OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS, #90, AUGUST 29, 2022

John Bellamy Foster.  “Be moderate…we only want THE EARTH!”

Mronline.org (7-22-22).

. . .In terms of the scientific consensus on climate change, the reports of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are most important. The planetary emergency is not, however, confined to climate change, and also encompasses the entire set of planetary boundaries that are now being crossed [CONVERGENCE], demarcating the earth as a safe home for humanity. Most of my comments here, though, will center on climate change.

In terms of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report,published over the course of 2021-2022, it is no longer possible for the world entirely to avoid crossing the 1.5° C increase in global average temperature. . . . We therefore have a very small window in which to act. Basically, meeting this scenario means peaking global carbon emissions by 2030 and reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050. All of this was outlined in the first part of AR6 on the Physical Science Basis published in August 2021. This was followed by the publication of the IPCC’s Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability report in February 2022, and its Mitigation report in April 2022. . . .

[Foster’s caution]Each IPCC assessment report (AR1-AR6) has three parts, each of which is published separately and is introduced by a “Summary for Policymakers,” followed by a series of chapters. In the IPCC process scientists, reflecting the scientific consensus, write the whole draft report. But the “Summary for Policymakers” for each published part—the only section of the overall report that is widely read, covered by the press, and constitutes the basis for governmental policies—is rewritten line by line by governments. Hence the published “Summary for Policymakers” is not the actual scientific consensus document, but rather the governmental consensus document that displaces the former.   Especially with respect to issues of mitigation, related to social policy, governments can obliterate the entirety of what the scientists determined.

Capitalist world governments were particularly worried about, part 3 of AR6 on Mitigation, as drafted by scientists as of August 2021, since it was by far the most radical IPCC treatment of the mitigation issue, reflecting the fact that revolutionary-scale transformations of production, consumption, and energy use (both in terms of physical and temporal scales) were now needed if the 1.5°C pathway was to be reached—or even in order to keep the increase in global average temperature well below 2°C. This is considered the guardrail for avoiding irreversible out-of-control climate change, which, if crossed, would likely lead to a global average temperature of 4.4°C (best estimate) by the end of the century, leading to the collapse of global industrial civilization. Chapter I of the AR6 Mitigation report went so far as to question whether capitalism was sustainable.  MORE

https://mronline.org/2022/07/21/be-moderatewe-only-want-the-earth/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=be-moderatewe-only-want-the-earth&mc_cid=7e1c803ae7&mc_eid=ab2f7bf95e

Must act on cli­mate.”

On July 28 something incred­ible happened. Sen. Joe Manchin and Major­ity Leader Chuck Schu­mer nego­ti­ated a recon­cili­ation bill called the Infla­tion Reduc­tion Act of 2022, which includes a path to reduce green­house gas emis­sions 40 per­cent by 2030. This is an enorm­ous step toward ensur­ing our chil­dren have a liv­able future. Rev. Clint Schnekloth, the lead pas­tor at Good Shep­herd Lutheran in Fay­etteville, poin­ted out in a recent let­ter to the editor that cli­mate change exacer­bates “vir­tu­ally all other social injustices.”

The cli­mate crisis threatens lives through the increased sever­ity and fre­quency of dis­asters, but cli­mate change also com­prom­ises our abil­ity to grow enough food. The Food and Agri­cul­ture Organ­iz­a­tion report “The State of Food Secur­ity and Nutri­tion in the World” of 2021 tells us the world is at a “crit­ical junc­ture.” The num­ber of under­nour­ished people has been rising sharply the last four years and the primary drivers are cli­mate change, con­flict and eco­nomic slow­downs. Arkan­sas farm­ers know that the inter­mit­tent drought and flood­ing, as pro­jec­ted in the National Cli­mate Assess­ment, is chal­len­ging our state’s food pro­duc­tion.

The Amer­ican Psy­cho­lo­gical Asso­ci­ation tells us that cli­mate change is lead­ing to anxi­ety. Cli­mate anxi­ety and eco-grief are nor­mal responses, but cli­mate change and related dis­asters can also con­trib­ute to men­tal health dis­orders like post-trau­matic stress dis­order. The Next Gen Cli­mate Sur­vey of 2021 sur­veyed 1,200 youth age 14-24 across the U.S. and found that 75 per­cent indic­ated cli­mate change neg­at­ively impacts their men­tal health.

See­ing our gov­ern­ment’s inad­equate response to the crisis has con­trib­uted to our anxi­ety, but the Infla­tion Reduc­tion Act of 2022 gives me hope that we can pro­tect our liv­able world. If you have friends and fam­ily who live in blue states or dis­tricts, please encour­age them to call and/or email their sen­at­ors(s) and/or rep­res­ent­at­ive in sup­port of this act. They can even use this handy tool: cit­izenscli­mate­lobby.org/get-loud-take-action.   Arkansas Democrat-Gazette  5 Aug 2022.