“You all come to us young people for hope. How dare you? You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words, and yet, I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing.”
“We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you?”
“You say you hear us and that you understand the urgency. But no matter how sad and angry I am, I do not want to believe that.
“Because if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil, and that I refuse to believe.”
“Our house is on fire. We will do everything in our power to stop this crisis from getting worse.”
“You are failing us. But young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you, and if you choose to fail us, I say, we will never forgive you. We will not let you get away with this.”
“Adults keep saying we owe it to the young people to give them hope. But I don’t want your hope. I want you to panic”
The reaction? Fox TV guest Michael Knowles called her mentally ill.
.
Fox apologized.
***
University of Alabama Ass. Prof. Jeff Lozier says bees in the southern portions of their American geographic range are moving northward to escape the rising heat from climate change.
Lozier says in the university’s Crimson Tide magazine says that conversely, the bees in the northern portions are staying where they are because the temperatures are too cold further north.
“Rather than dying off, the bees are contracting,” Lozier says. “They are simply converging on those areas where the minimum and maximum temperatures are livable for them.
“If the cold temperatures don’t shift as quickly as the warm side of the temperatures, bees may find themselves up against the wall,” Lozier says.
Senior Trey Sullivan says a problem is that plants not beneficial to bee populations are being imported, and these imports are replacing bees’ food sources.
The article says the fear is that, while bees may not be decimated by global warming, those that are not forced to migrate due to climate change will be driven away or killed by a lack of food.
***
The $141-million maple syrup season in eastern North America may be one month earlier by the end of the century than it was between 1950 and 2017 because of global warming, a new study finds.
The study examined six sugar maple stands from Virginia to Québec, Canada, over six-years.
“As the climate gets warmer, the sugar maple tapping season will shrink and will get closer to a December date,” says co-author David Lutz, a research assistant professor of environmental studies at Dartmouth University.
“Maple syrup producers may want to consider adapting their technologies and collection logistics in advance, so that they are prepared for how climate change is going to affect production.”
The modeling shows that by 2100, Virginia and Indiana will barely be able to produce sap while production in Québec will be considerably enhanced.
New Hampshire and Vermont are likely to be the least affected but experience decreases in production. Most of the areas containing sugar maples in the U.S. are projected to see decreases in production while areas in northern Ontario and Québec may see moderate to large increases.
The concentration of sap sugar is likely to become lower and more variable – 28% – 36% lower across the modeled sites.
***
An international team of scientists is looking back three million years to see what Earth can expect from today’s global warming.
They found that at a time when the Earth was then 3.5° F to 5.25° F warmer than the pre-industrial era, the sea level was as much as 52.5 ft. higher than now.
This has significant implications for understanding and predicting the pace of current-day sea level rise.
The University of New Mexico, the University of South Florida (USF), Universitat de les Illes Balears and Columbia University, analyzed deposits from Artà Cave on the island of Mallorca in the western Mediterranean Sea.
“We can use knowledge gained from past warm periods to tune ice sheet models that are then used to predict future ice sheet response to current global warming,” said USF Department of Geosciences Prof. Bogdan Onac.
One key interval of particular interest during the Pliocene is the mid Piacenzian Warm Period – 3.264 million to 3.025 million years ago – when temperatures were 3.5° F to 5.25° F higher than pre-industrial levels.
“The interval also marks the last time the Earth’s atmospheric CO2 was as high as today, providing important clues about what the future holds in the face of current anthropogenic warming,” Onac says.
***
Improving environmental sustainability of modern-day agricultural production systems, especially in relation to climate change, is the focus of new Irish research.
VistaMilk SFI Research Center director Donagh Berry says Ireland has equipment to measure methane emissions on sheep, cattle and dairy cows.
“The equipment can be used to evaluate breeding and management strategies to reduce animal-level methane emissions,” he says.
Agriculture and Food Development Authority researcher Donal O’Brien says there has been a 14% reduction in CO2 equivalents produced by the Irish dairy cow since the turn of the century.
Up to 600 cattle will be measured annually for methane production to develop national genetic evaluations for this new trait.
***
Rising temperatures are reducing American milk production.
U.S. Department of Agriculture research finds not only that cows produce less milk, but the milk produced is lower in fat, solids, lactose, and protein content.
Decreased production may lead to increased grocery prices, hitting low-income individuals and communities hardest.
***
Global warming is increasing the chances of a disease pandemic and the planet is dangerously under-prepared, a World Health Organization report warns.
A panel of international health experts and officials pointed to the 1918 influenza pandemic as an example of a global catastrophe that killed as many as 50 million people.
They say if a similar contagion happened today, it could kill up to 80 million people and wipe out 5% of the global economy.
The report says global warming means mosquito-borne diseases such as Zika and dengue could spread to Europe, the U.S., and Canada – placing a billion more people at risk.
***
Europe’s two big farming unions, Copa and Cogeca, want action that will allow European Union farmers and coops to remain front runners in the fight against climate change.
Copa-Cogeca Secretary General Pekka Pesonen says farmers, forest owners and their coops are the first to feel the impact of climate change.
“There are no climate change deniers in the European farming community,” he says. “To deliver our full potential we need consistent policies and general public support.”
Copa-Cogeca supports the idea of carbon credit schemes through the development of privately funded initiatives.
“A chapter on the application of climate measures must be included in all free trade agreements, the unions say.
***
Researchers travel long distances several times a year to share their latest findings at conferences.
But Sebastian Jäckle from the Department of Political Science at Germany’s University of Freiburg is asking why not do it in another more environmentally friendly way.
He examined the travel-related CO2 emissions of the last six conferences from the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) and found they ranges from 0.5 to 1.5 tons of CO2 equivalents per three-day meeting.
Jäckle says by choosing central venues with good rail service and by connecting participants by video, up to 85% of those emissions could be saved.
He set a good example – traveling by bicycle from Freiburg to the ECPR conference 195 miles away in Wroclaw, Poland.
Edited By: Alan Harman
