Notices by Bread and Circuses (breadandcircuses@climatejustice.social), page 3

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Okay, it's all but certain that climate breakdown is fully underway. We've waited far too long now, and it's too late to stop it.

At best, we could slow the process slightly, but that would require shutting down the fossil fuel industry almost immediately (i.e., over the next 5 years), and our capitalist overlords will never allow that.

So, what do we do instead?

Below are three sources for ideas on how to prepare and adapt and, if you're lucky, survive.

The first is a PDF. It's very long and written in an academic style, but it's also quite powerful and convincing —

Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating Climate Tragedy
https://lifeworth.com/deepadaptation.pdf

The other two are online resources containing suggestions, points of contact, and other info —

Transition Network
https://transitionnetwork.org/

Earth Regenerators
https://earthregenerators.org/

Good luck!

#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateEmergency

A timely and rather shocking meme, to which I have added #AltText...

#Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateEmergency

EVs are so heavy they cause far more road damage than do old-style ICE cars.

"EVs cause twice the road damage of petrol vehicles, study reveals"
https://www.energylivenews.com/2023/06/27/evs-cause-twice-the-road-damage-of-petrol-vehicles-study-reveals/

Even just carrying EVs on trucks to the showroom is becoming a big problem, because they’re so freaking heavy.

"There’s a problem with transporting new vehicles across the country: They’re too heavy."
https://slate.com/business/2023/06/electric-vehicles-auto-haulers-weight-capacity-roads.html

And once you buy that new electric SUV and then drive it to work and leave it in a parking garage… uh-oh!

"Electric cars too heavy for old multi-storey car parks, engineers warn"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/05/electric-cars-too-heavy-old-multi-storey-car-parks/

My point here is *not* that EVs are worse than ICE cars, because they’re not. But they’re not much better either.

Replacing a billion old-style cars with a billion EVs won’t solve anything. The very best car is no car at all.

#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateEmergency #Degrowth #WarOnCars #BanCars

You’ve heard, of course, that the global average temperature has set a new record high numerous times during the past week. But we’re not breaking those old records by just a little bit. The Earth has a very bad fever and the temperature is soaring.

🚨 We are in a climate emergency. 🚨

#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateEmergency

It can be argued that electric vehicles are an improvement when replacing ICE vehicles.

But that misses a much bigger point — which is that the very best car is *not* an electric car. The very best car is no car at all!

Building electric cars requires massive use of fossil fuels, including petrochemicals for the manufacture of plastics. In addition, mining of lithium for batteries as well as trawling for other minerals in the deep ocean is environmentally disastrous, killing biodiversity while polluting our water, soil, and air.

LITHIUM EXTRACTION — https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/02/01/south-america-s-lithium-fields-reveal-the-dark-side-of-our-electric-future

DEEP-SEA MINING — https://climatejustice.social/@breadandcircuses/109814016209990908

The kind of “Green Growth” championed by capitalists and politicians, which features more electric cars, a bit of solar, and a few wind farms — along with continued use of fossil fuels — is not a good answer. It does not solve any of our problems, and in fact only makes them worse.

Say NO to more cars, of any kind. Push instead for active transportation and for improved public transit.

Continued economic growth is unsustainable. Period. The only logical choice for us and for the biosphere is de-growth.

#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateEmergency #Degrowth #WarOnCars #BanCars

I like this quote:

“The problem is that electric cars are popular with politicians precisely because they provide an excuse to avoid doing harder things, like rebuilding our cities, or changing the habits of lifetimes. Persuading people to switch from their old gasoline car to a shiny Tesla is much easier than persuading them that they can live without a car. Hence governments are pushing electric cars, often with incentives that make no sense.” - Daniel Knowles, author of Carmageddon

No one saw this coming, right? 🙄
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"UN says climate change ‘out of control’ after likely hottest week on record"

The UN secretary general has said that “climate change is out of control” as an unofficial analysis of data showed that average world temperatures in the seven days to Wednesday were the hottest week on record.

“If we persist in delaying key measures that are needed, I think we are moving into a catastrophic situation, as the last two records in temperature demonstrates,” António Guterres said, referring to the world temperature records broken on Monday and Tuesday.
________________________________

FULL STORY -- https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/07/un-climate-change-hottest-week-world

#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateEmergency

"Swedish Authorities Charge Greta Thunberg With the Crime of Disobeying Cops"

https://www.thedailybeast.com/swedish-authorities-charge-greta-thunberg-with-the-crime-of-disobeying-cops

We ALL should be disobeying cops and risking arrest. That's the only option remaining to inspire real change.

#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateEmergency #ClimateAction #ClimateJustice

Car culture is killing us.

Car culture kills cyclists.
Car culture kills clean air.
Car culture kills children.
Car culture kills wildlife.
Car culture kills fitness.
Car culture kills the environment.
Car culture kills friendliness.
Car culture kills pedestrians.
Car culture kills equality.
Car culture kills the atmosphere.
Car culture kills serenity.
Car culture kills!

#WarOnCars #BanCars

For energy-efficient travel, nothing beats the bike! 🚲

And yes, I’ll be going out for a ride this morning, in about two hours. 😁

#Bike #Bicycle

They knew. They lied. They need to pay for this.
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"Oil Giant Shell Knew About Climate Impacts Even Earlier"

Following explosive revelations about what ExxonMobil knew about fossil fuels driving global heating, investigations in 2017 and 2018 uncovered that Shell Oil's scientists privately warned about the impact of its products in the 1980s.

However, newly unveiled records show that "Shell began collecting knowledge about climate change in the 1960s. The company not only kept well abreast of climate science, but also funded research. As a result, Shell already knew in the 1970s that burning fossil fuels could lead to alarming climate change."

Faced with a global oil crisis, rather than using its climate information to publicly sound the alarm and shift to cleaner practices, the company "focused instead on a nonsustainable profit model."

The following year, a study Shell was involved with warned that "increases in the CO2 content of the atmosphere could lead to the so-called greenhouse effect... which would be enough to induce major climatic changes." Three years later, another report warned that "the continued burning of fossil fuels will lead to a manifold increase in the atmospheric CO2 concentration."

Duncan Meisel, executive director of the campaign Clean Creatives, which targets advertising and public relations firms that work for fossil fuel companies, declared Monday that "what these new documents show is incredibly disturbing."

"In the 1980s, Shell scientists laid out two pathways for the planet: one where energy companies undertook a smooth transition to clean energy and one where fossil fuel demand continued to rise, creating 'more storms, more droughts, more deluges,'" he summarized. "Since the publication of that forecast, Shell has pushed at every turn to create more fossil fuel demand, creating exactly the devastating outcomes they predicted."

The Center for Climate Integrity said the records provide the world "more damning evidence" that the company knew its business model was having disastrous impacts on the world and its people. As the group put it: "They knew. They lied. They need to pay."
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FULL STORY -- https://www.commondreams.org/news/shell-fossil-fuels-climate-1970s

#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateAction #ClimateEmergency #CO2 #Emissions #Shell

Academics have figured out just how much the gluttony of the Global North is costing poorer countries in the Global South.

And it's a LOT of money.
____________________________

Countries like the United States and those in Europe could be on the hook for an eye-popping $170 trillion in climate reparations for their excessive carbon emissions, according to new research from the University of Leeds.

The study highlights inequities in the remaining carbon that the world can emit before invoking even more catastrophic climate events. Wealthier countries like the U.S, United Kingdom, and Germany are not only responsible for the largest share of current and historic emissions, but they are also on track to overshoot their existing carbon budgets, or the amount that the world can emit before exceeding the current global target of 1.5 degrees C (about 2.7 degrees F) of warming.

“The problem is that the Global North would be overshooting its collective fair share of the 1.5-degree carbon budget by nearly three times,” said Andrew Fanning, the study’s lead author. “And, of course, if some countries are overshooting, then other countries need to pick up the slack.”

The study found that the U.S. would be responsible for the largest share — $80 trillion — for its excess emissions, which would be paid out to historically low emitters like India and China as well as regions like sub-Saharan Africa. The oversized carbon footprint of wealthier nations has been an ongoing roadblock in the race to cut emissions and curb the worst impacts of climate change. Researchers sought to quantify how much excess emissions would cost and used the existing framework from the IPCC to price out the difference in emissions.

“Some countries have used far more than their fair share, while others essentially lose parts of their fair share,” said Fanning. “And that is unjust.”
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Now, the big question is, will this remain nothing more than an academic calculation? Or will the countries who are causing the climate crisis actually be forced to pay the bill for it?

Will pigs fly?

FULL ARTICLE -- https://grist.org/international/study-us-owes-80-trillion-climate-reparations-excess-carbon-emissions/

#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateEmergency #CO2 #Emissions #ClimateJustice

Yikes.

As if we didn't already have enough reasons to quit burning carbon. Not by 2050 or 2040, but NOW.

"Another climate tipping point to worry about: Plankton"
______________________________

Rising temperatures could transform plankton and other tiny aquatic organisms into a huge source of carbon emissions, a little-known — and potentially catastrophic — climate tipping point that could accelerate global warming.

A study, published Thursday in Functional Ecology, found that rising temperatures cause a sudden shift in these microbes’ eating habits, flipping them from carbon absorbers to carbon emitters.

No one knows just how much carbon these microorganisms could release, and this tipping point hasn’t yet been considered in climate models. But it could be quite substantial, because they’re among the world’s most abundant organisms, living in the ocean, lakes, peatlands, and other bodies of water.

“Here we have these understudied microbes that are probably the dominant microbes in the world,” said Daniel Wieczynski, an author of the study and a biology researcher at Duke University. “And suddenly we’ve realized that they could be the architects of catastrophic consequences of climate change.”
______________________________

Selfish and greedy capitalists continue pushing "Business As Usual" simply to make more money -- but they're messing with the health and safety of our entire ecosystem!

This is no joke. Everything you care about is in grave danger. It can't be allowed go on like this.

FULL ARTICLE -- https://grist.org/science/plankton-climate-tipping-point-carbon-emissions/

#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateEmergency #CO2 #Emissions

We presently face the most radical of challenges to the continuation of a livable biosphere — and indeed to humanity’s existence as a species — and therefore I believe the most radical response is justified and is urgently required.

First: Nationalize and then shut down the fossil fuel industry, the airlines, and the factory farms. The US military budget also must be deeply slashed, as they are the world's biggest single source of institutional emissions.

When I say shut down all those industries, I don't mean literally overnight. I realize of course that we can't stop burning fossil fuels instantly. I'm suggesting, however, a very rapid reduction, something on the order of 20% per year, meaning after five years we are down to zero. TRUE zero, not the phony greenwashed “net-zero.”

Second: Confiscate all previous financial holdings from fossil fuel corporations, their executives and their major investors, and dedicate a portion of those funds to easing the transition for employees of the shuttered industries. The remaining funds can help countries in the Global South raise standards of living without expanding use of fossil fuels.

Third: Let the dust settle, see where we are with emissions, and maybe then consider deploying some solar geoengineering techniques, but only as a last resort.

Now, you might be concerned that many people would suffer and have to endure hardships if and when we shut down the fossil fuel industry and the airlines and the factory farms — and you’re right, they would.

However, that’s almost nothing compared to how many people will suffer and how great their hardships will be in the next few decades if we DON’T do all those things now.

Would this plan be easy to accomplish? No, not at all. Would it cause inconvenience and misery? Yes, certainly. Real change comes at a real cost.

Sorry to say it, but the choice we face is between a very bad outcome and a very VERY bad outcome.

#Politics #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateEmergency #CO2 #Emissions #ClimateJustice

How capitalism works…

Why are so many climate scientists so scared and so angry?

Maybe it's because they know better than most of us how bad our situation today truly is, and how horribly we've been betrayed by our so-called leaders.

Here's an excerpt from an excellent piece on this subject by Alan Urban...
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Even if the planet stopped getting warmer right now, we would still be in big trouble. The ice caps would keep melting and sea levels would keep rising.

Look at what’s happening at a mere 1.2°C of warming. We’re already seeing some of the worst heat waves in human history, not to mention record-breaking floods, droughts, wildfires, and water shortages.

But of course, warming isn’t going to stop at 1.2°C. Because of the heat we’ve already trapped in the atmosphere, and because we continue to emit huge amounts of greenhouse gases every year, the climate is warming exponentially.

All of these climate-related crises are stretching farms to the limit, yet this is just the beginning. As crop yields decline and the population grows, we will see food insecurity get worse and worse until we’re in a global famine.

And that right there is why climate scientists are scared. They understand that human civilization was born during the Holocene, when global temperatures were very stable and stayed within a range of about 1°C.

As we push the planet out of that range and raise the temperature about 50 times faster than would occur naturally, it will become harder and harder to produce enough food to feed everyone, and this will lead to social instability, political upheaval, the worst migration crisis ever, and wars over resources.

Disasters that weren’t supposed to happen until we reached 1.5°C are happening now, so we can only imagine what will happen when we hit 2° or 3°C.

This is why top scientists from around the world are warning us that we face a ghastly future filled with untold suffering. They’ve been telling us over and over, year after year, summit after summit, that we have to stop burning fossil fuels as quickly as possible. But as you can see [below], the world keeps ignoring them.
_____________________________

FULL ARTICLE -- https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fmedium.com%2F%40CollapseSurvival%2Ffaster-than-expected-why-climate-scientists-are-so-scared-985db6579f2e

#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateEmergency #CO2 #Emissions #Capitalism

Private jets are a luxury for the ultra-rich who wreck the planet with destructive lifestyles.

North America (basically the USA) is home to more private jets than all other regions of the world *combined*.

Private jets are ~10 times more polluting per passenger than scheduled flights, and 50 times more than an average train ride.

It's time to #BanPrivateJets ‼

#Capitalism #Pollution #CO2 #Emissions #ClimateCrisis

An unfurled thread from NASA climate scientist Peter Kalmus (@ClimateHuman)
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I was just at a NASA team meeting for 3 days in DC. Experts on tropical rainforests told me privately that they think the Amazon has already passed its tipping point. Let that sink in. The world needs to know.

When I am at these scientific meetings, where basically every talk and poster is about precisely how Earth is rapidly breaking down, I just want to scream.

It makes me incredibly angry and frustrated and sad that Biden keeps expanding fossil fuel production and infrastructure, in direct opposition to the clearest science. What are climate scientists supposed to do? We are losing Earth, folks. We must force our leaders to stop.

Always, always keep in mind that to halt this, we must end the fossil fuel industry. Nothing else will substitute for that. Don't let them distract you with carbon offsets, carbon capture, fusion, or recycling.
____________________________

Climate scientists are scared and are furious about what's happening. We ALL should be frightened, angry, and demanding action!

As Peter says: "We must end the fossil fuel industry. Nothing else will substitute for that."

#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateEmergency #FossilFuels #CO2 #Emissions #Capitalism

I’m glad my parents did not have to live through the collapse we are experiencing.

I’m sorry that my children and my grandchildren will have to try somehow to survive it.

#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateEmergency