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‘Call to Action’: CO2 Now at Levels Not Seen in 14 Million Years

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

An image shows the edge of the Greenland ice sheet, where recent melting has left bare ground.  (Photo: Kevin Krajick/Columbia University)

“It really brings it home to us that what we are doing is very, very unusual in Earth’s history,” the lead author of a new study said.

The last time that levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide were as high as they are today, Greenland was free of ice and the savanna and grassland ecosystems where humans evolved didn’t exist yet.

That’s the conclusion of a study published in Science Friday, which researchers say compiles “the most reliable data available to date” on atmospheric carbon dioxide levels over the last 66 million years.

“It really brings it home to us that what we are doing is very, very unusual in Earth’s history,” lead author Baerbel Hoenisch of the Columbia Climate School’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory toldAgence France-Presse.

“We’ve already pushed the atmosphere way beyond anything we’ve seen as a species.”

By burning fossil fuels and clearing natural carbon sinks like forests, industrial capitalism has raised global carbon dioxide levels to 419 parts per million (ppm) today from around 280 ppm at the beginning of the industrial revolution.

“Rising atmospheric CO2 is the most obvious and startling expressions of our impact on the global environment,” study corresponding author and University of Utah geologist Gabe Bowen wrote on social media. “The concentration has risen by ~50% in the past 100 years. Every year is now marked by the highest CO2 levels *ever observed* by humans!”

To understand how such a spike in carbon dioxide might impact Earth’s climate and ecosystems, it’s helpful to look at the pa st. This presents challenges, however, because the most reliable record of past carbon dioxide concentrations—gas bubbles preserved in ice cores—only goes back to around 800,000 years ago, when atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide were still at around preindustrial levels.

“Once you lose the ice cores, you lose direct evidence. You no longer have samples of atmospheric gas that you can analyze,” Bowen said in a University of Utah press release. “So you have to rely on indirect evidence, what we call proxies. And those proxies are tough to work with because they are indirect.”

Proxies are evidence in the geologic record that can stand in for carbon dioxide levels, such as mineral isotopes or the shape of fossilized leaves. Scientists have looked at these proxies before, but the current study represents the most comprehensive effort to date. A team of around 90 researchers from 16 countries spent seven years synthesizing and reviewing previous work under the banner of the Cenozoic CO2 Proxy Integration Project, according to the University of Utah and AFP.

The new study represents the scientific consensus on the carbon dioxide record, and it concludes that the last time carbon dioxide levels were around 419 ppm was 14 million years ago. That’s much earlier than previous estimates of 3 to 5 million years ago.

However, the record goes back further than that to the Cenozoic Era, when the dinosaurs died and mammals began to emerge.

That record revealed a very clear pattern, Bowen tweeted: “CO2 goes up, the world warms. CO2 down, and things get icy.”

The record enabled the scientists to predict the consequences of current and projected carbon dioxide levels.

“This is an incredibly important synthesis and has implications for future climate change as well, particularly the key processes and components of the Earth system that we need to understand to project the speed and magnitude of climate change,” University of Utah biology professor William Anderegg said in the press release.

One of the report’s messages, Bowen tweeted is that “the future is now.”

“We’ve already pushed the atmosphere way beyond anything we’ve seen as a species,” Bowen continued, “and if it stays this way we’re in for big changes in the environment we live in.”

If policy-makers don’t restrict the burning of fossil fuels, atmospheric carbon dioxide could reach 600 to 800 ppm by 2100, AFP reported. According to the record, the last time levels were this high was 30 to 40 million years ago, when Antarctica was also ice-free and the Earth was home to giant insects.

Even today’s concentrations are bound to have lasting consequences. For example, when carbon dioxide levels rapidly increased around 56 million years ago, it significantly altered ecosystems and took around 150,000 years to decrease again.

“We are in this for a very long time,” Hoenisch told AFP, “unless we sequester carbon dioxide, take it out of the atmosphere, and we stop our emissions sometime soon.”

However, the that doesn’t mean the most extreme changes are locked-in. Instead, Bowen tweeted that the report was a “call to action.”

“The geological changes we studied lasted for thousands and millions of years,” Bowen said, “and if human-induced CO2 change is short-lived it won’t have as big an impact on the climate.”

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

Continue Reading‘Call to Action’: CO2 Now at Levels Not Seen in 14 Million Years

LeftFootForward

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Some recent stories from the excellent Left Foot Forward blog

UK workers ramp up pressure on Big Tech to end Israeli military contract

Tech workers launch UK campaign and mass call to action against company complicity with Israeli government

Tech workers in the UK have ramped up a campaign calling on Google and Amazon to terminate an AI contract with the Israeli government arguing it constitutes a breach of the companies core values.  

Project Nimbus is a $1.2 billion contract signed by Google and Amazon to provide cloud technology to the Israeli government and military. Workers have been campaigning against it since the contract was initially signed in 2021.

Opposition has ramped up since the latest Israeli military attacks on Gaza, following the Hamas attacks and kidnaps on October 7 when 1,200 people were killed, and now with more than 15,000 Palestinians, including 6,000 children, killed by Israeli bombing.

One Google employee said: “The images we see over and over again are of hi-tech military bombardment directed at a civilian population.

“Tech workers built Israel’s capacity for this and it’s our responsibility to get tech companies to stop doing business with Israel as long as it commits war crimes and genocide.”

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Young audience members perfectly sum up attitudes towards government’s immigration policies on Question Time  

‘We should welcome these people.’

Following Sunak’s desperate defence of his latest plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda during an emergency press conference, debate on this week’s Question Time was focused on the beleagured deportation deal.

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During the heated discussion on the Rwanda policy and immigration, a young man in the audience managed to sum up in a sentence how many people feel about the way Britain should treat people coming to the UK to flee persecution.

He said: “I would like to ask a Conservative member of the Cabinet. Rather than blame these poor people that are coming over being exploited and threatened with deportation to what has been ruled as an unsafe country, why can’t we rather open up more legal safe routes and options for these people to flee persecution or any trouble they’re going through, to come to a safe country like the United Kingdom, we should welcome these people.”

The comment was met by an enthusiastic applause from the audience.

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A young woman in the audience then asked the panel: “Previously you mentioned British values. How do you think that the Rwanda scheme complies with the tolerance that Britain is supposed to stand for?”

Later in the programme, another young member of the audience received applause when he stated: “Illegal migration makes up 5 percent of the total migration to the country, I think Rwanda is just used as a distraction from your failings.”

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Cost of Rwanda scheme spirals to £290m despite no deportation flights taking off

‘The Tories’ have wasted an astronomical £290 million of taxpayers’ money on a failing scheme which hasn’t sent a single asylum seeker to Rwanda.’

The cost of the government’s Rwanda deportation scheme, which has been ruled unlawful by the Supreme Court, has more than doubled to £290 million, despite the fact that not a single deportation flight has taken off.

The latest costs of the scheme were revealed overnight, with the prime minister signing off on a £100m payment to the east African nation this year, on top of the £140m already spent on the policy.

The Home Office has pencilled in another £50m payment next year as the plan hangs in the balance.

Labour has condemned the waste of taxpayers’ money, with Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper saying: “This is just incredible. The Tories’ have wasted an astronomical £290 million of taxpayers’ money on a failing scheme which hasn’t sent a single asylum seeker to Rwanda.

“How many more blank cheques will Rishi Sunak write before the Tories come clean about this scheme being a total farce?”

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John McDonnell MP: ‘Rwanda deportation scheme is an appalling act of inhumanity’

Figures show that the cost of the scheme has spiralled to £290 million, despite the fact that not a single flight has taken off to the east African country.

Labour MP John McDonnell has slammed the Rwanda deportation scheme as an ‘appalling act of inhumanity’, as the government made clear its intention to push ahead with the policy despite the Supreme Court ruling that it was unlawful.

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McDonnell has called the bill the ‘most bizarre & brutal legislation we have seen in years’, adding: “Bizarre by arguing that making a law that says Rwanda is safe can change the reality of all the evidence pointing to the opposite. Brutal by forcing refugees into more insecurity & potential danger.”

He told LFF today that the deportation scheme was ‘an appalling act of inhumanity.’

He said: “The massive cost of the Rwanda scheme demonstrates how much the Tories are willing to spend on brutalising people who have already endured such hardship and human suffering in their flight to secure safety and security. It’s an appalling act of inhumanity.”

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Yet more bus services will be coming back into public ownership

A recent poll for LFF found that 67% of the public want to see buses in public ownership.

After the failures of privatisation, yet more bus services are expected to be brought back under public control.

The Mirror reports that ‘moves are afoot for local authorities to regain powers for setting fares and routes. Areas seeking change include West Yorkshire, where a consultation ends a month today with a decision due in March.’

A recent poll for LFF found that 67% of the public want to see buses in public ownership.

Greater Manchester was the first English region to take back ownership of its bus services. The Mayor Greater Manchester praised the move earlier this year. He said: “For nearly 40 years we have seen worsening services and plummeting passenger numbers on our buses.

“We’ve had to reckon with a deregulated bus network that cuts vital services that connect communities to jobs, hospitals and opportunities on a whim – leaving local leaders with limited budgets to pick up the tab to keep these routes alive.

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Shocking chart shames Britain on child poverty record

The report compiled by UNICEF compared relative income poverty rates, which means the proportion of people who fall below a threshold relative to the income of the average person in the population.

A shocking chart produced by UNICEF shows the UK’s appalling record on child poverty, with the country having the worst rise in child poverty between 2012 and 2019 out of 39 of the world’s richest countries.

The UK has seen a 20% increase in child poverty since 2014 – the steepest rise among the 39 wealthiest OECD & EU nations. With the UK at the bottom of the table, Iceland was next worst with a significantly lower rise of 11%, while France had a 10.4% rise.

Other countries meanwhile had cut their child poverty rates, with Poland topping the table after cutting its child poverty rate by 37.6%, with Slovenia achieving a 31.4% reduction.

The report compiled by UNICEF compared relative income poverty rates, which means the proportion of people who fall below a threshold relative to the income of the average person in the population.

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Canada May Soon Give a $15.3B ‘Carbon Bomb’ Subsidy to Big Oil, Experts Say

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Original article by Geoff Dembicki republished from DeSmog

Business leader says government tax credit for oil and gas ‘extends the life of Canada’s largest industrial sector.’

The government of Alberta, home to the tar sands pictured here, has announced taxpayer funding in the range of $3.5 billion to $5.3 billion for CCS projects. Credit: (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

As world leaders meet in Dubai for the COP28 climate negotiations, federal and provincial governments in Canada are preparing to give an estimated $15.3 billion in new subsidies to oil and gas companies, and other heavy emitters, for expanding the production of fossil fuels, according to climate experts. 

Those subsidies are taking the form of massive new tax credits for carbon capture and storage (CCS), which is a technology that companies use to grow their extraction of oil and gas while burying a fraction of their greenhouse gas emissions underground. 

“I completely agree that Canada’s tax credit for carbon capture and storage is a subsidy to the oil and gas industry,” Jason MacLean, an adjunct professor who studies climate policy at the University of Saskatchewan, told DeSmog in an email. 

The federal Canadian government is close to announcing details on a tax credit that will go to top oil and gas companies like Suncor, Cenovus, and Imperial Oil, along with other major industrial polluters. Policymakers previously estimated the value of these investment tax credits to be $10 billion. The government of Alberta, home to the tar sands, has meanwhile announced taxpayer funding in the range of $3.5 billion to $5.3 billion for CCS projects.

The Pathways Alliance, an industry lobbying and marketing group representing 95 percent of tar sands production, says these tax credits are essential for oil and gas producers to lower their emissions in line with achieving “net-zero emissions” by 2050. Reaching “net-zero” entails stabilizing global temperature rise at 1.5 degrees Celsius, a level beyond which scientists warn the impacts to humankind could be catastrophic. 

Yet, in submissions to the federal government, the Pathways Alliance explained that lowering a portion of oil sands emissions via carbon capture will create opportunities for the industry to expand globally — even as other countries move away from fossil fuels. “We believe Canada should seek to increase its market share for responsibly produced, lower emissions energy, even if global market demand, as a whole, begins to decline,” the group said in one submission. 

“We need to keep in mind that this is about reducing emissions and not reducing production,” the organization said last year in a separate submission, as revealed by DeSmog. 

Representatives of the Pathways Alliance are among the 35 people with ties to the fossil fuel sector who are part of Canada’s official delegation to COP28 this year. At the climate talks, they are pushing for policies supporting global deployment of carbon capture, which will allow companies to keep producing oil as countries get stricter about regulating emissions.   

“It is really important for the energy industry in Canada because it extends the life of Canada’s largest industrial sector and maintains our competitiveness over the long term,” Scott Crockatt of the Business Council of Alberta told the Calgary Herald last month.

However, tax credits supporting carbon capture risk accelerating already dangerous levels of global temperature rise, MacLean argues. Even if the technology can fully capture emissions from the production of oil and gas in Canada — which is an expensive and uncertain proposition — the vast majority of climate impacts occur when fossil fuels are burned in places like car and truck engines and house furnaces. 

“No possible innovation or improvement to [carbon capture technology] can change the fact that it applies only to the direct and upstream greenhouse gas emissions arising from the production of oil and gas, not the downstream emissions resulting from the combustion of oil and gas, which represent approximately 85 percent of the total emissions,” MacLean told DeSmog.  

Allowing oil and gas to expand while relying on carbon capture could result in the release of 86 billion additional tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide between 2020 and 2050, according to a new analysis from the organization Climate Analytics. This “86 billion tonne carbon bomb” could derail efforts to keep global warming from exceeding dangerous thresholds, the group argues. 

The Canadian government earlier this year unveiled detailed plans to remove “inefficient” oil and gas subsidies, with Environment and Climate Minister Steven Guilbeault saying at the time that “the simple reality is that it’s no longer free to pollute in Canada.” 

But climate campaigners say that promise risks being completely undermined by the new carbon capture tax credits. 

Original article by Geoff Dembicki republished from DeSmog

Continue ReadingCanada May Soon Give a $15.3B ‘Carbon Bomb’ Subsidy to Big Oil, Experts Say

More than 1,000 trade unionists block four Israeli weapons factories

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https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/more-1000-trade-unionists-block-four-israeli-weapons-factories

Activists blockade Eaton Mission Systems in Bournemouth Photo:  Workers for a Free Palestine

FOUR arms factories producing parts for Israeli fighter jets were shut down in protests by more than 1,000 trade unionists today.

Campaigners calling for an end to Britain’s complicity in war crimes being committed in Gaza blockaded sites at Bournemouth, Glasgow, Brighton and Lancashire.

The demonstrations were organised by campaign group Workers for a Free Palestine in co-ordination with workers in France, Denmark and the Netherlands, involving members from trade unions including Unite, Unison, GMB, the NEU, the BMA, UCU, Bectu and BFAWU.

The campaign group said they targeted sites run by defence giant BAE Systems which produces parts for the F-35 stealth combat jet currently being used by Israel to bombard Gaza.

More than 600 blockaded Eaton Mission Systems in Bournemouth alone.

A spokeswoman for Workers for a Free Palestine said: “The fighter jets these factories help to produce are being used to imprison the people of Gaza in a death trap.

“Workers all over Britain are rising up for Palestine, saying we will not allow arms used in a genocide to be supplied in our name and funded by our taxes.

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https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/more-1000-trade-unionists-block-four-israeli-weapons-factories

Craig Murray discusses the positive legal obligation to prevent genocide.

Every single state in the world has a positive duty to intervene to prevent the Genocide in Gaza now, not after a court has reached a determination of genocide. This is made crystal clear in para 431 of the International Court of Justice judgment in Bosnia vs Serbia:

This obviously does not mean that the obligation to prevent genocide only comes into being when perpetration of genocide commences ; that would be absurd, since the whole point of the obligation is to prevent, or attempt to prevent, the occurrence of the act. In fact, a State’s obligation to prevent, and the corresponding duty to act, arise at the instant that the State learns of, or should normally have learned of, the existence of a serious risk that genocide will be committed. From that moment onwards, if the State has available to it means likely to have a deterrent effect on those suspected of preparing genocide, or reasonably suspected of harbouring specific intent (dolus specialis), it is under a duty to make such use of these means as the circumstances permit.

This case was specifically on the application of the Genocide Convention. That the ICJ has ruled there is a positive duty on states to act to prevent genocide makes it even more astonishing to me that no state has invoked the Genocide Convention over the blatant genocide being committed by Israel in Gaza.

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Continue ReadingMore than 1,000 trade unionists block four Israeli weapons factories