OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS, #173,
APRIL 8, 2024. Compiled by Dick Bennett.
Borenstein and The New Republic: Heat
Peter Uetz. Overpopulation
SETH BORENSTEIN. “Greenhouse
gases shot up in ’23.” Arkansas
Democrat-Gazette (Apr 07, 2024). Go
to:
Greenhouse gases shot up in ’23.
The New Republic.
A weekly reckoning with our overheating planet.
T
Scientists have previously speculated that melting ice sheets dumping
vast quantities of freshwater into the ocean could change the currents of the
Atlantic Ocean. The new modeling suggested, though, that complete collapse
of the Atlantic Ocean’s current system is no longer "theoretical" and
could occur much faster and more completely than anticipated. Europe
would abruptly get much colder, seasons could fully flip in the Amazon
rainforest, and many other places could see big changes in weather patterns.
Can our food systems survive this kind of
shock? . . . .When I asked experts about how U.S. food supply might be affected
by weather shifts like the one outlined in the new paper, their responses
weren’t reassuring. In essence: Both domestic and international food systems
are quite vulnerable. But figuring out how vulnerable is hard. Not only is the
United States failing to make its food system more resilient, it’s not even
gathering enough data to know how to make the food system more resilient. . . .
Even without better data, though, it’s possible to identify specific
vulnerabilities in the U.S. food system and changes that should probably be
made. The high efficiency of the current food system has often come at the cost
of redundancy—meaning backup plans."We need to have more diverse
places where food is coming from; we need multiple routes, roads, where it’s
coming from, multiple storage facilities. . . . Then there
are things that can be done quickly, and locally. Communities that "had
been doing some of this work before the pandemic hit were better able to adapt"
to the 2020 disruptions, Neff said. And "one of the key things was having
people in the local food system connected to each other and knowing each other
and having those relationships in the first place so people knew who to call
and contact and help develop responses."
You’ll be reading more about food system resilience and agriculture
reform at TNR shortly. . . .
Peter Uetz. “Myths about Overpopulation.” Free Inquiry (April-May 2024).
Uetz analyzes eight myths to explain why overpopulation is a major
existential threat to the planet. Final paragraph: “Further population growth or even
stabilization at a high level will be catastrophic for the planet, especially
if human consumption and the destruction of nature keeps growing. We need to stop population growth and
consumption, so that civilization and nature have a chance to survive.” Uetz is a professor of systems biology at
Virginia Commonwealth Univ., in Richmond.
He adheres to “a strict
one-child policy, no car, no meat consumption, and 100 percent renewable energy
in his house.”