Rupert Read, a professor at the University of East Anglia, offers his take on how, together, we might be able to prevent climate collapse.
Reader, I want to propose a new way to address the great issue of our time: how - even now, at the twelfth hour - we might turn ourselves away from our current path of self-destruction.
Even as I mount this attempt, I am daunted by the scale of the task. Perhaps it daunts you too. And I am unnerved by the seeming inadequacy of the means at our disposal. Haven’t we - and by ‘we’ I mean now our society itself - already shown ourselves terminally incapable of the radical action needed? After all, despite everything we know despite everything science has told us, despite even the opportunity that was afforded us by the coronavirus crisis for a radical reset, we remain firmly on course for burn-up. For an ecologically induced societal collapse.
Videos are trending on social media showing people holding a flame to snowballs in a bid to ‘prove’ it is fake.
Extreme weather in US southern states like Texas has caught many by surprise, with at least 58 reported dead from the storm and millions left without power or running water. President Joe Biden has issued a major disaster declaration in response, dispatching federal aid to those in need.
The recent snowstorms were actually predicted many weeks before by meterologists, who say it s linked to a phenomenon known as Sudden Stratrospheric Warming. This happens when the Arctic warms rapidly, disrupting a mass of cold air.
More trees do not make for a cooler planet, according to a new study in the US.
One environmental scientist argues that deforestation is not always harmful for the planet. Christopher A. Williams, a professor at Clark University s Graduate School of Geography (Worcester, Massachusetts), says that instead of warming up the Earth, deforestation
But some experts are concerned that Williams work is likely to be misconstrued as permission to continue deforesting, which is not his intention.
It s widely accepted that our existing forests are vital carbon sinks, and the best course of action is to stop deforestation, while rewilding and reforesting areas already lost.
Australia isn’t the only place using sea slugs to learn more about climate change.
A particular species, the Hopkins’ Rose nudibranch, turned California’s central and northern coastline pink a few years ago.
Researchers from the California Academy of Sciences, UCSB, UCSC, and Bodega Marine Laboratory
began tracking the unusually high distribution of this bright pink sea slug in January 2015.
Though Hopkins’ Rose nudibranchs are a common sight in southern California, it is unusual to see them in significant numbers further north, as the water temperature is usually too cold to sustain large populations.
The presence of this particular species of sea slug is thought to be indicative of major climate shifts, and unexpected population booms could be used to measure future changes.
In the edition of Climate Now we look at how mountain resorts are working with scientists to adapt to the effects of climate change. First though, we start with the latest data for January from the Copernicus Climate Change Service.
Climate Now presenter Jeremy WilksEuronews
Global temperatures above average in January
Globally, it was the sixth warmest January on record, with temperatures more than 0.2 degrees Celsius above the new 1991-2020 average.
The map of temperature anomalies shows how it was a lot colder in some places and warmer in others.
Temperature anomaliesCopernicus Climate Change Service
In Norway, Sweden and Russia they had their chilliest January since 2010.