Daily Archives: 20 March 2024

Just Stop Oil confronts Emily Thornberry && Keir Starmer and UK ‘Likud’ Labour party accused of aiding and abetting genocide

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Just Stop Oil supporters have disrupted a public event featuring Emily Thornberry. As Thornberry was delivering her open remarks, the pair stood up to confront the Labour front-bencher and Shadow Attorney General for England and Wales. They threw orange confetti and addressed the assembly, remarking “We need you to make a commitment to revoke the Tory licences for oil and gas infrastructure which will lock us on to the worst pathways of global warming and climate catastrophe”, and “Labour needs to wake up and smell the coffee. Everyone else has clocked that new oil and gas means more floods, more fires, rising food prices… when are you going to get it?”. Members of the audience were repeatedly heard to say “hear, hear!” to these comments.

After the action takers were escorted from the room, Emily Thornberry addressed the audience, saying:

“I have had Just Stop Oil outside my house, I have had Gaza protests pretty much everywhere I go. I assumed it was Gaza then I saw the orange and thought ‘Oh, right! It’s Just Stop Oil’. The worst thing is that one becomes hardened to it… I’m happy to argue the issues, I’m not happy to be told I’m responsible for the murder of babies in Gaza, or I’m personally responsible for the boiling of the planet.”

One of those taking action today was Genevieve Shanahan, 33, a university lecturer in Management and Sustainability. She said:

“Today I’m approaching Emily Thornberry to implore her to stand up to fossil fuel extremists and use her influence within Labour to secure a commitment to cancel these licences. The Labour Party are poised to win the next general election, and rather than grabbing this opportunity to protect the British public from this violence they are instead – unbelievably – dropping their existing climate commitments.”

“As a lecturer in sustainability, I need to practise what I teach. In my classroom we examine how permitting investment in new fossil fuel infrastructure would lock in economic incentives that will, according to all reasonable models, make climate collapse inevitable. If the Tories’ new oil and gas licences go ahead then that’s it – it’s game over for all of us.”

Keir Starmer accused of aiding and abetting genocide

Zionist Keir Starmer supports Israel's Gaza genocide.
Zionist Keir Starmer supports Israel’s Gaza genocide.

Let’s look at Emily Thornberry’s response. She is shadow Attorney General for England and Wales and so should know the law.

From my quick and limited review of the law of genocide, there are 2 main crimes supporting genocide: aiding and abetting genocide and complicity in genocide although unfortunately there is not a clear distinction due to how the law has developed. Aiding and abetting is more serious since there is a greater involvement in the act of genocide. So it is plausible that Keir “I support Zionism without qualification” Starmer is aiding and abetting genocide when he says that Israel has the right to withold power and water: he is clearly helping and supporting Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Where does this leave Emily Thornberry and other Labour shadow cabinet members and MPs? Thornberry said “… I’m not happy to be told I’m responsible for the murder of babies in Gaza …”. She’s supporting her glorious Zionist leader and certainly not diverging from his Zionist policy of aiding and abetting genocide. The cabinet has collective responsibility i.e. they’re all guilty, and the shadow cabinet should be held to the same standard. MPs? Do they depart from Starmer’s Zionist aiding and abetting?

Genocide is a most serious crime and it’s clear that Israel is committing war crimes and genocide. Responsible for the murder of babies in Gaza? I’d say complicit because there is no opposition to it and the electorate are very likely to regard it as such. There’s the further issue of course that these politician cnuts are supposed to represent their electorate who want an end to Israel massacring children and other Gazans.

“I’m not happy to be told … I’m personally responsible for the boiling of the planet.” Thornberry doesn’t want to be held to account for any of her actions or inactions. It’s certainly aiding and abetting again. Doing nothing to oppose it? Then complicity.

Continue ReadingJust Stop Oil confronts Emily Thornberry && Keir Starmer and UK ‘Likud’ Labour party accused of aiding and abetting genocide

Industry Elites Applaud Saudi Aramco CEO for Calling Oil Phaseout a ‘Fantasy’

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Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser speaks during the CERAWeek oil summit in Houston, Texas on March 18, 2024.  (Photo: Mark Felix/AFP via Getty Images)

“The fossil fuel industry has always pursued a strategy of delay when it comes to the climate crisis,” said one campaigner. “First, it was focused on casting doubt on the science. Now, it’s all about casting doubt on the solutions.”

The CEO of the world’s largest oil company said Monday that calls to phase out fossil fuels are a “fantasy” that policymakers should abandon, a remark that drew applause from energy elites gathered in Houston, Texas for a major industry conference.

“We should abandon the fantasy of phasing out oil and gas and instead invest in them adequately reflecting realistic demand assumptions,” Saudi Aramco chief executive Amin Nasser told CERAWeek attendees, dismissing the International Energy Agency’s projection that global fossil fuel demand will peak by 2030.

“Peak oil and gas is unlikely for some time to come, let alone 2030,” Nasser said, suggesting oil consumption could continue growing through 2045. That scenario would serve the interests of Saudi Aramco, which in 2022 posted the largest-ever annual profit for a fossil fuel company.

Power Shift Africa, a climate think tank, called Nasser’s comments “outrageous.”

Jamie Henn, director of Fossil Free Media, noted that “the fossil fuel industry has always pursued a strategy of delay when it comes to the climate crisis.”

“First, it was focused on casting doubt on the science,” he observed. “Now, it’s all about casting doubt on the solutions.”

“It’s clear that not only are they not committed to reducing emissions, they’ve actually come to CERAWeek to continue promoting fossil fuel production and extraction and delaying the transition to a just, clean energy future.”

Climate scientists say that a rapid, global transition away from fossil fuel production and toward renewable energy is necessary to avert the worst of the planetary emergency, which is driving increasingly destructive and deadly extreme weather events, sea-level rise, ocean warming, and other alarming phenomena.

But Nasser claimed technologies such as carbon capture—which has repeatedly proven to be ineffective and even harmful—are better at lowering emissions than “alternative energies,” Reutersreported. Nasser specifically criticized wind, solar, and electric vehicles and said that “we should phase in new energy sources and technologies when they are genuinely ready, economically competitive, and with the right infrastructure.”

Just one day after Nasser’s remarks, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) released a report showing that “renewable energy generation, primarily driven by the dynamic forces of solar radiation, wind, and the water cycle, has surged to the forefront of climate action for its potential to achieve decarbonization targets.”

The WMO said Tuesday that renewable energy capacity increased nearly 50% last year compared to 2022.

But the continued production and burning of fossil fuels is wreaking global havoc, the WMO found, pushing planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions and temperatures to all-time highs.

In the face of such alarming findings, the major oil and gas industry players have rolled back their own weak emissions commitments and—in the case of ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods—blamed the public for fueling the climate crisis.

“For years we’ve demanded action, not empty words, from Big Oil,” Josh Eisenfeld, campaign manager of corporate accountability, said in a statement before the Houston conference kicked off on Monday. “If you look at their actions, it’s clear that not only are they not committed to reducing emissions, they’ve actually come to CERAWeek to continue promoting fossil fuel production and extraction and delaying the transition to a just, clean energy future.”

Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

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Continue ReadingIndustry Elites Applaud Saudi Aramco CEO for Calling Oil Phaseout a ‘Fantasy’

Climate change is speeding up in Antarctica

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Mongkolchon Akesin / Shutterstock

Sergi González Herrero, Universitat de Barcelona

In recent years, Antarctica has experienced a series of unprecedented heatwaves. On 6 February 2020, temperatures of 18.3C were recorded, the highest ever seen on the continent, beating the previous record of 17.5C which had only been set a few years earlier.

Around February 2022, another strong heatwave in Antarctica led to record-breaking surface ice melt. In March of the same year, East Antarctica saw its strongest ever heatwave, with temperatures soaring to 30C or 40C higher than the average in some areas.

Over the last year, we have seen the lowest levels of Antarctic sea ice coverage since records began.

Record-breaking temperatures during the heatwave on 6 February 2020.
González-Herrero et al. (2022)

Events in recent years have bordered on the unbelievable, and it is difficult not to link them to climate change. In fact, studies have already emerged that clearly attribute some of these heatwaves to global warming: one of our investigations strongly suggests that without the influence of climate change, 2020’s record-breaking temperatures would not have occurred.

Antarctica’s changing climate

In 2009, a study quantified the speed of ecosystem migration due to climate change on a global scale, and documented, essentially, the speed at which certain species have to move to ensure their survival. It concluded that biomes were moving at a speed between 0.8 and 12.6km per decade, with an average speed of 4.2km per decade.

In our more recent study, published in February 2024, we adapted this measurement of speed and applied it to the edges of Antarctica. To do this, we tracked the southward migration of the zero-degree isotherm.

The zero-degree isotherm is an imaginary line that encloses the areas that are at zero degrees or lower. Its southward movement means that the area with temperatures below zero Celsius in Antarctica is getting smaller and smaller. Given that water freezes at zero degrees, this movement will have serious consequences for ecosystems and for the cryosphere (areas of the Earth where water is frozen).

Our calculations show that the zero-degree isotherm has moved at a speed of 15.8km per decade since 1957 in the area surrounding the Antarctic, while on the Antarctic peninsula itself it has moved at 23.9km per decade. As a result, it now sits over 100km south of where it was in the mid 20th century.

These measurements show that the speed of climate change on the edge of Antarctica is four times faster than the average of other ecosystems.

Evolution of the annual and seasonal position of the zero-degree isotherm in Antarctica between 1957 and 2020. The initials indicate the seasons for each measurement. MAM: autumn, JJA: winter, SON: spring, DJF: summer.
González-Herrero et al. (2024)

The effects of emissions

To predict the consequences of the southward migration of the zero-degree isotherm, we ran our data through twenty different climate models. Although there is some variation in the shift of the isotherm among the models, all agree that it will move significantly further southward over the next few decades.

The models also predict that, over the coming decades, the isotherm’s movement will accelerate regardless of emissions. However, the extent of its southward movement in the second half of the 21st century will depend on how much carbon we emit.

If we continue at our current rate of emissions, the zero-degree isotherm will continue to advance at a similar rate before slowing down during the second half of the 21st century. However, if emissions are higher, the isotherm’s migration will accelerate continuing its southward movement until the end of the century.

Change in the summertime position of the zero-degree isotherm over the course of the 21st century. Based on IPCC climate scenario SSP5-8.5, whereby current emission levels are approximately doubled by 2050.
Adapted by González-Herrero et al. (2024)

Impacts on the cryoshpere and ecosystems

The zero-degree isotherm’s southward movement will not remain solely in the atmosphere, it will also affect the cryosphere (all of the frozen areas of Antarctica) and the biosphere (the species that live there).

Changes in the isotherm’s position will mean more liquid rain instead of snow in the outermost regions of the continent, though it may in fact cause increased snowfall in other areas.

Reduced snowfall on the frozen sea – which acts as insulation – may lead to accelerated loss of sea ice during summer thaw periods.

Although the effects on permafrost, ice shelves and continental ice are still uncertain, it will undoubtedly affect the peripheral glaciers of the Antarctic Peninsula. These constitute one of the largest potential sources of sea level rise in the coming decades.

Changes in the cryosphere will also lead to changes in ecosystems. New areas will become habitable thanks to thawing ice, but with more areas above zero degrees, invasive species from warmer, more hospitable continents may be able to settle, and they will compete with native species for resources.The Conversation

Sergi González Herrero, Científico atmosférico, Universitat de Barcelona

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Continue ReadingClimate change is speeding up in Antarctica