Climate optimists like to claim that as soon as we reach “net zero” — the point when capitalist commerce and industry begins emitting less carbon dioxide than the amount absorbed by oceans, rocks, or plants, along with the amount being taken out of the atmosphere (theoretically) via high-tech CO2 removal — then global warming will stop almost immediately.

It’s a nice message, one intended to make us feel better, reassured that our leaders know what they’re doing. Don’t worry, we are told, everything is under control. By 2050, if not sooner, they’ll have the situation turned around. 😃

In the meantime, we can all relax and go ahead with Business As Usual. Keep shopping, keep buying, keep driving, keep flying. And don’t forget to do your part: buy a shiny new electric SUV and recycle your plastic water bottles!

BUT — there are big problems with this phony net zero promise, and the way countries report their emissions is one of them. Investigators have found huge discrepancies accruing through the use of spurious carbon offsets, outsourcing, and other UN-approved loopholes. Also, CO2 emissions from the military are not required to be included, nor are emissions from international trade.

Some estimates suggest that actual emissions could be at least *twice* as high as what’s being shown in the official reports. No wonder global temperatures keep rising even though we’re constantly assured that great progress is being made.

In addition, there’s a growing risk that climate change itself will trigger “natural” emissions of greenhouse gases as peat bogs dry out, as drought-weakened forests burn, as permafrost melts, and as the sea floor warms, releasing previously frozen methane clathrates. So it’s not just the emissions of human industry we need to worry about.

The point is, net zero is NOT zero. Don’t fall for their lies. It’s time for real change, for system change. We must demand the end of #capitalism and a pivot toward #degrowth.

#Science #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #Degrowth

If you really want to know what we're in for (and if you're not afraid of being terrified), here are a few books I suggest reading. They might help to prepare you for the reality of 100% fully-intentional capitalist climate chaos.

NON-FICTION

📙 "Hothouse Earth: An Inhabitant's Guide" by Bill McGuire, Professor Emeritus of Geophysical and Climate Hazards at University College London

Bill McGuire explains the science behind the climate crisis and presents a blunt but authentic picture of the world our children and grandchildren will inherit; a world that we catch only glimpses of in today's blistering heatwaves, calamitous wildfires, and ruinous floods and droughts. Bleak though it is, the picture is one we must all face up to, if only to spur genuine action – even at this late stage – to stop a harrowing future becoming a truly cataclysmic one. ➡️ iconbooks.com/ib-title/hothous…

📕 "Our Final Warning: Six Degrees of Climate Emergency" by Mark Lynas

We are living in a climate emergency. But how much worse could it get? Will civilization collapse? Are we already past the point of no return? What kind of future can our children expect? Rigorously cataloguing the very latest climate science, Mark Lynas explores the course we have set for Earth over the next century and beyond. Degree by terrifying degree, he charts the likely consequences of global heating and the ensuing climate catastrophe. ➡️ bookshop.org/search?keywords=O…

FICTION

📘 "The Deluge" by Stephen Markley

This very dark, epic novel offers the most accurate projection of where we're probably going that I have ever read. It doesn't flinch from depicting the greed and corruption all around us, or from portraying the ugly results of climate breakdown and societal fracturing. ➡️ simonandschuster.com/books/The…

📗 "The Light Pirate" by Lily Brooks-Dalton

On a (slightly) lighter note, this is a beautifully written, touching, sad, and haunting novel about trying to live with and survive the near-future impacts of climate breakdown. A real gem, highly recommended. ➡️ openlibrary.org/books/OL378531…

#Books #Bookstodon #Science #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange

🛑 Business As Usual will lead to our demise. 🛑

Sooner or later, perhaps within years, certainly within a decade or two, the fragile and tenuous structure of our complex modern industrial society will break down. It won’t take much — overlapping natural disasters, collapse of the marine food web, an even worse pandemic, serious supply chain disruption, a major crop failure — some of these, or maybe all at once, and everything falls apart.

That’s not an outcome we should welcome. It can only lead to widespread suffering and starvation, with millions and possibly billions of human deaths.

If we are to have any hope of avoiding such a catastrophic societal collapse, we must rapidly reduce the extraction and burning of fossil fuels. But that will never happen as long as capitalism remains in charge.

So capitalism must go. The system must be changed.

Those at the top, however, will not give up easily. They will have to be forced to surrender, to step down and relinquish their power. The only way I can see that happening, short of violent revolution, is through a critical mass of people agreeing that it’s time for ACTION, then joining together for coordinated civil disobedience at a level never seen before.

The primary tactic is a prolonged general strike.

But it must be carefully thought out, every step meticulously organized. This would start with activists and neighborhood leaders meeting up and developing practical plans, locating resources, evaluating areas of strength and also of weakness.

Community groups could then begin stockpiling food and basic supplies and organizing voluntary systems of local/regional assistance, whether with transportation, health care, or finances, in preparation for the strike.

And when it begins:

⦿ No one goes to work

 ⦿ No one buys anything

 ⦿ No one pays any bills

If a wide-scale action like this could last at least a month, or even better two or three months, then I think we *might* have a chance of getting our demands met.

We’re at an inflection point, a moment of decision: either stay with capitalism and face disaster, or do whatever is necessary to bring about degrowth.

#Capitalism #BusinessAsUsual #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateAction

More than 140 banks worldwide have "pledged" to cut emissions associated with their lending and investments to almost zero by 2050.

But meanwhile...
___________________________________

Less than a hundred miles from where world leaders are discussing how to meet their climate pledges, BP is drilling for gas. The project, a sprawling gas field off the Azerbaijani coast, could inject more than 1 billion metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere, striking a major blow to efforts to slow global warming.

BP has said it intends to invest heavily in new oil and gas fields in the coming years. But it would be unable to pursue these dirty projects without billions in support from big banks. Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo, along with a number of other banks, all helped BP raise more than $5 billion last year.

Since May 2021, global banks committed to "Net-zero" have poured almost $1 trillion into companies pursuing expansion of oil and gas projects that would push the world beyond its survivable limits. Taken together, these projects would produce almost seven times the annual emissions of the U.S.
___________________________________

FULL STORY -- grist.org/accountability/net-z…

#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #Economics #Capitalism #BusinessAsUsual

Mother Nature says: FAFO
____________________________

Trees and land absorbed almost no carbon dioxide (CO2) last year, and scientists are struggling to work out why.

Carbon sinks, such as forests, oceans and soils, are an essential part of regulating the Earth’s climate. Through natural processes, these land and ocean masses absorb almost half of all human carbon emissions from the atmosphere.

But preliminary findings for 2023 – the hottest year ever recorded on Earth – have found that the amount of carbon absorbed by forests, plants, and soil has temporarily collapsed.

This was completely unexpected, and therefore not something factored into most predictions and calculations about how quickly the Earth will heat up as a result of climate change. The breakdown of the land carbon sink could be temporary, but if it isn’t, this will drastically increase the rate of global heating.

It will be impossible for the world to reach net zero without carbon sinks, because there is simply no human technology that can absorb carbon on the same scale as the forests, grasslands, peat bogs, and oceans of the world.
____________________________

FULL STORY ➡️ thelondoneconomic.com/news/env…

#Science #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis

Power-sharing in Canada: "A wild experiment is under way in British Columbia, Canada’s westernmost province: the government is rewriting its laws to share power with Indigenous nations over a land base bigger than France and Germany combined.

[...]

The legislation is dauntingly complex, involving distinct negotiations with more than 200 First Nations and the dismantling of a system built to protect industrial profits over any other interest.

[...]

6% of the world’s population is Indigenous; so is 6% of BC’s. That’s 300,000 people speaking 34 languages, spread across coastal fjords and misty rainforests, subalpine meadows and semi-arid desert and dense boreal forest. Most have been here since the last ice age.

Almost their entire land base – about 97% of most of what’s now “British Columbia” – was seized without a treaty or any pretence of legality. Since then, four-fifths of the province’s primary forest has been logged. Wild salmon and herring are down to a 10th of their once-spectacular abundance. Habitat destruction from mining and fossil fuel development have pushed another 2,000 species to the brink of extirpation." - theguardian.com/world/2024/oct…

#indigenous #canada #environment #nature

Why are you so upset? Stop worrying!

Business As Usual is turning out just fine. 🙄
_______________________________________

The Copernicus Climate Change Service, a European Union organization that monitors global heating, announced on Thursday that the year 2024 will be 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer than pre-industrial levels. That means humanity has passed a critical threshold established in 2015 in the Paris climate accord.

“After 10 months of 2024, it is now virtually certain that 2024 will be the warmest year on record and the first year of more than 1.5ºC above pre-industrial levels," Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, said in a statement. "This marks a new milestone in global temperature records and should serve as a catalyst to raise ambition for the upcoming Climate Change Conference, COP29.”

The EU agency announced this moment as nations all over the world gather in the Azerbaijani city of Baku for the 29th Conference of the Parties. The ERA5 dataset found that global temperatures in 2024 were on average 1.55 degrees Celsius higher than the 1.48 degrees threshold measured in 2023. The report also noted climate change-fueled major weather events in 2024 such as torrential floods in Spain and rapidly melting Antarctic sea ice.
_______________________________________

FULL ARTICLE -- salon.com/2024/11/09/earth-on-…

#Science #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis

What do you think happens when a UN climate conference is hosted by a petrostate — a country like Azerbaijan whose economy relies heavily on oil and gas?

Turning over a new leaf? Acknowledging it’s time for capitalism to end? Mea culpa?

Ha-ha, no.
_________________________________

A senior official at the COP29 climate change conference in Azerbaijan appears to have used his role to arrange a meeting to discuss potential fossil fuel deals.

A secret recording shows the chief executive of Azerbaijan's COP29 team, Elnur Soltanov, discussing "investment opportunities" in the state oil and gas company with a man posing as a potential investor.

"We have a lot of gas fields that are to be developed," says Soltanov.

As well as being chief executive of COP29, Soltanov is also the deputy energy minister of Azerbaijan and is on the board of Socar, Azerbaijan's state energy firm.
_________________________________

FULL STORY -- bbc.com/news/articles/crmzvdn9…
SEE ALSO -- globalwitness.org/en/campaigns…

#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #Capitalism #BusinessAsUsual #COP29

Study showing how Australian Aboriginal people shaped the distribution of useful plants across their lands, dispersing them in more preferable areas, etc:

"The findings call into question our whole notions of what agriculture is," said Douglas Bird, study co-author and professor of anthropology at Penn State. "Rather than thinking about the difference between agricultural societies and hunter-gatherer societies as a matter of kind, we'd be better off thinking about it as a matter of degree—that people influence plants long before they engage in what we think of as farming."" - phys.org/news/2024-10-landscap…

Peoples who are used to living with the environment (instead of "against" it) understand that often the best interventions are the ones that are extremely subtle. In this case, the interventions were so subtle that they didn't fit into traditional western understandings of cultivation and agriculture.

So it's good to see this kind of subtle cultivation getting more recognized by science. There are many ways to live with the environment and to place the resources you need into places that are convenient for you and your people. The more that westerners can learn that, the more possibilities open up for how to live with the land.

#indigenous #australia #cultivation #agriculture #science #gardening #gardeningau #plants #nature #environment #ecology #anthropology

If you're not already following Mastodon's resident climate historian ➡️ @Climatehistories ⬅️ you really should be.

The article linked below does a superb job in tracing the roots of modern environmental policy, from the World War II era until today. One section in particular stood out to me...
____________________________________

Interestingly, from the 1940s through the 1970s, the world experienced a cooling period – a phenomenon largely due to sulphate aerosols released during the post-war industrial expansion. These particles reflected sunlight, temporarily cooling the Earth’s surface.

The 1963 eruption of Mount Agung also contributed by adding more aerosols that slightly reduced global temperature between 1958 and 1965.

Later research would reveal that greenhouse gas-induced warming would surpass aerosol cooling effects, setting the planet on a trajectory towards rapid warming.
____________________________________

As you can see on the graph below, that temporary "aerosol cooling effect" certainly was overcome by capitalism's massive injection of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The heat keeps on going up now, and shows no sign of stopping.

FULL ARTICLE -- theclimatehistorian.substack.c…

#Politics #History #Science #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis