Planet Doodles

[planetdoodlesforchange]

“I’m doing this for my son. The government’s inaction on climate change is a death sentence to us all. The United Nations has said we should have no new oil. Liz Truss wants to open 130 new oil licenses. That’s a death sentence to this planet.” --Protester as she was carried away by four policemen after blocking London’s Waterloo Bridge, shockingly composed and unflapped, and inspirational.

[planetdoodlesforchange]

Some public figures have latched onto the campaign to plant one trillion trees to combat climate change. This idea is a good seed to get people interested in climate mitigation measures. It's only a seed -- it takes 20-30 years for a tree to mature and significantly synthesize CO2, these trees would only decrease the average temperature by 1/10th of a degree, and we'd need 3 Indias of space to plant all these guys. But it's a good seed to branch out from. 🙂🌳

[planetdoodlesforchange]

Climate change doesn't affect everywhere the same.

Australia is impacted harder than folks here in Michigan, for instance. If the global average goes up by 2°C, Australia’s average temperature would be up by 3-4 degrees. At that rate, they’d have no more winter weather by 2050. So when we’re advocating for pro-climate policy, we’re really urgently trying to help our Aussie pals prevent devastating bushfires, flooding, droughts and the other extreme weather that is already plaguing them lately.

[planetdoodlesforchange]

Why net zero isn’t good enough:

The idea behind net zero is that heavy-polluting companies can still emit CO2, but in turn, they’ll invest money into pro-climate, carbon-removal initiatives to “offset” their emissions. Carbon offsets are the core of climate policies for a lot of big organizations, and they rack up carbon credits based on their investments. This process sets up a carbon market.

💸 With carbon credits, there’s no guarantee money flows to climate action and not financial players/intermediaries. Some CCs are traded 100x with no added benefit to the environment. There’s a lack of transparency about where the money is going. They are a cheap way out; easily exploited by companies who don’t want to take meaningful action (i.e., actually reducing harmful emissions).

🚫 A former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change declared net zero as a “dangerous trap.” He said this in part because companies have committed to relying on carbon removal technology to achieve net zero—even though that technology doesn’t exist or cannot be scaled up to an impactful degree—based on the hope that one day, it might.

🌳 A very popular form of carbon offset is investing in tree planting, as trees intake CO2. But we literally do not have enough available land on earth to plant enough trees to offset our emissions. See John Oliver’s episode on net zero (it’s on YT) for more info.

So what do we strive for? Not NET zero, but close to ACTUAL zero. Some carbon emissions may always be necessary. But as long as we aim for genuine, emissions-reducing policies and not greenwashed practices aiming for a vague net zero, we got this.

[planetdoodlesforchange]

"The fleeting wonder of watching fireflies reminds me not to take things for granted – not time, not the tiny beings that live around us, not the healthy habitats that sustain biodiversity. Fireflies remind us that we are lucky to be alive and sharing the world with them," wrote endangered species conservation biologist Richard Joyce on The Xerces Society blog.

[planetdoodlesforchange]

Remember when we used to hear a lot about the hole in the ozone layer?? What ever happened with that? A miracle, that’s what.

Governments and agencies worldwide came together, collaborated, and mobilized to find solutions. Scientists identified that chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons were bad for the ozone layer. Believing the researchers, governments banned CFCs. Today, the ozone hole is decreasing and may completely close by 2050. This level of effort should be repeated about 1,000 times over for carbon emissions.

[planetdoodlesforchange]

What do we depend on rivers for? 🌊 Drinking, duh, and also power, growing crops, infrastructure, transportation, cooling nuclear reactors, and essential reasons that go beyond hydrating ourselves.

So it’s scary when rivers dry up due to heat waves. In areas like Sichuan Province by the Yangtze river, which gets 80% of its electricity from hydropower, businesses shut down and people couldn't even manage the extreme heat with air con. Drinking water was rationed. This happens in the US and Europe, too.

[planetdoodlesforchange]

The unhappy origins of "carbon footprint:"

20 years ago, oil giant BP hired an advertising company to invent the concept of a personal carbon footprint. This ad campaign had one aim: to deflect responsibility for fossil-fuel-induced global warming to the average consumer. Climate change wouldn't be stopped by phasing out fossil fuels, no! We all just needed to turn out the lights when we left the kitchen, and ride our bikes to work sometimes! Surely, that would counteract the damage done by using fossil fuels to power literally everything we do forever and always!

Of course it's lovely to reduce our individual consumption, but we must understand that our individual actions are only minuscule steps. Our entire system is tied to fossil fuels and is always consuming more and more and more. We need to walk toward massively changing our infrastructures at a systemic level.

[planetdoodlesforchange]

Cool fact: In 2022, a safety consultant for the oil company Shell quit after 11 years working for the company due to the company's refusal to stop worsening the climate crisis. She emailed over 1,000 employees that “continued oil & gas extraction is causing extreme harm” to the planet.

"Shell is operating beyond the design limits of our planetary systems. Shell is not implementing steps to mitigate the known risks. Shell is not putting environmental safety before production,” she wrote. She called on the company’s management “to look in the mirror and ask themselves if they really believe their vision for more oil & gas extraction secures a safe future for humanity” and asked employees who can do so to “please walk away and towards a more sustainable career.”

[planetdoodlesforchange]

In terms of climate change, a tipping point is when an environmental effect can’t be mitigated or reversed by human intervention. Tipping points often trigger avalanching/exponential, abrupt carbon releases back into the atmosphere, or other negative effects.

Example: If the Amazon were to lose 20-25% of its trees, it would no longer be able to create enough rainfall to sustain itself, and parts would turn into savannah (the rainforest is currently about 17% deforested). Other examples include coral reef die-offs, permafrost thawing, and ice sheet melt.

[planetdoodlesforchange]

Fikile Ntshangase was a South African environmental defender/activist. She was a leading force against the expansion of a coal mine near Africa's oldest nature reserve.

In 2020, Ntshangase was murdured while chopping onions in her own home, in front of her grandson.

Her lawyer said: "She did not compromise her ethics. Ever. As her attorney, I will miss her truth, her fire and courage. She did not deserve to die. We are devastated by her loss.”

According to human rights org Global Witness, at least 227 environmental activists were murdered in 2020, the highest number recorded for a second consecutive year. Another victim was Óscar Eyraud Adams, killed just outside his home in Mexico. He worked to help the indigenous Kumiai community in Baja California have better water access. Rest in peace to them all.

[planetdoodlesforchange]

Greta Thunberg is one of the most recognized faces of climate activism, and she unfortunately draws ire from people with bees in their bonnets. But you gotta love the young faces such as hers and those who belong to organizations like the Sunrise Movement and Extinction Rebellion. They’re making a fuss and getting the public’s attention, and that’s awesome. The kids are alright.

[planetdoodlesforchange]

Office workers who work from home = fewer hours’ worth of car travel = less pollution. I’m all for the home office!

[planetdoodlesforchange]

Don’t worry i have a positive and uplifting message this time!!!

My captions on these drawings can be depressing and I am sorry sometimes to be putting that into the world. But no matter how dire the news is, here are some positive things NOTHING can take away:

we will ALWAYS support and help our loved ones and communities

we can ALWAYS learn about what we can do to help bolster ourselves and our communities to weather storms

we can always strive to face the future bravely with our shoulders squared

[planetdoodlesforchange]

Scientists project that livestock will face considerable risks for frequent heat stress in the years to come, which will decrease their productivity, make them more susceptible to disease, and reduce fertility. Some temperate-weather-and-wealthy-nation farmers will be able to spend money to counteract these setbacks, but what about small ranchers, or subsistence farmers in places like Sub-Saharan Africa, or Southeast Asia? An impact in cattle productivity hurts the owner’s livelihood and ability to feed their family.

One study indicates that the US dairy and beef industries will be hurt by 7% by 2100 due to heat stress, and for India’s dairy industry, that number will be 45%.

From a Cornell study: "Resource-poor farmers in low-income countries depend heavily on their livestock for their livelihoods," Thornton said. "The adaptation needs are even higher in these countries, and those farmers are the ones where the hit is even more severe." By advocating for pro-climate policies, we are doing our part to help people who are impacted by climate change harder than we are.

[planetdoodlesforchange]

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change urges world governments not to let the clock run out on climate change.

Just so you understand, the IPCC is considered conservative. It’s a coalition of 195 governments. When you have that many varied voices on board, it’s extremely difficult to get them all marching, let alone in a unified direction. So much compromise and dampening down the message is necessary. AND YET EVEN THEN, they are saying things like, “the report is an atlas of human suffering,” a “damning indictment of failed climate leadership,” “delay means death.” The report warns that billions of humans, and even more animals, will soon reach points where they can no longer adapt to more extreme weather. The hourglass is running low.

[planetdoodlesforchange]

Nobody likes a sweltering day, those days that strike when you're already at your wits' end in an insufferable summer, a day when the humid midmorning is stabbed with an extra 5-10 degrees of unbreathing pain.

Unfortunately, marine critters are facing those days more and more. What was a standout hot day 100 years ago now happens regularly, research shows.

As a result, sea creatures are migrating in weird ways, seeking out the temperatures they thrive in. Some are heading north; others are plunging deeper undersea. José Luis Sánchez, a Spanish marine science professor, recently noted, "The warmer areas are emptying of species.”