#climate2014

[dianabhaktul]

“I’m marching for” --- Nov 29 2014

I fell in love with winter when I started snowboarding a few years ago. The rush of fresh mountain air at the summit, the sunbeams glistening on the snowpack, the whispers of treetops rustling in the wind - winter is paradoxically exhilarating and calming.

Season after season, it quickly became clear that something was not right. One year it was too hot, then next year the Northeastern U.S. was submerged under a Polar Vortex. I had heard about climate change, and knew there was a connection between rising temperatures and erratic weather patterns. But what could be done?

On 21 September, 2014, approximately 400,000 people gathered in New York City for the People's Climate March, making history as the largest march for climate action in the world. New Yorkers and Americans joined solidarity events hosted in over 166 countries, the most remote locale being Tanzania with 500 Maasai peoples marching, according to campaign organizer Avaaz. Organized by 350.org, Avaaz, The Sierra Club, Climate Justice Alliance and the Service Employees International Union, the march was timed to raise awareness for the people's voice ahead of the United Nations Summit on Climate Change. The summit is intended to kickstart a year-long discussion on climate change solutions, with countries agreeing to commit to specific targets in emissions reduction and related climate policies in Paris of next year.

Through posters across the city, my Twitter feed and emails from campaign organizers, it was clear to me that the People's Climate March was the place to be if I wanted to really learn about climate science and policy. The march was divided into key messages that clearly communicated each group's stance. [see assembly pic, source: peoplesclimate.org] I was instantly drawn to these messages. They were accessible and easy to understand. Every organization represented had a stake in the outcome of climate policy. I felt compelled to move from awareness to action. 

The day began gloomy and overcast; rain threatened to dampen the event in the morning. But that didn't stop the crowds from turning out.  

As a New Yorker, I was humbled and energized by the turnout and diversity of the march. Everyone was there - activists, scientists, professors, families, students, sustainable business leaders, snowboarders and outdoor sports enthusiasts, religious groups, human rights organizations, celebrities and politicians such as U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio, actors Mark Ruffalo and Leonardo DiCaprio. We spilled out into the streets, waving banners and slogans of bright colors and bold messages. Every message was represented - from anti fracking to glacial melt to renewable energy and many more. 

What struck me most was the voice of the people. Everyone had a sign where they could write a personal reason why they were marching. Marching for family, future generations and children puts the climate conversation in a long-term perspective; action now leads to a better future. Still others were marching to raise awareness and promote environmental conservation, such as coral reefs, the Galapagos Islands, forests and of course "the last glacier." 

"I'm marching for" is a strong declarative call to action for all peoples, those in the march and those still wondering how to get involved. "I'm marching for" can empower us to do something, no matter how big or small. 

Through our personal involvement, we can make a collective impact. This year's People's Climate March will be remembered as a time when we stood with each other, for each other.

For more information on the global climate marches, please visit peoplesclimate.org

For more photos of the NYC march, please visit www.dianabhaktul.com

[earthpledge]

"This year is on track to be a record 1.8 degrees hotter than the 19th-century average, hitting a symbolic milestone in the temperature rise that scientists blame mostly on human activities, Britain’s weather service said Monday." "The increase is important because it’s halfway to the 3.6 degrees that governments have set as a limit to avoid dangerous levels of warming."

[earthpledge]

"According to the World Resources Institute (WRI), land use represents 61 percent of the country's greenhouse gas emissions. That means deforestation causes far more climate pollution than all of the country's cars and power plants combined. In fact, Indonesia has the world's highest rate of deforestation, even higher than Brazil, which contains most of the Amazon rainforest. From 2000 to 2012, according to research published in Nature, Indonesia lost more than 23,000 square miles of forest to logging, agriculture, and other uses. That's roughly the size of West Virginia. In 2010, the government attempted to put the brakes on deforestation by exchanging a two-year moratorium on new logging permits for $1 billion in aid from Norway and the United States. But according to Susan Minnemeyer, a forest analyst at the WRI, that policy appears to have had the "perverse impact of accelerating [deforestation], because those with permits felt that they had to take action quickly or they would no longer be able to." This all adds up to global-scale pollution: Indonesia is the world's fifth-ranking greenhouse gas emitter, coming in just behind Russia and India. In other words, we can't stop climate change without saving Indonesia's rainforests. Indonesia is in the middle of a public health crisis from forest fire haze. The problem isn't just deforestation, but how that deforestation is happening. In Indonesia, forests are often cleared out with fire. This can be done legally with a permit, but it's often carried out illegally as well. This year, forest fires are also being fueled by El Niño-related weather patterns. The combination of El Niño and intentional deforestation has proven incredibly dangerous: The country has experienced nearly 100,000 fires so far this year, the worst since the last major El Niño in 1997. Fire activity typically ramps up in September and October, the end of the dry season, and over the last couple of weeks the conflagrations have grown to crisis proportions—hence Joko's hasty return. The fires are so big they can be seen from space. The greenhouse impact from those fires is staggering: On several days over the last month, emissions from Indonesian forest fires have exceeded all emissions from the US economy: World Resources Institute To make matters worse, more than half of those fires occur on land made of peat, the thick, soil-like material made from decomposed plant matter. Peat is packed with carbon, and fires that occur on peatland can have a global warming impact 200 times greater than fires on normal soil, according to the WRI. Last week, Joko said the government would stop issuing new permits for commercial development on peatland, but that won't stop the fires that are already burning. Climate pollution is just part of the problem. Firefighting costs are pushing $50 million per week. The impact of this fire season on Indonesia's economy could reach $14 billion. And the thick blanket of haze that is stretching from the country across Southeast Asia has caused at least 10 deaths from haze-related illness and 500,000 cases of acute respiratory illness. Your snacks and makeup are part of the problem. Of course, Indonesians aren't just chopping and burning down trees for fun. Besides logging, one of the main uses for cleared land is to plant African oil palm, the fruits of which are used to produce palm oil. Palm oil is the world's most popular form of vegetable oil, and half of it comes from Indonesia. It's also found in about half the processed food you encounter in a grocery store (as well as many cosmetics). "

[earthpledge]

"(CNN)Hurricane Patricia -- the strongest hurricane ever recorded -- made landfall on Mexico's Pacific coast Friday evening, its 165 mph winds barreling into southwestern Mexico near Cuixmala, officials said. The monster storm touched down about 6:15 p.m., hours after weakening slightly with sustained winds decreasing to 190 mph and gusts to 235 mph, according to the U.S National Weather Service."

[earthpledge]

"For just the third time on record, scientists say they are now watching the unfolding of a massive worldwide coral bleaching event, spanning the globe from Hawaii to the Indian Ocean. And they fear that thanks to warm sea temperatures, the ultimate result could be the loss of more than 12,000 square kilometers, or over 4,500 square miles, of coral this year — with particularly strong impacts in Hawaii and other U.S. tropical regions, and potentially continuing into 2016. The event is being brought on by a combination of global warming, a very strong El Nino event, and the so-called warm “blob” in the Pacific Ocean, say the researchers, part of a consortium including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as well as XL Catlin Seaview Survey, The University of Queensland in Australia, and Reef Check. “This is only the third time we’ve seen what we would refer to as a global bleaching event, an event that causes mass bleaching in the Indian Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, and the Atlantic-Caribbean basin,” said Mark Eakin, who heads NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch. The prior events, Eakin continues, “were in 1998 and 2010, and those were pretty much one year events. We’re looking at a similar spatial scale of bleaching across the globe, but spanning across at least 2 years. So that means a lot of these corals are being put under really prolonged stress, or are being hit 2 years in a row.” The total loss could amount to 5 percent of the world’s corals in 2015, according to Eakin. That’s not as bad as the loss in 1998, but there’s a fear that if the event continues into 2016, the losses would grow. “We’ve been hearing worrying reports of bleaching from various places, and now the bad news is officially here, with worse news likely yet to come with the strengthening El Nino,” says Nancy Knowlton, an expert on coral reefs with the Smithsonian Institution, of the news. “No reefs that experience unusually warm waters are likely to escape unscathed, but reefs already suffering from overfishing and pollution may have a particularly rough time recovering, based on what we have learned from past bleaching events.”"

[earthpledge]

In what may prove to be a turning point for political action on climate change, a breathtaking new study casts extreme doubt about the near-term stability of global sea levels. The study—written by James Hansen, NASA’s former lead climate scientist, and 16 co-authors, many of whom are considered among the...

“In what may prove to be a turning point for political action on climate change, a breathtaking new study casts extreme doubt about the near-term stability of global sea levels.

The study—written by James Hansen, NASA’s former lead climate scientist, and 16 co-authors, many of whom are considered among the top in their fields—concludes that glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica will melt 10 times faster than previous consensus estimates, resulting in sea level rise of at least 10 feet in as little as 50 years. The study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, brings new importance to a feedback loop in the ocean near Antarctica that results in cooler freshwater from melting glaciers forcing warmer, saltier water underneath the ice sheets, speeding up the melting rate. Hansen, who is known for being alarmist and also right, acknowledges that his study implies change far beyond previous consensus estimates. In a conference call with reporters, he said he hoped the new findings would be “substantially more persuasive than anything previously published.” I certainly find them to be. To come to their findings, the authors used a mixture of paleoclimate records, computer models, and observations of current rates of sea level rise, but “the real world is moving somewhat faster than the model,” Hansen says. Hansen’s study does not attempt to predict the precise timing of the feedback loop, only that it is “likely” to occur this century. The implications are mindboggling: In the study’s likely scenario, New York City—and every other coastal city on the planet—may only have a few more decades of habitability left. That dire prediction, in Hansen’s view, requires “emergency cooperation among nations.””

[earthpledge]

2015 is likely to crush the previous record -- 2014 -- probably by a wide margin. We appear to be in the midst of the long-awaited jump in global temperatures.

“NASA reports this was the hottest July on record. So we are now in “bet the mortgage” territory that 2015 will be the hottest year in NASA’s 125-year temperature record.

In fact, 2015 is likely to crush the previous record — 2014 — probably by a wide margin, especially since one of the strongest El Niños in 50 years is adding to the strong underlying global warming trend.

Climate expert Dr. John Abraham updated this NASA chart to show how the first seven months of 2015 compares to the annual temperatures of previous years:

The gap between 2015 and all other years in that chart will grow since NOAA and many others project the current El Niño will keep growing stronger for many months. The soaring ocean temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific, which are characteristic of an El Niño, just keep climbing. As the journal Nature reports, this El Niño “could be [the] strongest on record.” It is projected to peak in the winter and last into the spring of 2016. If the 2015-2016 El Niño does rival the 1997-1998 super El Niño, then just as 1998 crushed 1997 temperatures, we may see 2016 beat all the records set in 2015.

Bottom Line: the warming trend that made 2014 the hottest calendar year on record is continuing. We appear to be in the midst of of the long-awaited jump in global temperatures.”

[earthpledge]

“Rising temperatures around the globe are changing the planet. For example, 14 of the 15 hottest years on record have all occurred in the 21st century, according to the United Nations. Earlier this month, the U.N. issued its first-ever guidelines on how to survive heat waves, which the organization said have increased in frequency and intensity in recent years because of climate change. In Tajikistan, the threat of melting glaciers has loomed for a long time. In 2007, officials in the country said the impact and damage of climate change in the region will mainly derive from the melting glaciers in the Pamir Mountains in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province.

“Climate change is bringing various challenges to the life of the local population,” Kurbonbek Rustambekov, a hydrometeorologist in Badakhshan, told IRIN News in 2007. “In the last five years, we have observed a rise in local temperatures of up to 3 degrees centigrade here.”

A 2009 report from humanitarian organization Oxfam found that melting glaciers in Tajikistan would bring about “the danger, in the future, of greater water shortages and even disputes in the wider region.” The group also called the melting of some of the country’s 8,492 glaciers “alarming.””