirus jumped from animal to human, but it had absolutely nothing to do with climate change or deforestation. Instead, it had everything to do with the filthy conditions in that filthy Huanan Market in Wuhan. Imagine a large shopping mall...now imagine 10 times as many small stores crammed into that mall....now imagine that each of those stores is an open-air fresh meat market selling a very wide assortment of mammal, fish, and sometimes even reptile meat. The people preparing the animal for you will pull a live animal from a cage, which might be next to the carcass of the previous customer's order--if you are unlucky the preparation table is on top of the live cage--they will prep the meat on a cutting board which may or may not have been properly cleaned after the previous customer. The person prepping your meat might be standing on a pile of skin and intestines from the day's work.

You get the picture. The PRC needs to get its city health codes up to 21st-Century standards, along with their air and water pollution standards---the United States is squeaky, sparkling clean compared to the PRC.