If we are to have any chance of avoiding apocalyptic climate change and environmental devastation, we must not only stop burning fossil fuels as rapidly as possible, but ALSO stop chopping down rainforests that absorb and store excess carbon.

However, there's a problem with that.

Unless the mass of humanity radically changes what we eat — the way we produce and consume food — we will NEVER achieve any of those other goals.

If you need convincing, read this…
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The Food & Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has estimated that world meat production is expected to double by 2050. Given our current trajectory, this would require that we convert approximately 80% of existing forests and shrubland into land devoted to raising animals to produce meat, dairy, and eggs — a conversion that would be unsustainable and would have a devastating impact on the Earth’s climate. An additional 35 million km2 of land would be required to meet the growing demand for animal products, equating to roughly the combined area of Australia and Africa.

Although 83% of the world’s farmland is occupied by animal agriculture, this provides just 18% of the calories and 37% of the protein humans consume, and the majority of cereals and soy produced today are fed to farm animals. More people could be fed with fewer resources if the use of animals for food is reduced or eliminated. Furthermore, meat consumption contributes four times as much to global greenhouse gas emissions as a plant-based diet.

The immediate adoption of a plant-based diet on a global scale would have the potential to reduce demand for land by up to 76%, GHG emissions from food by 49%, and a reduction in freshwater withdrawals by 19%. Having more plant food available for humans can reduce world hunger and food insecurities, while preserving biodiversity and vital ecosystems. Further, a global shift to a fundamentally plant-based diet will reduce the rapidly rising economic burden of medicine and healthcare.
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These are just a few brief excerpts from a long and persuasive journal article. Important reading!

LEARN MORE ➡️ academic.oup.com/oocc/article/…

#Science #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #Vegan

Yes, we all know the climate is changing. We all know it’s getting hotter every year.

But why should that affect Business As Usual? If there’s more money to be made, why stop now?

/s
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The UN’s climate and weather agency, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), will publish official temperature figures for the year in January. The organisation said the past year was set to be the warmest on record, capping a decade of unprecedented heat fueled by human activities and driving increasing weather extremes, while greenhouse gas levels continued to reach new highs, locking in more heat for the future.

Delivering his annual new year message, the UN secretary general, António Guterres said: “I can officially report that we have just endured a decade of deadly heat. The top 10 hottest years on record have happened in the last 10 years, including 2024. This is climate breakdown, in real time. We must exit this road to ruin and we have no time to lose.”

The WMO secretary general, Celeste Saulo, said: “This year we saw record-breaking rainfall and flooding events and terrible loss of life in so many countries, causing heartbreak to communities on every continent. Intense heat scorched dozens of countries, with temperatures topping 50C on a number of occasions. Wildfires wreaked devastation.”
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FULL STORY -- theguardian.com/world/2024/dec…

#Science #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #BusinessAsUsual

HEADLINE: 2023, 2024 climate change records defy scientific explanation
➡️ axios.com/2024/12/16/climate-c…
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2024 is closing out with more global temperature records that, in aggregate, largely defy what many climate scientists expected.

Among the potential factors driving this year's — as well as 2023's — record warmth is the unsettling possibility that global warming is accelerating and the planet's climate behaving differently than expected. If so, the climate scenarios that form the basis for decarbonization goals could be faulty, with higher warming levels and greater societal consequences likely to arrive sooner than expected.
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HEADLINE: Scientists struggle to explain record surge in global heat
➡️ phys.org/news/2024-12-scientis…
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The world has been getting hotter for decades but a sudden and extraordinary surge in heat has sent the climate deeper into uncharted territory — and scientists are still trying to figure out why.

Over the past two years, temperature records have been repeatedly shattered by a streak so persistent and puzzling it has tested the best-available scientific predictions about how the climate functions.

Scientists are unanimous that burning fossil fuels has largely driven long-term global warming, and that natural climate variability can also influence temperatures one year to the next. But they are still debating what might have contributed to this particularly exceptional heat surge.
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#Science #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis

Okay, here's my last bit of bad news for today. I know it can be depressing to see so much of this, but unfortunately that's the reality of our fossil-fuel-guzzling "capitalist utopia"...
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The ocean may have removed much less carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than expected in 2023, mainly due to high ocean temperatures. If climate change continues to rapidly weaken the planet’s ocean and land carbon sinks, it will be even more difficult to avoid dangerous levels of warming.

The ocean currently absorbs a quarter of the world’s CO2 emissions from the atmosphere each year. However, warming temperatures are expected to weaken this natural carbon sink and observations from 2023 – the hottest year on record – suggest this process may be happening even faster than anticipated.

The waning of Earth’s carbon sinks will make it even more difficult to reduce emissions fast enough to meet climate targets. In addition to the weak ocean sink, 2023 saw the near-total collapse of the land carbon sink due to drought and wildfires. But it is unclear whether the weakened sinks were blips or signs of a more lasting change.
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FULL STORY -- newscientist.com/article/24594…

#Science #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis

The Hidden Environmental #Cost of #SocialMedia

source: greenly.earth/en-gb/leaf-media…

#TikTok’s primary environmental challenge comes from its video-heavy platform, which consumes significantly more energy than text or image-based platforms. The sheer volume of videos, many of which are hosted on energy-intensive servers, makes TikTok one of the most environmentally costly social media platforms on a per-user basis. For example, streaming short videos on TikTok contributes to higher #emissions per minute of use compared to platforms like Twitter or Facebook, which rely more on text and images.

I get it, you want to create a mood for a TikTok ban for “environmental reasons”. Have you ever thought about how many emissions are caused by the consumption of porn videos? Let's just ban everything that's fun. After all, the big oil companies want to continue polluting the environment and society should focus on banning TikTok.

#environment #internet #online #traffic #co2 #future #climate #fun #censorship #politics #economy #pollution #earth #fail #news #society #carbonfootprint #propaganda #manipulation

🙄 Another day, another lying capitalist corporation. (Capitalists, of course, always lie.)

This time it's Coca-Cola, reneging on their "pledge" to cut back on plastic waste and pollution. But we know they never intended to do that. It was an empty promise, a phony slogan to make themselves look good while continuing to rake in profits. A classic example of #greenwashing.
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Despite growing public scrutiny and legal challenges over its use of plastic, Coca-Cola appears to be moving backward on packaging sustainability.

Earlier this decade, the soda giant publicly pledged to decrease its use of virgin plastic and boost the share of its beverages sold in reusable containers. But in a blog post last week, the company quietly dropped those targets.

Coke’s announcement is part of a broader trend of companies walking back or falling short of their plastics sustainability targets. Last month, a progress report from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation showed that hundreds of companies had collectively fallen short of the progress needed to meet a range of voluntary plastics commitments by 2025.
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FULL STORY -- grist.org/accountability/coca-…

#Economics #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #Pollution