Welcome to the reference list for The Environmental Artist's Solution Simulator!
Here you can enrich you knowledge about climate change and what
you can do about it, based on the world's latest research and findings.
Categories:
- Predictions over time
- Temperature
- CO2 & Methane
- Extreme weather events
- Carbon Footprint
- Electricity
- Industry
- Plastic
- Building
- Agriculture
- Forest Cover
- Transportation
- Glaciers & Sea Level
- Biodiversity
- Population
- Misc
- Greenhouse Gas Emissions by Sector pie
Predictions over time
*WMO recent acceleration observations
https://public.wmo.int/en/media/press-release/global-climate-2015-2019-climate-change-accelerates
*Earth impacts in the last 50 years
www.petersalebooks.com/?p=1857
www.futuretimeline.net/subject/energy-environment.htm#extinctions
www.quantumrun.com/future-timeline/2100
*According to a new study, global warming upended 6500 years of cooling
https://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2020/06/major-new-paleoclimatology-study-shows.html?spref=fb&m=1&fbclid=IwAR3YJ2Wkdk_ir4Lcvejg8IY8QNk-lVzjb4h_2onponNa0Sky_MpPALVirn8
*New study says finds planet heading toward temperature threshold not seen in 34 millions years
*Earth hasn't warmed this fast in tens of millions of years
www.scientificamerican.com/article/earth-hasnt-warmed-this-fast-in-tens-of-millions-of-years/
www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8YomEOExkc Endgame 2050 Movie
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378016300681?fbclid=IwAR2JvE9WJbZdZ9dlnLKOJ4AKSyc3QZOYhMb_jOoueYuKdeMby3a3Vk1lpfk
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-012-1636-1?fbclid=IwAR2riWL_2RyWBwcNowFg1iDzTDLtUTmDXllbaotPpAq56aslUw6yekXfRL8
*Climate scientists response to Michael Shellenberger's controversial claims from June 28th 2020. Natural disasters are increasing steadily as well as mass extinction and other effects
https://climatefeedback.org/evaluation/article-by-michael-shellenberger-mixes-accurate-and-inaccurate-claims-in-support-of-a-misleading-and-overly-simplistic-argumentation-about-climate-change/
*New study suggests prediction of 85 deaths in every 100,000 people by 2100 [If the global population will be about 10 billion people, that would mean 8,5 million deaths a year. For comparison, the leading cause of death today is Ischaem heart disease with about 10 million deaths a year]
http://impactlab.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/CIL_NBER_MortalityPaper_3Aug2020.pdf
*If current consumption and production patterns continue, the planet will need 183 billion tonnes of material every year by 2050. Every year, 4.8 to 12.7 million tonnes of plastic are dumped into our oceans and over 40 million tonnes of electronic waste are generated.
https://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/25764/SDG12_Brief.pdf
*Global warming could cause microbres to release co2 from tropical soil in quantities equal to six times annual human emissions, by 2100
www.nytimes.com/2020/08/12/climate/tropical-soils-climate-change.html
*Global warming could cause lightnings to increase
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/346/6211/851
*Climate scientist Andrew Glikson: Given the abrupt change in state of the atmosphere-ocean-cryosphere-land system, the terms “climate change” and “global warming” no longer reflect the extreme scale and rate of these shifts.
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2020/09/the-unthinkable-consequences-of-global-warming.html?fbclid=IwAR03ktu6QDvkpuXqHxXVeoMRjGAqENREQwFDhtO6ySjPWOy-5eOANgSKDkU
*The various tipping points of the earth's climate could be interconnected
www.theguardian.com/science/2020/sep/19/the-tipping-points-at-the-heart-of-the-climate-crisis
*Nitrous oxide (N2O), a 300 times more porent GHG gas than carbon dioxide, which is responsible for roughly 6-7% of total GHG emissions, is currently being emitted at the worst-case-scenario rate, mostly from agricultural soil management (78% in the US), like the usage of fertilizers
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07102020/nitrous-oxide-fertilizer-emissions-nature-study
*United States Geological Survey has previously listed Arctic hydrate destabilization as one of four most serious scenarios for abrupt climate change - and now scientists find 'Sleeping giants' Arctic methane deposists starting to release (perliminary findings)
*New earth system model shows self-sustained melting of permafrost even if all man-made GHG emissions stip in 2020
www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-75481-z
*Thawing permafrost (which makes 24% of the Earth's land surface) is releasing microorganisms, with consequences that are still largely unknown (some microbres are entirely unfamiliar to scientists), as scientist warn that the poles are warming 4 times faster than the rest of the globe. In 2016 perfamrost thaw caused an anthrax outbreak killing 200,000 deers and a child.
www.scientificamerican.com/article/deep-frozen-arctic-microbes-are-waking-up
*Based on the CMIP6 (latest generation of climate models), 'Carbon Brief''s analysis shows that the world will likely exceed 1.5C degrees around 2031 if emissions are not rapidly reduced, and 2C degrees around 2043. In a scenario of modern mitigration, the 2C degrees threshold would be exceeded around 2052.
www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-when-might-the-world-exceed-1-5c-and-2c-of-global-warming
*Newly identified jet-stream pattern could imperial global food supplies: "They can cause 4% reduction in crop production in affected important region for global food production, with regional decrease up to 11%".
A "Food System Shock" report from 2015 by an insurance giant outlines a plausible extreme shock to global food production involving multiple droughts that could cause rioting, terrorist attacks, civil war, mass starvation and severe losses to the global economy - with odds of this occurring higher than 0.5% per year, or 18% that it'll happen in the next 40 years.
*Dr. Andrew Glikson says "net zero emissions by 2050" is not enough to slow down global warming, as it overlooks ongoing investments in fossil fuels and accelerated rise of temperarture from land and ocean feedback effects.
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2020/12/the-myth-of-net-zero-emissions-by-2050.html
*Temperartures could rise more than previously estimated, up to an 18 degrees rise, if taking into account seafloor methane release, cloud feedback, growing intensity of forest fires, loss of cooling of aerosols and Arctic feedback loops.
It's estimated that at a 3 degrees rise, humans could become extinct, and at a 5 degrees rise most life on earth will disappear, and if the trend continues [a 2019 analysis warns that] Earth could go the same way as Venus.
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2020/12/temperatures-keep-rising.html
*New study suggests previous estimations of pre-industrial revolutions temperartures did not take into account some changes in sea surface and ice, resulting in a bigger change in temperartures in comparison with today - 2.3 degrees warmer than then, instead of 1.4 as was previously accepted [January 20201]
www.ecowatch.com/greenhouse-gases-paris-agreement-2649767807.html
*New study suggests that sooner than expected, trees could become carbon sources rather than carbon sinks, as a feedback loop drives them to realse more GHG gases.
The study also claims that 50% of the terrestrial bioshpere (soil and vegetation) could reach temperatures that limit photosynthesis by mid-century, with the most carbon-rich ecosystems reaching the tipping point first (like the Amazon and South-East Asia)
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/13012021/forests-heat-climate-change/
*The planet is dying faster than we thought: A new study says that if current agriculture trend continues, as many as 1 million of Earth's 7 to 10 million planet and animal species could face extinction in the near future, distrupting every major ecosystem on the planet. Natural disasters are predicted to become stronger and more frequent, resulting in 1 billion climate refugees by 2050. Overpopulation will exacerbate numerous societal problems. Delay between cause and effect means that the worst outcome could decades to become apparent. We are currently past meeting the Paris Agreement goals, heading towards a 4.1 degrees temperarture rise - slightly more than halfway towards the UN's worst-case scenario.
www.livescience.com/ghastly-future-global-crises.html
*Future world soils lifespan predictions
https://ourworldindata.org/soil-lifespans
*Climate crisis hits 'worst case scenario' levels - Environment Agency warns
*The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC), a system of ocean currents, is possibly at its weakest in 1,000 years, and is possibly nearing a collapse that could spike an ice age
www.severe-weather.eu/global-weather/gulf-stream-collapse-amoc-weakening-usa-europe-fa/
*Country-based rate of emissions reductions should increase by 80% beyond nationally determined contributions to meet the 2 degrees target
www.nature.com/articles/s43247-021-00097-8
*Humans are not prepared for the extreme heat and other consequences of climate change
www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/climate-crisis-goodell-survive-extreme-heat-875198/
*17 Leading scientsts reviewed more than 150 studies to produce a stark summary of the state of the natural world, future trends and our chances for survival, hoping to provide a "realistic cold shower". "Without fully appreciating and broadcasting the scale of the problems and the enormity of the solutions required, society will fail to achieve even modest sustainability goals."
*Marine life is fleeing the equator to cooler waters. When the same thing happend 252 million years ago, 90% of all marine species died. Authors of the study suggested their results might foreshadow the effects of our current global warming, ominously warning there could be mass extinctions in the near future as species move into the subtropics, where they might struggle to compete and adopt.
*Global Emergency Institute: We are on track for the worst-case scenarios on all aspects of climate change [17, too many to list herre]
*The severe consequences of a 4 degrees (global average, above pre-industrial levels) temperarture rise
www.greenfacts.org/en/impacts-global-warming/l-2/1.htm
*Climate change risks pushing one-third of global food production outside the same climate space. Following the Paris Agreement would reduce this risk considerably (low emission scenario: 8% food crop, 5% livestock, high emission scenario: 31% food crop, 34% livestock) by 2081-2100.
www.cell.com/one-earth/fulltext/S2590-3322(21)00236-0
*Future environmental conditions will be far more dangerous than currently believed, according to 14 scientists, in an article entitled "Underestimating the Challanges of Avoiding a Ghastly Future".
www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcosc.2020.615419/full
*Britain, Ireland, Iceland, New Zealand and Tasmania are the most likely to survive a collapse of global civilisation, according to a study that says a worldwide breakdown could happen within a few decades.
*Chemical pollution poses a catastrophic risk to humanity, according to a group of scientists.
https://au.news.yahoo.com/scientists-warn-australia-catastrophic-risk-humanity-053429390.html
*An new risk analysis examined the interaction between Antarctica and Greenland's ice sheets and the Amazon Rainforest, found that Ice sheets and ocean currents at risk of climate tipping points can destabilise each other as the world heats up, leading to a domino effect with severe consequences for humanity.
The scientists carried out 3m computer simulations and found domino effects in a third of them, even when temperature rises were below 2C, the upper limit of the Paris agreement.
The ocean currents of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), of which the Gulf Stream is an important part and keeps western Europe mild, are at their weakest in more than a millennium.
*The nine boundaries humanity must respect to keep the planet habitable:
Climate change, biodiversity loss, ocean acidification, ozone depletion, atmospheric aerosol pollution, freshwater use, biochemical flows of nitrogen and phosphorus, land-system change, and release of novel chemicals.
"If we are to steer our planet away from a devastating new trajectory, phasing out fossil fuels to reach a net-zero greenhouse gas emissions world economy is a key priority.
But even more pressing, experts say, is a change to our food systems, as food production is the biggest driver of biodiversity loss, the primary cause of land-use change, one of the largest sources of nitrogen and phosphorus pollution, it generates huge freshwater demand, and as it generates big carbon emissions, it also adds to the ocean acidifaction. That covers six of the nine planetary boundaries."
*We have breached the planetary boundary for plastics and other chemical pollutions
www.ecowatch.com/plastic-pollution-chemicals-earth-health.html
*Draft UN report, by far the most comprehensive catalogue ever assembled of how climate change is upending our world: crushing climate impacts to hit sooner than feared.
Climate change will fundamentally reshape life on Earth in the coming decades, even if humans can tame planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions.
Species extinction, more widespread disease, unliveable heat, ecosystem collapse, cities menaced by rising seas—these and other devastating climate impacts are accelerating and bound to become painfully obvious before a child born today turns 30.
The choices societies make now will determine whether our species thrives or simply survives as the 21st century unfolds
"Life on Earth can recover from a drastic climate shift by evolving into new species and creating new ecosystems," it says.
"Humans cannot."
"We need transformational change operating on processes and behaviours at all levels: individual, communities, business, institutions and governments," it says.
"We must redefine our way of life and consumption."
https://phys.org/news/2021-06-climate-impacts-sooner.html
*Visual representation of our situation in numbers
https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/how-many-gigatons-of-co2/
*Near-term future predictions
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-hot-for-humans.html
*16 out of 31 tracked planetary vital signs, including greenhouse gas concentrations, ocean heat content and ice mass, set worrying new records, according to a new study.
“There is growing evidence we are getting close to or have already gone beyond tipping points associated with important parts of the Earth system”
“Policies to alleviate the climate crisis or any of the other threatened planetary boundary transgressions should not be focused on symptom relief but on addressing their root cause: the overexploitation of the Earth."
www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/27/global-heating-critical-measures-tipping-point-study
*The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) is already at its slowest point in at least 1,600 years, but a new analysis shows it may be nearing a shutdown. The complexity of the AMOC system nd uncertainty over levels of future global heating make it impossible to forecast the date of any collapse for now, but such an event would have catastrophic consequences around the world, severely disrupting the rains that billions of people depend on for food in India, South America and West Africa; increasing storms and lowering temperatures in Europe; and pushing up the sea level in t4he eastern North America. It would also further endanger the Amazon rainforest and Antarctic ice sheets.
*New report says there are 50%+ chances the world will reach the 1.5 degrees tipping point by 2030
*Leaked UN report says emissions must peak within 4 years [by 2025], coal and gas-powered plants must close in the next decade and lifestyle behavioral changes will be needed to avoid climate breakdown.
The report underlines the lifestyle changes that will be necessary, particularly in rich countries and among the wealthy globally. Refraining from over-heating or over-cooling homes, walking and cycling, cutting air travel and using energy-consuming appliances less can all contribute significantly to the reductions in emissions needed, the report finds.
Plant-based diets can reduce emissions by up to 50% compared to the average emission intensive western diet.
The publication that leaked the draft said it showed that the global economy must be shifted rapidly away from a reliance on conventional GDP growth, but that the report underplays this.
*UN sum of the IPCC's sixth assessment: Code red for humanity.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/08/1097362
*The rising likelihood of tipping points being reached beyond 1.5℃ of warming represents a potential, looming existential threat to human civilisation
https://theconversation.com/what-greenlands-record-breaking-rain-means-for-the-planet-166567
*-"If emissions follow the trajectory set by current NDCs, there is less than 1 per cent chance of reaching the 1.5°C target set by the 2015 Paris Agreement."
-If policy ambition, low-carbon technology deployment and investment follow current trends, 2.7°C of warming by the end of this century is likely, relative to pre-industrial temperatures. A plausible worst case of 3.5°C is possible (10 per cent chance). These projections assume Paris Agreement signatories meet their NDCs. If they fail to do so, the probability of extreme temperature increases is non-negligible.
-Any relapse or stasis in emissions reduction policies could lead to a plausible worst case of 7°C of warming by the end of the century (10 per cent chance).
www.chathamhouse.org/2021/09/climate-change-risk-assessment-2021
* A 3°C world has no safe place
www.economist.com/leaders/2021/07/24/a-3degc-world-has-no-safe-place
*Earth's largest extinction event saw toxic algae bloom at CO2 concentrations observed today
www.ecowatch.com/earth-extinction-event-toxic-algal-blooms-2655255553.html
*Climate disaster summary before COP26
*New research shows climate change in some regions is inevitable even if the already increased CO2 level is reduced
https://phys.org/news/2021-12-climate-carbon-dioxide-reduction.html
*The intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) does not respond linearly to CO2 forcing, but exhibits strong hysteresis behaviour. The ITCZ moves sharply south as soon as CO2 begins to decrease, and its centre eventually resides in the Southern Hemisphere during the ramp-down period. Such ITCZ hysteresis is associated with delays in global energy exchanges between the tropics and extratropics
www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01211-6
*Ice sheets melting might be more sensitivity to CO2, according to a study based on the Early Jurassic, when they largely melted at 500-700 ppm concentration of CO2
www.nature.com/articles/s41561-021-00858-2
*What to expect from the world's sixth mass extinction [Topics: Loss of food security, Soil fertility, Water shortage and natural disasters, Loss of resilience and more pandemics, A fundamental loss of heritage, culture and the intangible]
www.dw.com/en/what-to-expect-from-the-worlds-sixth-mass-extinction/a-60360245
*Mass ocean life extinction could happen by 2030 with accelerated burning of fossil fuels, while reining in emissions to keep within the upper limit of the Paris climate agreement (2°C of warming) would reduce ocean extinction risks by more than 70%, with the warming stopping and 4% of species lost by 2100.
www.nytimes.com/2022/04/28/climate/global-warming-ocean-extinctions.html
Temperature
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/temperature-anomaly
*WMO ~4 degrees prediction for 2100
www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-03/global-temperature-headed-toward-5-degree-increase-wmo-says
*Permafrost to increase global temperature by 2100 by 0.3-0.4 degrees, but new studies suggest it's actually 14% more than that
https://e360.yale.edu/digest/climate-models-underestimate-co2-emissions-from-permafrost-by-14-percent-study-finds?fbclid=IwAR112jZfPJnu-sQDV2FUX9wS3cnhO8B4riKRs54DPJtIeprSvMP0stbWyzs
*Earth might be the warmest it's been in the past 12,000 years
www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/arctic-temperature-record-100-4-degrees-earth-warmest-12000-years/?__twitter_impression=true&fbclid=IwAR2SYi1Ar04guDLSqXuCTD7c-qEMfL50DSwoUYIkzolHAR3hf7RGzBfEeUg
*New predictions say there is a ~20% chance that the next 5 years will be 1.5c warmer than pre-industrial levels, but the chance is increasing with time (currently 1.1c)
https://public.wmo.int/en/media/press-release/new-climate-predictions-assess-global-temperatures-coming-five-years?fbclid=IwAR36dWcSEMoQU31oN8jjH9z2CzBgNm0SpkxA3Shn1AdxISQoTQONg8RjFrY
*New study suggests a warming threshold of 2.6-3.9 degrees
www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/after-40-years-researchers-finally-see-earths-climate-destiny-more-clearly?fbclid=IwAR3X_BVwwmAXBNQUf9qm_rosBlgP5ZmlDbnKd1uaqAJFvujVjAHQBqRG3I0
*Earth won't cool off immediately even if we slash emissions
https://mashable.com/article/climate-change-carbon-emissions/?fbclid=IwAR2NLNphiuNdGUvMtFJWVJamggy2o2g-Sqwk_jhnNyJ7HLgj2pNevtcrReg
*Study predicts Persian Gulf temperatures to reach 77 degrees celsius by 2100 under business-as-usual scenario [Source www.youtube.com/watch?v=HI-KkwSKZcA]
https://weather.com/news/news/persian-gulf-heat-study
*September 2020 hottest September on record, even though it's a La Niña year with a Solar Minimum
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2020/09/temperatures-threaten-to-become-unbearable.html
*Ice loss due to warming leads to warming due to ice loss - a vicious circle that will lead to 0.4 additional degrees of warming
www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-10/pifc-ild102620.php
www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-18934-3
*New model estimates that cities will warm by as much as 4.4 degrees by 2100, creating deadly heat conditions
www.wired.com/story/climate-change-is-turning-cities-into-ovens
*New study study estimates that by the late 21st century, global land area and population facing extreme droughts could more than double, from 3% during 1976-2005, to 7%-8%
phys.org/news/2021-01-climate-people-extreme-droughts.html
*Southern Ocean, which is the least measured, is warming faster than thought new study finds, threatening Arctice ice
www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-20781-1
*Recent European drought extremes show drying trend, unprecedented in the past 2,110 years,
Dr. Peter Carter [March 2021]: Western US mega-drought driven by surface heating is expected to become much worse
www.nature.com/articles/s41561-021-00698-0
www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10218551746493994&
*Business-as-usual will lead to unprecedented, societally disruptive heat extremes in the Middle East, of up to 56 degrees celsius and higher in urban areas, that could last for multiple weeks, being potentially life-threatening for humans and animals.
https://phys.org/news/2021-03-climate-unprecedented-societally-disruptive-extremes.html
*New research says record-shattering heatwaves are becoming much more likely, worse than those seen in North-West American in June 2021. Highl opulated regions in North America, Europe and China were where the record-shattering extremes are most likely to occur. One heatwave scenario showed some locations in mid-northern America having temperatures 18C higher than average.
It found that heatwaves that smash previous records by roughly 5C would become two to seven times more likely in the next three decades and three to 21 times more likely from 2051–2080, unless carbon emissions are immediately slashed. Such extreme heatwaves are all but impossible without global heating.
The study showed that if emissions start falling immediately and rapidly, the risk of record-shattering extremes is cut by about 80%
*Cloud cooling effect over forests may cool the planet more than thought
https://phys.org/news/2021-08-forests-cool-planet-thought.html
*More than 3 billion people could live in extreme heat ("near un-liveable") by 2070
*Earth is dimming due to climate change
https://news.agu.org/press-release/earth-is-dimming-due-to-climate-change/
*South Pole posts most severe cold season on record, a surprise in a warming world
www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/10/01/south-pole-coldest-winter-record/?s=09
*Warming events projected to become more frequent and last longer across Antarctica
www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-98619-z
*Deforestation and climate change are projected to increase heat stress risk in the Brazilian Amazon
www.nature.com/articles/s43247-021-00275-8
*UK Government: 4C degrees warming by 2100 "can't be ruled out"
https://phys.org/news/2022-01-uk-4c.html
*Extreme heat in oceans passed point of no return already in 2014
*|Urban heat islands" usually causes the temperature to be 10 degrees higher in cities, while bright or green roofs can alleviate some of this extreme heat
www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/03/rooftop-gardens-heat-cities-study-temperature-climate-warming
*WMO reports there's a 50% change to cross 1.5 degrees (temporarily) by 2026
https://cosmosmagazine.com/earth/climate/1-5-c-2026-wmo/
CO2 & Methane
https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emissions
*CO2 concentration in atmosphere in year 2000: 369.55ppm
https://ourworldindata.org/atmospheric-concentrations
*Current CO2* in the atmosphere (May 2020) - 417ppm, could be the highest in more than 3 million years, and soon to be of 15 miliion years ago
www.theweathernetwork.com/ca/news/article/carbon-dioxide-at-mauna-loa-reaches-new-record-high-at-417-ppm
*Current CO2 in atomsphere
www.co2.earth/
*Permafrost could add 40 billion tons of co2 to the atmosphere by 2100
www.inverse.com/science/melting-permafrost-climate-crisis-study?fbclid=IwAR1r7_mN-
O6YxU4lqo1Ld2tU2ZERcktVxA_zqjgeKi5gtE23zizLlkwYEvw
*Atmosphere CO2 predictions
www.skepticalscience.com/exponential-increase-CO2-warming.htm
*Ocean CO2 uptake widely underestimated (about 10% of fossil fuel emissions), according to a new study: Half of the CO2 we emit is taken up by the oceans and land vegetations 'sinks'
https://phys.org/news/2020-09-ocean-carbon-uptake-widely-underestimated.html
*Global GHG emissions broken down to five grand challenges (industries): 27% Electricity , 16% Transportation, 31% Manufacturing, 7% Buildings, 19% Agriculture
www.breakthroughenergy.org/our-challenge/the-grand-challenges
*It is generally believed that anthropogenic aerosols cool the atmosphere and offset global warming from greenhouse gases to some extent. This study shows that a reduction in the aerosol SO2 will enhance atmospheric warming, in comparison with present CO2 concentrations, by about 0.5C degrees (in the high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere).
www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-78805-1
*Modeling predicts that loss of cooling effect attributes to sulfate aerosols will increase surface air temperature if air pollutiona and carbon dioxide are not simultaneously reduced
www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-03/ku-apr031021.php
*The potential of soils to slow climate change by soaking up carbon may be less than previously thought
*Deep ocean methane, usually stable at very specific pressure and temperatures at the Arctic, is likely to be released again to surface water and to the atmosphere, due to melting ice (the ice sheets create pressure that stabilizes the seafloor, which now decreases with the ice melting)
https://phys.org/news/2021-03-arctic-methane-due-ice.html
*The ocean, which makes a carbon sink that offsets the atmosphere warming, could absorb less CO2 as we emit less of it into the atmosphere
https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2020/06/03/ocean-uptake-co2-climate-mitigation
*According to Dr. Malcolm Light, the greatest threat to humanity is the escalating Arctic atmospheric methane buildup, caused by the destabilization of subsea methane hydrates. This subsea Arctic methane hydrate destabilization will go out of control in 2024 and lead to a catastrophic heatwave by 2026, by release more than 50 giga tonnes of methane [and precipitate a terminal catastrophic global extinction by the summer of 2027].
The total subsea methane reserves are much greater than the 1400 giga tonnes on the East Siberian Arctic shelf, holding huge amounts of methane that can be released at any moment.
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2021/05/extinction-by-2027.html
*New study in Global Biogeochemical Cycles shows per-area GHG emissions from the world's water resrevoirs are around 29% higher than suggested by previous studies.
Much of the increase comes from methane degassing (where methane passes through a dam and bubbles up downstream), which is estmated to occur mostly in tropical climate zones (83%).
Overall, researchers found the world's water reservoirs produce GHG at about 1.07 gigatons of CO2e (compared to more than 36 gigatons of annual man-made GHG emissions). That's more than 2% of the man-made emissions!
https://news.wsu.edu/2021/06/01/greenhouse-gas-emissions-reservoirs-higher-previously-expected/
*Carbon budget clock: 6.5 years left under 1.5C degrees scenario [June 2021]
www.mcc-berlin.net/en/research/co2-budget.html
*IPCC's sixth assessment suggests methane accounts for 30-50% of current rise in temperartures, about 0.5 degrees!
About 40% of methane emissions come from natural sources such as wetlands, while the rest comes from a variety of sources from human activity, from fossil fuel extraction leaks, to cattle raising, growing rice and garbage management.
Cutting 40-45% of methane by 2030 will shave off 0.3 degrees of temperarture increase by 2040
www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-58174111
*New study: Half of global methane emissions come from aquatic ecosystems
*Record-breaking Intense blazes, including fires in hotspots in the Mediterranean, North America and Siberia, let off more than 2.7 billion metric tons of carbon over the summer, with July and August both breaking monthly records for emissions from fires. More than half of July's emissions could be put down to fires in North America and Siberia.
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/09/21/world/wildfire-northern-hemisphere-intl-scli/index.html
*Wildfires emit about 8 million tons of CO2 per year, with 106.7 million tons emitted in 2020.
Scientists estimate that wildfires emit up to 5-10% of annual global CO2 emissions yearly.
*Global wildfires in 2021 caused an estimated total of 1760 megatonnes of carbon emissions, (6450 megatonnes of CO2)) - 148% more than total EU fossil fuel emissions in 2020
https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/wildfires-wreaked-havoc-2021-cams-tracked-their-impact
*Increasing large wildfires over the western United States linked to diminishing sea ice in the Arctic
www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-26232-9
*Time lag between intervention and actual CO2 decrease could still lead to climate tipping point. The delay can even create a feedback loop that will increase the CO2 concentration for a short period.
https://news.ncsu.edu/2021/12/time-lag-could-still-lead-to-climate-tipping-point
*Earth system models project that climate change will lead to a gradual weakening of the ocean carbon uptake rate, but most models do not incorporate the impact of warming and reduced nutrient supply on carbon & nutrient recycling and biodiversity. If these aspects are considered, the there is an even greater weakening of the ocean’s capacity to act as a carbon sink in the future
*Thawing permafrost can accelerate global warming
https://phys.org/news/2022-01-permafrost-global.html
*Study estimates 85% of methane growth since 2007 came from microbes (such as natural wetlands ro human-raised livestock and landfills), with fossil fuel extraction accounting for the remainer. Antrhopogenic sources were estimated to account for about 62% of total methane emissions from 2007 to 2016 (161.6m tons/year from wetlands, 129.5 from fossil fuel extraction, 103 from livestock, 72.9 landfill and agricultural waste, 37.5 natural geological seeps, 34.2 rice cultivation, 27.7 burning of plant matter and 24.2 from termites and other wild animals).
www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00312-2
Extreme weather events
www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/weather-climate
www.c2es.org/content/extreme-weather-and-climate-change/
www.carbonbrief.org/extreme-glacier-loss-events-linked-to-human-caused-climate-change-for-first-time
https://nca2014.globalchange.gov/highlights/report-findings/extreme-weather
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/30/climate-crisis-americans-wildfires-hurricanes-2020
*Fires and heatwaves in California could become worse with climate change and are almost certainly worse already now
www.npr.org/2020/08/19/903982598/climate-change-may-lead-to-more-record-heat-and-fires-in-california-experts-warn
www.technologyreview.com/2020/08/20/1007478/california-wildfires-climate-change-heatwaves/
www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/10/climate-change-california-power-outage/
*Changes in human settlement patterns and agriculture have led to less burning in grasslands, tropical forests and savannahs: Between 1998-2015, the total global acreage burned by fires declined by 24%.
[Fewer and smaller fires on the savanna mean that there are more trees and shrubs instead of open grasslands. This is a significant change in habitat for the region’s iconic mammals like elephants, rhinoceroses, and lions. Regions with less fire saw a decrease in carbon monoxide emissions and an improvement in air quality during fire season. With less fire, savanna vegetation is increasing—taking up more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.]
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/90493/researchers-detect-a-global-drop-in-fires
*Fires in the Amazon in 2020 could be worse than in 2019
www.newsweek.com/amazon-rain-forest-once-again-fire-this-time-its-worse-1526206
*Floods may appear more often in the future as the sea level rises
www.sciencealert.com/a-global-flood-is-coming-and-this-is-what-scientists-expect-it-to-look-like
*Millions of people around the world could be exposed to dangerous levels of heat stress
www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-53415298?SThisFB
*2019 Study suggests climate change could make extreme hurricane rainfall 5 times more likely
www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/climate-change-may-make-extreme-hurricane-rainfall-five-times-more-likely-study-says/
*California wildfires complex expanded beyond 1m acres, elevating it from from 'megafire' to the first 'gigamfire' in modern history [August 2020]
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/06/california-wildfires-gigafire-first
*2020 is now the most active hurricane season on record
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/10/weather/theta-eta-storm-season/index.html
*Global groundwater wells at risk of running dry, if they decline by only a few meters, as most of the wells are no more than 5 meters deep.
Groundwater provides nearly half of the water used for agricultural irrigation and most of the drinking water for billions of people.
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/372/6540/418
*New WMO report says climate change and more extreme weather has driven to surge five-fold over the past 50 years
https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/09/1098662
*Strong tropical cyclones could become twice as frequent by the middle of the century, with a potential increase in maximum wind speed of about 20%
www.southampton.ac.uk/news/2022/04/tropical-cyclone-increase.page
*California is experiencing its worst drought ever, with food prices, such as soy beans, corn and wheat, spiking
*World drought gets worse: In the US, severe-to-extreme drought is affecting 38% of the contiguous US, with more than half the country registering as moderate-to-extreme [as of March 2022]. Chile, SE Asia, China, Africa, Eastern Europe also experience unusual drought events.
www.counterpunch.org/2022/05/09/world-drought-gets-worse-cities-ration
Carbon Footprint
www.globalstewards.org/reduce-carbon-footprint.htm
http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/the-60-15-rule-of-carbon-footprints
https://visionforsidmouth.org/climate-change-what-can-i-do/
http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/what-is-a-carbon-footprint
*Solutions
https://drawdown.org/solutions/table-of-solutions
https://exponentialroadmap.org/?fbclid=IwAR2EI-c3_fWY6honvKYEGr0mqfy8b-VPm02Ab0jI2QOyt0RZto7NFDBtrMU
https://meigakuglobalchallenges.wordpress.com/2012/02/19/global-warming-vocabulary/
www.district10comopark.org/city_takes_climate_change_personally.html
www.curbed.com/2017/6/7/15749900/how-to-stop-climate-change-actions
*Emissions in places with bad public transportation service like in California have a great percentage of emissions coming from personal vehicles
https://la.curbed.com/2017/6/2/15731916/paris-agreement-fight-climate-change-los-angeles-transportation
www.footprintnetwork.org/our-work/climate-change/
*"Environmental pressure arising from households with their consumption contributing to more than 60% of global GHG emissions"!
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jiec.12371
*Global breakdown of GHG emissions by sector (of 2016)
www.visualcapitalist.com/a-global-breakdown-of-greenhouse-gas-emissions-by-sector/
*Tourisim estimates at 8% of total GHG emissions, with flying as the biggest contributor
www.reuters.com/article/us-climatechange-tourism/booming-tourism-emits-8-percent-of-greenhouse-gases-study-shows-idUSKBN1I81T3
*Typical Carbon footprints from Germany & US. Paper makes 1% of total GHG, goods and services play a significant role, especially Reacreation, culture and sports in Germany and household entertainment with a bigger share than household goods, in the US
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10668-015-9649-7
https://twosidesna.org/US/our-carbon-footprint-how-do-paper-products-fit-in/
*Overconsumption is a key factor in sustainability [new research]
www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/07/affluence-bigger-threat-than-coronavirus-scientists-capitalism/?fbclid=IwAR2VNF0k-ShJ5ijUWWZgv6WVbox2dOaQVx6d-S8WY3KNZ0NL0n-8S-c4gbs
*Calculators
www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx
www3.epa.gov/carbon-footprint-calculator/
www.conservation.org/carbon-footprint-calculator#/
www.nature.org/en-us/get-involved/how-to-help/carbon-footprint-calculator
*Comparison of life cycle emissions of different everyday products
https://web.archive.org/web/20190217182504if_/https://carboncatalogue.coclear.co/?sector=all
Electricity
*Energy sector emissions of total GHG: 6.6% Commercial buildings 10.9% Residential 7.8% Iron&Steel 1% Food&Tobacco 5.8% Chemicals 1.7% Agriculture&Fishing 3.9% Oil&Gas 3% Cement 1.4% Cropland 11.9% Road 1.9% Air
Industrial processes grew by 174% (mainly by refrigerators and ACs' HFC emissions), transportation by 71% (mainly by cars) and manufacturing and construction by 55%.
www.wri.org/blog/2020/02/greenhouse-gas-emissions-by-country-sector
*Of global energy consumption (2015) 30% come from buildings (22% residential and 8% non residential) 28% from transport 31% other industry 6% construction industry 5% other
www.worldgbc.org/sites/default/files/UNEP%20188_GABC_en%20%28web%29.pdf
*Encouragement methods in California study reduced participants' electricity emissions by 14%, yet not of natural gas
https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/classic//research/apr/past/10-325.pdf
*Cooling produces 7%-11% of global GHG (mainly refrigerators and air conditioners)
www.climateworks.org/programs/cooling/
*Air conditioners account for 3.9% of global GHG emissions, with cooling accounting for 10% of global electricity use
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2542435122000940
*Building operation (mainly heating, cooling and lighting) account for 28% of GHG emissions, and 8.5% of emissions come from air conditioners
cnbc.com/video/2021/07/24/air-conditioning-major-contributor-to-climate-change.html
*Use of electricity by sector in the US: 32% Residential and commercial 29% Industry 28% Transportation 10% Agriculture
www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions#electricity
www.epa.gov/energy/electricity-customers
*Global residential & commercial electricity consumption by type:
Residential: Space heating - 32%, cooking - 29%, water heating - 24%, appliance - 9%, lighting - 4%
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032114007151
*Household energy usage in the US shares (2015): 43% space heating 8% air conditioning %19 water heating 5% lighting 3% refrigeration %21 all other
www.eia.gov/energyexplained/use-of-energy/homes.php
*Buildings (homes, offices, stores) use 40% of energy and 70% of electricity in the US.
www.ase.org/initiatives/buildings
*Investments in natural gas will lock its use and emissions for decades to come
www.wri.org/blog/2019/12/co2-emissions-climb-all-time-high-again-2019-6-takeaways-latest-climate-data
*Data centers consume 2% of electricity worldwide, and could rise up to 8% by 2030
https://sunbirddcim.com/blog/top-10-energy-consuming-data-centers-infographic
*Unplugging home devices could save large amounts of money
https://blog.directenergy.com/should-you-unplug-appliances-when-not-in-use/
*Plugged but unused appliances make up about a quarter of electricity use, according to a new study
www.theguardian.com/money/2022/mar/23/vampire-appliances-the-electronics-sucking-your-wallet-dry
*Bitcoin (the main cryptocurrency) exponentially grows in electricity consumption, consuming already almost 0.5% of the world's total electricity. Already now, if Bitcoin was a country, it would be the 40th highest energy-consumer in the world.
[On the other hand, Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index (CBECI) claims that "Bitcoin’s environmental footprint currently remains marginal at best"]
https://earth.org/are-cryptocurrencies-harming-the-environment/
Refrigerating
www.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2015/03/150306-why-your-fridge-pollutes-and-how-its-changing/
*Energy use makes 80% of refrigerators emissions
https://unfccc.int/files/methods/other_methodological_issues/interactions_with_ozone_layer/application/pdf/epeebroc.pdf
*Tips for reducing refrigerator energy consumption
https://blog.liebherr.com/appliances/my/refrigerators-saving-energy/
Washing
*Tips for reducing washing-machine energy consumption
www.appsloveworld.com/washing-machine-power-consumption-washing-machine-electricity-cost-calculator/
*Hang-drying clothes would save ~3% of residential co2 in the US (~0.3% of total GHG)
www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/garden/12clothesline.html
*Hand-washing vs. dishwasher - using a two-basin sink one with hot and the other cool produced 1,610k of emissions vs dishwashing without pre-heating & rinsing with 1,960k
https://grist.org/climate/science-dishes-out-an-answer-on-the-old-handwashing-vs-dishwasher-debate/
Cooling and heating
*World uses more energy for cooling than for heating
www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/26/cold-economy-cop21-global-warming-carbon-emissions
*Air conditioning demand will rise 30 fold by 2100
www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Energy-Voices/2014/0331/IPCC-global-warming-report-why-air-conditioning-rises-30-fold-by-2100
*Shading AC can reduce energy costs up to 50%, shrubs and vines can be planted to keep walls cool, shade roofs with trees
www.bobvila.com/articles/351-cool-your-house-with-smart-landscaping/
*Shading the AC can reduce efficiency up to 10% according to some studies, while other say it could be less than 1% [anyone can test this at home]
https://blog.directenergy.com/shading-air-conditioner-myths/
*Electric kettle significantly outperforms (electric) stove in energy consumption, when boiling water
https://healthfully.com/155518-efficiency-of-heating-water-on-stove-vs-an-electric-tea-kettle.html
*Painting roofs with white coating could reduce indoor temperature by 2-7 degrees, and roof temperature by as much as 30 degrees
www.bbc.com/news/world-48395221
www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54632523
*Fan vs. AC
www.cielowigle.com/blog/fan-vs-ac/
*Burning wood for fireplaces emits black carbon. The newest and most expensive models of wood-fired boilers don't produce it.
www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/nov/27/wood-fires-fuel-climate-change
*Household cooking and heating account for 58% of global black carbon emissions
https://ccacoalition.org/en/slcps/black-carbon
Solar energy
*Solar panels at home
https://aresolar.com/the-benefits-of-going-solar-helping-the-environment-while-saving-you-money/
https://sunmetrix.com/what-if-each-and-every-building-in-the-united-states-had-a-solar-roof/
*Solar panels carbon reduction
www.bostonsolar.us/solar-blog-resource-center/blog/how-much-co2-do-solar-panels-save/
*Solar panels vs fossil (natural) gas - 0.09 pounsds of co2 equivalent per kilowatt-hour vs. natural gas + coal (1.3 + 2.5 /2 = 2.8), making solar ~x30 more efficient
www.ucsusa.org/resources/environmental-impacts-solar-power
*Responsible Appliance Disposal can reduce 8200MTco2e of GHG for every 1000 refrigerators, equivalent to 1500 cars not driven for a year, or 57 acres of forest preserved from deforestation
https://blog.totalhomesupply.com/air-conditioner-disposal-recycle/
Industry
Global industry emissions & energy use by industry breakdown:
Iron & Steel 7.2%, Cement 3%, Chemicals 2.2%, Chemical & Petrochemical 3.6%
https://ourworldindata.org/ghg-emissions-by-sector
*Industry sector share of global emissions: 6% Oil and gas, 6% cement and concrete, 6% steel and iron, 5% chemicals, 2% coal mining, 6% other industries - 31% of emissions
www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/05/first-movers-coalition-demand-clean-tech
*US industries emissions by type: 60.7% power plant 10.6% petroleum & natural gas 6.4% chemicals 6.1% refineries 4.4% other 3.9% minerals 3.6% waste 3.1% metal 1.2 pulp & paper
https://ghgdata.epa.gov/ghgp/main.do#/pieSector/?q=Find%20a%20Facility%20or%20Location&st=&bs=&et=&fid=&sf=11001000&lowE=-20000&highE=23000000&g1=1&g2=1&g3=1&g4=1&g5=1&g6=0&g7=1&g8=1&g9=1&g10=1&g11=1&g12=1&s1=1&s2=1&s3=1&s4=1&s5=1&s6=1&s7=1&s8=1&s9=1&s10=1&s201=1&s202=1&s203=1&s204=1&s301=1&s302=1&s303=1&s304=1&s305=1&s306=1&s307=1&s401=1&s402=1&s403=1&s404=1&s405=1&s601=1&s602=1&s701=1&s702=1&s703=1&s704=1&s705=1&s706=1&s707=1&s708=1&s709=1&s710=1&s711=1&s801=1&s802=1&s803=1&s804=1&s805=1&s806=1&s807=1&s808=1&s809=1&s810=1&s901=1&s902=1&s903=1&s904=1&s905=1&s906=1&s907=1&s908=1&s909=1&s910=1&s911=1&si=&ss=&so=0&ds=E&yr=2018&tr=current&cyr=2018&ol=0&sl=0&rs=ALL
*Sector and industries that use the most power, cement production produce 4% of GHG emissions, more than any other industrial process
www.bettermeetsreality.com/which-sectors-industries-use-the-most-energy-electricity/
*Energy use by industrial sector (2009) 21% Non-specified industry 17% iron and steel 15% chemicals 13% wood 7% food & tobacco 7% paper 5% non-ferrous metals 5% machinery 2% construction 2% transport equipment 2% textile & leather 3% mining 1% non-metalic minerals
https://image.slidesharecdn.com/ieaiipenmsdublin-120607102312-phpapp02/95/iea-iip-policy-pathway-energy-management-programmes-3-728.jpg?cb=1339064855
*New research concludes that multinational giant companies like Coca-Cola and Walmart, account for 18.7% of emissions. [Transportation: International aviation account for 64% of air traffic]
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/supply-chains-generate-massive-carbon-emissions/
*270,000 trees/day are cut for toilet papers, only 2% of home-used toilet paper is frm recycled material. The paper industry uses tremendous amounts of water and chlorine, transportation and packaging
https://achnews.org/2019/05/20/humans-wipe-out-about-270000-trees-a-day-with-toilet-paper/?fbclid=IwAR1Dhm-QHzfvD0ioE6Vob13GHIOX3udgXsPErxmjpSmsGocnAouc9z9AD3U
*Keeping an old car is better than buying a new one as 41% (?) of car emissions are used for manufacturing, and a light, simple and fuel-efficient is best
www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/2010/sep/23/carbon-footprint-new-car
*Iron & Steel industry accounts for more than 25% of global manufacturing (industry?) sector
www.globalefficiencyintel.com/steel-industry-ghg-emissions
Fashion
*New study estimates emissions from the apparel sector to be 1.025 gigatons CO2e [in 2019], which make 2% of global emissions.
www.wri.org/research/roadmap-net-zero-delivering-science-based-targets-apparel-sector
*Fashion accounted for more than 8% of total GHG [?]
www.cbsnews.com/news/earth-day-2019-fashion-industrys-carbon-impact-is-bigger-than-airline-industrys/
www.sustainyourstyle.org/old-environmental-impacts
*Laundry microfibers - over 1 million tons are released from our washing machines every year, making the largest for of plastic-pollution and 85% of man-made shoreline debris
https://filtrol.net/
https://oceanconservancy.org/blog/2020/06/15/reduce-microfiber-emissions/
*Careful composting of old clothes
www.compostthis.co.uk/old-clothes
*If a 40°C washing machine default temperarture was switched to 30°C, and line-drying the clothes by the 15%-40% who machine-dry them - would reduce about a third of GHG emissions of clothing [report by European retailer C&A]
Other
*Industry: Fossil fuel 27% HFC 8% Coal 6% Fuel Oil 18% Natural Gas 28% Other non combustion 10% Iron, steel coke 4% Transportation: light-duty vehicles 58% medium & heavy 21%
www.researchgate.net/figure/Breakdown-of-US-greenhouse-gas-emissions-by-sector-and-fuel-type-Red-typeface_fig1_280531742
*US industry emissions (2019): 19% bulk chemicals 18% refining 8% iron and steel 5% food products 3% paper products 2% cement and lime 45% others
www.c2es.org/content/regulating-industrial-sector-carbon-emissions/
Chemicals
*Bulk chemicals examples: ammonia, used 90% as a fertilizer, sulfuric acid used 50% for fertilizers and sulfuric acid used for paper, aluminium and cleaners
www.chemicalsafetyfacts.org/ammonia/
www.essentialchemicalindustry.org/chemicals/sulfuric-acid.html
www.chemicalsafetyfacts.org/sodium-hydroxide/
*Total GHG emissions in the EU Chemical industry in 2013 [Page 39]:
Ammonia/Urea (29.7MTco2eq), Hydrogen/Syngas ((25MTco2eq), Steam Cracking (24.7MTco2eq), Nitric Acid (16.9MTco2eq), Chlorine (11.3MTco2eq), Rest tested (32.2Mtco2eq), Others (0.4Mtco2eq)
-The studied 26 chemicals cover 75% of the total energy and non-energy use of the EU chemical industry in 2013
-In 2013, fertilizers accounted for 80% of total Nitric Acid consumption
-In 2013, Ammonia production acconuted for 0.6% of total EU GHG emissions [Page 53]
-Nitrogen ferilisers account for more than 80% of the world ammonia market
-Steam cracking is the most energy-consuming process in the chemical industry and globally uses about 40% of the total energy in the entire petrochemical industry
-The most savings of GHG emissions between 2013-2050 will be by reducing Nitric Acid and Adipic,
while Ethylene, chlorine, ammonia and hydrogen are important as they are the most produced chemicals
*2019 US Chemical sector emissions:
Petrochemicals (31.3%), Hydrogen production (23.8%), Ammonia Manufacturing (18.9%), Other Chemicals (10.3%), Nitric Acid (5.5%), Adipic Acid (3.7%), and others (6.5%)
www.epa.gov/ghgreporting/ghgrp-chemicals#trends-subsector
*Examples of Petrochemicals and Petroleum products - many everyday items [58% + 26% indirect of energy emissions?]
www.thoughtco.com/petrochemicals-and-petroleum-products-603558
*Ammonia industry emissions could be higher than previously thought
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190606183254.htm
Construction
*Steel usage: 51% building & infrastructure (reinforcing bars 44%, sheet products for roofs & ceilings 31% structural sections 25%) 15% mechanical equipment 12% automotive 11% metal products 5% other transport 6% domestic appliances 3% electrical equipment
www.thoughtco.com/steel-applications-2340171
*Alumnium sector is responsible for 1.1 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per annum, around 2% of all global anthropogenic emissions
*Aluminium usage: transportation (39%), packaging (19%), building (14%), electrical (9%), consumer durable (8%), machinery (8%), other (3%)
www.explainthatstuff.com/aluminum.html
*Cement industry ~5% of CO2 - 8% of industry
www.globalefficiencyintel.com/decarbonizing-californias-cement-concrete
*Manufacturing sector in the US (2009) requires more than 25% of total energy. 29% transportation 28% industrial manufacturing 21% residential 18% commercial 5% industrial
www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2013/11/f4/energy_use_and_loss_and_emissions_intro.pdf
*After water, concrete is the most widely used substance on Earth
www.bbc.com/future/article/20200811-the-eco-friendly-alternatives-to-ocean-concrete
*10% of emissions came from extracting, refining and delivering fossils fuels
www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/09/revealed-20-firms-third-carbon-emissions
*27,000 trees are cut a day for toilet paper
https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2010/04/16/toilet-paper-wipes-out-27000-trees-a-day/
www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/press-release/nigeria-turns-tide-electronic-waste
*Recycling
www.stopwaste.org/at-work/reduce-and-reuse/recycling-business-waste/recycling-and-climate-protection
https://greentumble.com/how-does-recycling-save-energy/
*Hemp vs. conventional toilet paper
https://wamaunderwear.com/blogs/news/hemp-toilet-paper
*Paper makes almost 15% of landfill volume [a lot more here about paper & pulp industry & recycling solutions]
www.dartmouth.edu/~cushman/courses/engs171/Paper.pdf
*A reminder to focus on industries that play a big role in co2 emissions, like steel & cement
*Study: Personal care products and paints are worse for air pollution than cars
Plastic
*plastic pollution - 213mi tonnes produced in 2000 (76% discarded), 381mi produced in 2015 (55% discarded), 2100projected for ~3billion (~20% to be discarded).
Packaging accounts for nearly a half of plastic globally produced [2015], half of which comes from the food & beverages industry.
https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution
www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/plastic-packaging-market
*plastic packaging make 42% of productions (2015) and projected to be 4x more by 2050, plastic packaging
www.greenpeace.org/usa/myths-about-ending-plastic-pollution/global_plastic-packaging-projections_2050czerowastelivinglab-by-enviu/
www.darrinqualman.com/global-plastics-production/
*"Plastic is among the most energy-intensive materials to produce", emissions from plastics could account to 56 gigatons of carbon between now and 2050 as it's expected to almost quadruple
www.npr.org/2019/07/09/735848489/plastic-has-a-big-carbon-footprint-but-that-isnt-the-whole-story
*Plastic in 2050 could be accounted for 15% of emissions
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/15042019/plastic-greenhouse-gas-emissions-renewable-energy-waste-recycling-fossil-fuel-production-climate-change
*200 billion (!) masks and gloves are thrown every month of Covid-19
www.greenmatters.com/p/face-masks-gloves-litter-coronavirus?gm&fbclid=IwAR2yFUxi6VgJBEbhEivJTSvpxxd0SbOHxsRqNMxB9awWY4JIp1-9JS309rM
*Plastic production, use, and disposal all emit prodigious amounts of greenhouse gasses (emissions from plastics in 2015
were almost 1.8 billion metric tons of CO2, out of the 35.2 global emissions, which means that plastic accounted for ~3% of total GHG)
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/04/190415144004.htm
*Main microplastic sources from the industry sector
www.profolus.com/topics/sources-of-microplastics/
*Car tires are a major source of ocean microplastic
www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/14/car-tyres-are-major-source-of-ocean-microplastics-study
*Top 10 garbage found in oceans: Plastic beverage bottles & caps (2.7m), Cigarette butts and plastic filters (2.4m), Food wrappers (1.7m), Plastic bags (1.m), Straws & stirrers (0.6m), Plastic containers (0.6m), Plastic lids (0.6m), Foam containers (0.6m)
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/06/27/ocean-beach-pollution-plastic-trash/738173002/
*Atlantic ocean my contain more plastic than previously thought
www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17932-9
*There are 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic debris in the ocean, of which 269,000 tons float on the surface, while ~4 billion plastic microfibers per km2 litter the deep sea
www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/1/150109-oceans-plastic-sea-trash-science-marine-debris/
*Global plastic packaging production estimated to quadruple by 2050 under business as-usual-scenario.
www.greenpeace.org/usa/myths-about-ending-plastic-pollution/global_plastic-packaging-projections_2050czerowastelivinglab-by-enviu/
*By 2050, we'll have produced 26 billion tons of plastic waste, about half of which will be dumped in landfills and the environment
www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/07/next-30-years-we-ll-make-four-times-more-plastic-waste-we-ever-have
*New study claims there are 10 times more plastic in Atlantic Ocean than previously believed
www.ecowatch.com/plastic-pollution-atlantic-ocean-2647039932.html
*Industries that use the most steel: Building and infrastructure (50%), Mechanical equipment (16%), Automotive (13%), Metal (11%), Shipping, rail and transport (5%), Electrical equipment (3%), Domestic appliance (2%)
https://money.cnn.com/2018/03/02/news/economy/steel-industry-statistics-us-china-canada/index.html
*Plastic items and taekaway food and drink dominate the litter in the world’s oceans, according to the most comprehensive study to date
*LCA (Life cycle analysis) comparison between two packaging products, made of glass, and of plastic, resulted in plastic as the winner [whatsoever, it's important to buy the least amount of newly produced products, especially if they are designed for single-use]
https://ecochain.com/story/case-study-packaging-plastic-vs-glass/
*Plastics will have a bigger carbon footprint than coal plants in US by 2030, according to a new study
www.huffpost.com/entry/plastics-pollution-climate_n_61718257e4b093143207dce9
*Scientists claim new enzyme can break down plastic in a week [May 2022]
https://futurism.com/the-byte/scientists-new-enzyme-break-down-plastic-week
Building
*Construction industry made 6% of industrial GHG emissions in the US (2002)
https://archive.epa.gov/sectors/web/pdf/construction-sector-report.pdf
*Construction of an average residential home emissions are equal to about 15 years of operation. The IPPC's 6% of total GHG comes from construction and demolition. Raw material harvest & manufacture accounted for 21% of global CO2 emissions
https://blogs.umass.edu/natsci397a-eross/green-building-materials-and-carbon-taxes-on-the-building-sector-reducing-emissions-from-the-built-environment/comment-page-1/
*Building and construction account for 39% of energy-related CO2 emissions
www.worldgbc.org/our-mission
*Energy Star qualified doors, windows and skylights can can shrink carbon footprint by 12% US nationwide, compared to non-certified products
www.energystar.gov/products/building_products/residential_windows_doors_and_skylights/benefits
*Home insulation recommendations
https://blog.lotnetwork.com/10-top-green-home-building-ideas/
*Buildings consume 40% of world's energy & materials, 25% of wood harvested and 17% of our water. In the US, buildings account for 36% of total electricity consumption, 62% of electricity use, 30% of GHG emissions, 37% ozone depletion potential
www.greenbiz.com/article/ask-green-architect-top-ten-green-building-questions
Water usage
*At home: 38% showering 30% toilet flushing 12% laundry 11% other 6% dish-washing 3% garden and car
www.south-staffs-water.co.uk/media/1539/waterusehome.pdf
*Sanitation sector responsible for about 0.75% of global GHG emissions
https://earth.stanford.edu/news/human-waste-treatment-helps-solve-climate-change-puzzle#gs.9f0lr1
*Laundry and other water usewww.bbc.com/future/article/20200326-the-hidden-impact-of-your-daily-water-use
*Around 20% of wastewater comes from fabric dyeing and treatment
www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2019/09/23/costo-moda-medio-ambiente
*Wastewater treatment 1.8% of waste emissions (8.8% solid waste combustion 7.5% industrial landfills 81.9% municipal landfills
www.epa.gov/ghgreporting/ghgrp-waste
*Waste sector amounted in 2011 to 1.8% of total emissions
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Archive:Greenhouse_gas_emissions_from_waste_disposal#Further_Eurostat_information
Fires
*Campfires rough estimation 0.005m co2 tonnes a year
www.iii.org/fact-statistic/facts-statistics-wildfires
www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/h5tuq/how_much_carbon_dioxide_does_a_standard_campfire/
*Australian fires emitted 250m tonnes of co2
www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/dec/13/australias-bushfires-have-emitted-250m-tonnes-of-co2-almost-half-of-countrys-annual-emissions
*Amazon fires 110m tonnes of co2
www.capeandislands.org/post/carbon-dioxide-released-amazon-fires-could-hasten-climate-change#stream/0
*Fireplace emits black carbon
www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/nov/27/wood-fires-fuel-climate-change
*15% of energy used comes from burning firewood (in developed countries) - which make a total of 2% of the GHG emissions
www.climatecentral.org/news/study-downgrades-climate-impact-of-wood-burning-18560
www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/01/wood-green-source-energy-scientists-are-divided
Agriculture
Emissions from Agriculture divided
http://pubdocs.worldbank.org/en/862271433768092396/Holger-Kray-RO-SustainableAg-hkray-ENG.pdf
*How much of global greenhouse gas emissions come from food? (Between 25%-34%)
https://ourworldindata.org/greenhouse-gas-emissions-food
*Methane emissions: 33% fossil fuel 27% livestock farming 16% landfill and waste 11% biomass 9% rice agriculture 4% biofuels
https://whatsyourimpact.org/greenhouse-gases/methane-emissions
*Agrculture emissions breakdown: 40% Entreic fermentation, 14% Manure left on pasture, 13% Syntethic fertilizers
*57% of Methane emissions come from human activities
www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/overview-greenhouse-gases#methane
*UN: Up to 40% of world's land now degraded
www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/apr/27/united-nations-40-per-cent-planet-land-degraded
*New research suggests food systems are responsible for 34% of total GHG emissions (!), with 71% of it coming from agriculture and land use, and the rest from supply chain activities.
www.nature.com/articles/s43016-021-00225-9
*Of the 35% of GHG emissions from the food sector, 57% come from livestock, 29% from plant based foods, and 14% from products not used for food or feed, such as cotton and rubber. Land-use change accounts for 29% of food emissions.
Beef accounts for 25% of food emissions, cow milk 8%, pork 7%, rice 12%, wheat 5%, and sugarcane 2%.
13% of total agricultural land is being used to produce plant-based foods, while the other 77% to produce animal-based foods, and the remaining 10% is being used to raise cotton, rubber, tobacco, and other products
www.fao.org/3/cb7033en/cb7033en.pdf
*Anthropogenic climate change has slowed global agricultural productivity growth by about 21% since 1961, equivalent to losing the last 7 years of productivity growth
www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01000-1
*Agriculture emissions could be 15-20% of total GHG
www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2019/12/02/5-reasons-agricultures-greenhouse-gas-emissions-are-usually-underestimated/#2b61a0ba6ac8
*Clearing and mining of jewels account for 95% of their carbon footprint (production about 5%). Silver has the lowest footprint and platinum the highest (?)
https://exjewel.com/2020/01/the-surprisingly-high-carbon-footprint-of-the-jewelry-industry/
*Experts' opinions on diet change to combat the climate crisis
www.carbonbrief.org/experts-how-do-diets-need-to-change-to-meet-climate-targets
*Un experts say switching to a plant-based diet and reducing food waste can help fight climate change
www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49238749
*Combining five types of broad fixes to the food system will give the best chances to fight climate change:
- Switching to an almost complete plant-based diet (650 billion metric tonnes GHG reduction),
- Almost everyone eating the right amount of calories for them (410),
- Using less fertilizers, better managing of soil and crop rotation (540),
- Increasing yield through genetics and other methods (210),
- Wasting less food (360),
And, doing just half of all of these will reduce GHG emissions by 850 billion metric tonnes.
https://apnews.com/article/food-climate-problem-does-not-veganism-ed1ae1cd85cca04d1e4442909ef13fdc
*Anthropogenic climate changehas slowed global agriculture productivity growth
www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01000-1
*8 was to sequester carbon to avoid climate catastrophe
www.ecowatch.com/carbon-sequestration-2461971411.html
*The world's soils, which provide 95% of humanity’s food and also make the largest activre store of carbon (after the oceans), are “under great pressure”, according to a UN report on soil pollution.
The biggest source of soil pollution varies by region, it found.
The biggest problem is industrial pollution in western Europe and North America, farming in Asia, Latin America and eastern Europe, and mining in sub-Saharan Africa. In north Africa and the near east, urban pollution is the biggest single source of contamination.
A 2017 report found that a third of the planet's land is severely degraded and that fertile soil was being lost at the rate of 24bn tonnes a year.
*Regenerative agriculture makes improves the health of the soil and the food, sequesters carbon, and makes an important part of food-related solutions
https://regenerationinternational.org/why-regenerative-agriculture/
*Palm oil contributed 1.4% of global net Co2e emissions over the last three years of available data [2018]
https://theicct.org/blog/staff/palm-oil-elephant-greenhouse
*Causes of deforestation: 27% commodity-driven, 26% forestry, 24% shifting agriculture, 23% wildfire, urbanization 0.6%
www.wri.org/insights/when-tree-falls-it-deforestation
*Giant farm vehicles threaten 20% of the subsoil (soil that lies more than 0.5 meters below the ground) of global croplands
https://interestingengineering.com/farm-vehicles-threaten-cropland
Livestock
*Livestock 13-18% of GHG emissions (14.5% according to FAO, or 7.1 GtCo2e/year), with cattle representing 65% of it. Feed production make 45%, processing 39%, manure storage and processing 10%, and 6% for transportation and processing products
www.fao.org/gleam/results/en/
www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?r=465
*Livestock contribute 14.5% of GHG. Agricultre is responsible for 75% of deforestation
https://ccafs.cgiar.org/bigfacts/#theme=food-emissions
*Organic farming future
www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/aug/14/organic-farming-agriculture-world-hunger
*Industrialized farming - provides 20% of food in the world (source: 2040 Movie, requires verifying)
https://foodprint.org/issues/sustainable-agriculture-vs-industrial-agriculture/
*Garlicky supplements and red seaweed could reduce methane production of cows almost entirely
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8090085/Holy-cow-feeding-cattle-seaweed-help-stop-climate-change.html
www.goodnewsnetwork.org/farmers-using-garlicky-supplements-to-curb-cow-gas/
https://foodtank.com/news/2017/06/seaweed-reduce-cow-methane-emission/
*Algae and seaweed make a limited solution to livestock methane, as the additive can only be used on feedlots, where the cattle belches only 11% of their lifetime output, as well as difficulties in catering the world's 1.5 billion cows.
www.wired.com/story/carbon-neutral-cows-algae/
*Grass-finished beef systems have greater GHG intensities than feedlot finished beef systems, and may serve as an overall GHG sink, reasonable to hypothesize to continue at a reduced rate for several years
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308521X17310338?fbclid=IwAR0P-sqB0wPNGfMuGPjCPje01XUQFg5lIniJdrNXeQlqXfMJbe13Jy41L74
*65% of soy comes from countries with high deforestation rate (The soya is fed mainly to livestock)
www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-53438680?fbclid=IwAR1MP1ggv-xfZ5j-xbQY70X0wDEHssTXQGsNkXP2W9hssN9tLmIGEfKRQm8
*One type of meat alternative, Beyond burger, requires 99% less water, 93% less land and generates 90% less GHG emissions and uses 46% less energy to produce in the US, according to a study
www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/story/tackling-worlds-most-urgent-problem-meat?fbclid=IwAR3bghLayYpkw-CNcV0DPRM1T-i_lLTuP3T7ZLa-IWslCKNVOqHQrdEQT8E
*Fishery ~0.8% of GHG emissions, about a trillion wild fish are caught annually
https://phys.org/news/2019-01-carbon-dioxide-emissions-global-fisheries.html
www.nature.com/articles/s41558-018-0117-x
www.fishcount.org.uk/published/std/fishcountchapter19.pdf
*Fishery accounts for 0.49% of GHG emissions (the analyses do not calculate the processing or transport of finished aquatic product)
https://thefishsite.com/articles/putting-a-figure-on-aquacultures-greenhouse-gas-emissions
*Demand for fish creates massive wars for illegal fishery
www.ntnews.com.au/news/world/south-china-sea-chinas-dark-fleet-now-targeting-sea-of-japan/news-story/b7ebf685e6bcfc6725eeabdcaf59e70a?fbclid=IwAR2PgTpBnYhysbcyRjHBtQyC6c_zvPUA78S0ibLQicsB_u2BB4vAs_BwdN8
*Cattle are the main contributor to the sector's emissions with about 5.0 gigatonnes CO2-eq, which represents about 62 percent of sector's emissions. Beef and dairy cattle generate similar amounts of greenhouse gases.
Pigs, poultry, buffaloes and small ruminants have much lower emissions, representing between 7 and 11 percent of sector's emissions.
*Cattle meat accounts for about 68% of meat Global GHG emissions, Pig meat for ~18%, Chicken for 11%, and the rest for ~3%
www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-68231-8
*Greenhouse gas emissions from food: Red meat - 30%, Dairy products - 18%, Chicken/Fish/Eggs - 10%, Fruits/Vegetables - 11%, Cereal/Carbs - 11%, Others - 9%, Beverages - 6%, Oils/Sweets/Condiments - 6%
*Types of diets and their GHG effect
www.researchgate.net/publication/263353807_Dietary_greenhouse_gas_emissions_of_meat-eaters_fish-eaters_vegetarians_and_vegans_in_the_UK
*Soy production harms shown in new study on Brazil's deforestation for soy export. Most is used for animal feed and biodiesel
www.ecowatch.com/deforestation-brazil-2646253535.html?rebelltitem=6#rebelltitem6
*In the US alone almost 3 million wild animals are killed annually as part of what is called "Wildlife Services", a big interest of livestock operators.
https://therevelator.org/killing-wildlife-services/
www.scientificamerican.com/article/federal-governments-predator-control-program/
*Pet food makes about 0.7% of food production [In 2019 27.2 million metric tonnes of pet food were produced, out of roughly 4 billion metric tonnes of total food which is produced annually]
www.statista.com/statistics/1109497/pet-food-production-worldwide-by-region/
www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/196402/icode/
*Organic meat production could be just as bad for the climate
*Soybean meal moves through the market as a direct relfection of livestock needs"
www.truthordrought.com/soybean-myths
*Based on currently available data, cultured meat production does not necessarily give license for unrestrained meat consumption, as CO2 emissions from energy generated to create cultured meat, rise over the long term, depending on the level of decarbonization that could be achieved, and the specific environmental footprints of production
www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2019.00005/full
Food Waste
https://ourworldindata.org/food-waste-emissions
www.climatecentral.org/news/food-waste-worsens-greenhouse-gas-emissions-fao-16498
http://www.fao.org/3/a-bb144e.pdf
*Food waste represents 21% of trash produced in the US
https://theecoguide.org/how-much-can-composting-help-reduce-my-carbon-footprint
*Landfill emissions make 11% of methane emissions (1.7% of total GHG)
www.globalmethane.org/documents/landfill_fs_eng.pdf
*Eating locally reduces up to 5% of food emissions, except for 0.16% of food which are air freight, usually short shelf life veggies like asparagus, green beans and berries
https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local
*Growing your own food saves on emission, waste, transportation and packaging
www.trianglepest.com/blog/what-are-environmental-benefits-growing-your-own-food
*Remove lawn - In the US alone there are 42 million acres of grass, more than that of corn
www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/home/as-the-climate-changes-so-must-our-horticultural-strategies/2017/04/18/9fe7af32-1fc0-11e7-ad74-3a742a6e93a7_story.html
*Composting food
www.epa.gov/recycle/composting-home
https://insteading.com/blog/compost-vs-landfill-does-it-really-make-a-difference/
www.motherearthnews.com/nature-and-environment/compost-reduces-ghg-emissions-zbcz2003
*80% of food waste happens at homes, grocery stores and restaurants, so ugly food consumption makes a relatively small fraction of the waste. Dr Sarah Taber adds that change should come from the farmers
www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2019/03/08/feature/farms-arent-tossing-perfectly-good-produce-you-are/
https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/the-goods/2019/2/26/18240399/food-waste-ugly-produce-myths-farms
*Obesity linked to extra 1.6% of GHG emissions
https://eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-12/tos-sso121819.php
*As organic material decomposes or transforms in a compost pile, the primary gas given off is CO2. This is not considered to have an effect on global warming, as the plant matter and other feedstocks that are decomposing are from what is called the short-term carbon cycle
www.biocycle.net/composting-and-greenhouse-gas-emissions-a-producers-perspective/
*Carrying capacity comparison of different diets with higher results for scenarios with less meat and highest for lacto-vegetarian diet
www.elementascience.org/articles/10.12952/journal.elementa.000116/
*Organic agriculture doesn't overly harm crop yields or add too much additional land. Solutions must involve reducing food waste as well
https://daily.jstor.org/does-organic-agriculture-contribute-to-climate-change/
*Fertilizers production makes ~1% of total GHG emissions (?)
www.fertilizer.org/Public/About_fertilizers/Fertilizers_Topics/Public/About_Fertilizers/Fertilizer_Topics/Climate_Change.aspx?hkey=a2c49ada-75aa-4256-bb8b-e51dc7d18bb5
*85% of palm oil is produced for food
https://foodrevolution.org/blog/palm-oil-facts/
Forest cover
*26%/world now, ~10%less by 2050, 20%by 2100 >> 20%/world Forest cover / 6% loss [before man 36%/world]
*Tree cover in total increasing? -- Forests make 26%-39mkm2 = 3367.7mha. In 2002-2019 61.4mha were lost (0.54%)
www.globalforestwatch.org/
https://phys.org/news/2018-08-global-forest-loss-years-offset.html
*Forest loss ~35% will remain of plants and animals
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100805172957.htm
*Deforestation
www.fao.org/forest-resources-assessment/2020/en/
www.futuretimeline.net/blog/2015/08/27.htm
www.funalysis.net/forestry-6-main-causes-of-deforestation
https://ourworldindata.org/land-use
https://ecologicview.wordpress.com/2013/03/27/rainforests-more-resilient-to-global-warming/
*planting tree is possibly the best long term reduction solution
www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/04/planting-billions-trees-best-tackle-climate-crisis-scientists-canopy-emissions?fbclid=IwAR2zfgVEY8HHAPWATY4I3yV518eXO03_YCF7kA2Wbi0o0ZP96lGwQFESkFc
*Agriculture causes 80% of deforestation while logging is the biggest single driver for forest degradation (2012)
https://news.mongabay.com/2012/09/agriculture-causes-80-of-tropical-deforestation/
*Big increase in the number of fires in the Amazon in 2020
www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-53626544?fbclid=IwAR3KegXtD9BJdfclZDV6PSNNktKEST_VQGJ1OO2ZoZGvymEVCSa-k-Tbam8*Amazon forest cutting in 2020 is 51% larger in size than in 2019, with nearly 800 square kilometers of forests cut down
https://news.mongabay.com/2020/05/amazon-fires-may-be-worse-in-2020-as-
*"Human activity has caused the loss of about 40 % of the planet’s original forests since preagricultural times, starting ca. 8000 years ago (Shvidenko et al. 2005 )."
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Projected-changes-in-global-forest-cover-until-2050-under-various-global-scenarios-the_fig2_285992756*Forest loss between 2000-2012: 2.3m km2 loss (0.8m km2 gain), with 2101 km2/year
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/342/6160/850*2050 Global forest cover projections for 2050: High 30% change from 2000, Low 60%
www.researchgate.net/figure/Projected-changes-in-global-forest-cover-until-2050-under-various-global-scenarios-the_fig2_285992756*EU's new plan: 30% of land and seas to become a protected area by 2030 by planting 3 billion trees. Some environmentalists are sceptic about their seriousness
www.euronews.com/living/2020/05/21/3-billion-trees-to-be-planted-across-europe-by-2030-as-part-of-a-plan-to-restore-nature?fbclid=IwAR18it9JetKzEn6LfHBK0l9qrrA3qj1oRZhJ8_o0fAA-Xf2yVHVLtZzMRVg
*Illegal gold mining led to deforestation of thousands of hectares in the Amazon in 2019
https://news.mongabay.com/2020/04/gold-mining-threatens-indigenous-forests-in-the-brazilian-amazon/
*Drivers of deforestation: 41% from beef (mainly from Brazil), palm oil and soy 18% (mainy from Indonesian palm oil, only 6% of soy goes to human food). The third largest driver is forestry products, mainly paper but also timber.
*Beef (41%), soy (16.1%) and palm oil (2.3-3.5%) account for 59.4% of deforestation, while 13% comes from paper and wood tree plantation, 9.6% from cereals, 7.3% from vegetables, fruit and nuts, 5.6% from rice, 3.6% from other crops, 1.1% from sugar, and 0.5% from plant based sugars
https://ourworldindata.org/what-are-drivers-deforestation
https://palmoilalliance.eu/palm-oil-deforestation/
*Mostl global soy beans are used for animals feed (75-81%)
https://ourworldindata.org/soy
www.tabledebates.org/building-blocks/soy-food-feed-and-land-use-change#SOYBB2
*New study: humans are responsible for destroying or degrading two-thirds of Earth's tropical rainforests
www.cbsnews.com/news/tropical-rainforests-reduced-by-two-thirds-by-humans/
*"There aren't enough trees to offset society's carbon emissions - and there never will be. If we absolutely maximised the amount of vegetation all land on Earth could hold, we'd sequester enough carbon to offset about ten years of greenhouse gas emissions at current rates. After that, there could be no further increase in carbon capture."
Natural forests also store more carbon than plantation forests, due to complex stand structures and accumulation of belowground and in the forest floor. Features that take centuries to emerge.
Researches are in unanimous agreement that land ecosystems have a finite capacity to take up carbon. And, fundamental misunderstandings about carbon capture by land ecosystems can have devastating consequences, paradoxically resulting in loss of biodiversity and an increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations.
*30% (or even more) of tree species in the wild are threatened with extinction, according to a new report
*To end deforestation, companies must eliminate 5 million hectares of conversion from supply chains each year.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30213911/
*Deadwood releasing 10.9 gigatons of carbon every year - roughly 115% of fossil fuel emissions.
Insects account for 29% of deadwood carbon release.
www.anu.edu.au/news/all-news/deadwood-releasing-109-gigatons-of-carbon-every-year
*Study shows a major part of developing countries' emissions come from developed countries' consumption.
Changes in land use cause about 25% of global emissions, with 22% of global crop and pasture lands designated for export.
*Climate stresses on forests, such as heat, drought, fires, pests and pathogens, are increasing a lot faster than expected. New research suggests that droughts, rather than the amount of CO2 in the air and photosynthesis, may have the biggest impact on how quickly trees grow in the future. Lowering GHG emissions could have a huge impact for avoiding damage to forests form wildfires, drought and insects.
Together, the two studies suggest that the benefits of CO2 for tree growth won't be nearly as large as people thought, which has huge implications on using forests as carbon offsets.
Transportation
*Emissions by type of transportation. In the US (2006): 32% cars+motorcycles, 26% light-duty trucks, 19.5% big trucks and buses, 8% planes, 6.5% boats, 8% other and lubricants
www.transportation.gov/sustainability/climate/transportation-ghg-emissions-and-trends*Emissions by type of transportation. Worldwide (2010): 71% Road, 11.5% Air, 9.5% Maritime, 3.5% Rail, 3.5% Pipeline, 1% Other
www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ipcc_wg3_ar5_chapter8.pdf (page 8)
*Light-duty vehicles (mostly cars) make almost half of the world's transportation energy use
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=23832
*Global transport-sector greenhouse gas emissions by mode
www.researchgate.net/figure/Global-transport-sector-greenhouse-gas-emissions-by-mode_fig1_335104931
*2019 Transportation world CO2 emissions:
Passenger Cars (41%), Medium and Heavy Trucks (21%), Aviation (12.5%), Shpping (11%), Buses (6%), Light-commercial vehicles (5%), Two/Three wheelers (2.5%), Rail (1%)
https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions-from-transport
*Transport sector emitted about 7.3 billion metric tons of CO2 in 2020, with passenger cars emitting 41% (about 3 billion metric tons)
www.statista.com/statistics/1185535/transport-carbon-dioxide-emissions-breakdown/
Flights & Cruises
Air travel emissions in 2018 were 2.4% of co2, and in total 5% of GHG
www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-the-growth-in-greenhouse-gas-emissions-from-commercial-aviation
*Air travel emissions growing by 1.5%
www.nytimes.com/2019/09/19/climate/air-travel-emissions.html
*New study says aviation contributes to 3.5% of GHG, with only a third coming from CO2 emissions. International aviation accounts for 64% of air traffic
https://phys.org/news/2020-09-aviation-contributes-drivers-climate-stem.html
*Cargo flights made 8.3% of total flights in 2020
www.iata.org/contentassets/a686ff624550453e8bf0c9b3f7f0ab26/wats-2021-mediakit.pdf
*10% of most frequent fliers emit more than half of commercial flights CO2 emissions
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378020307779#s0065
*12% air travel from business
www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/041315/how-much-revenue-airline-industry-comes-business-travelers-compared-leisure-travelers.asp
*Purpose of air travel: 40.6% business, 50.5% leisure, 8.9% other
www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-airline-travel-is-for-business-vs-personal (unavailable source, on quote: "2001 National Household Travel Survey")
*Train vs plane, considering life cycle emissions, maintenance, use and infrastructure
www.wired.co.uk/article/trains-planes-emissions-co2-comparison
*25% of flight fuel emissions occur during take-off and landing
https://flight.nasa.gov/pdf/18_jung_green_aviation_summit.pdf
*1% of human population causes half of aviation emissions, with North Americans flying the most, as 11% of the population took a flight in 2018 and 4% only flew abroad
www.theguardian.com/business/2020/nov/17/people-cause-global-aviation-emissions-study-covid-19
*Cruise ships emissions on the rise
www.tourismdashboard.org/explore-the-data/cruise-ship/
*Cruise ships can emit as much as a million cars, with deck air pollution as bad as the most polluted cities
www.euractiv.com/section/air-pollution/news/daily-emissions-of-cruise-ships-same-as-one-million-cars/
*General and military aviation accounted for 10% or less of all aviation CO2 in an icct study, October 2020
While in the US, commercial air travel accounted for most of the aircraft carbon dioxide emissions, with military and general aviation making up the rest [EPA, 2018]
www.c2es.org/content/reducing-carbon-dioxide-emissions-from-aircraft/
*The US military emitted in 2017 up to 59 million tonnes of CO2 (or 23,367.1 ktCO2e), with the Air Force being by far the largest emitter of GHG. For comparison, global GHG emissions in 2017 was 47990.47 MtCO₂e.
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190620100005.htm
Cars
*Bus vs car, co2 kg per passenger: electric: 0.043 small: 0.11 medium: 0.133 large : 0.183 hybrid: 0.084 taxi: 0.17 bus: 0.069 mini bus: 0.055
www.co2nnect.org/help_sheets/?op_id=602&opt_id=98
http://bic.asn.au/information-for-moving-people/climate-change-and-public-transport
*Purpose of road travel statistics
www2.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Transport-Travel/TrendCarOccupancy
*Avoiding aggressive driving can save up to 40% of fuel
www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/driveHabits.jsp
*Inflating car tires properly (0.6%-3% gas mileage improvement)
www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/maintain.jsp
*Carpool - In 2014 over 76% of US commuters drove to work alone
https://energy.gov/eere/vehicles/fact-946-october-10-2016-driving-alone-private-vehicle-most-common-means
*When idling for more than 10 seconds it's more efficient to turn the car off
www.zigwheels.com/guide/fuel-efficiency-guide/switching-off-your-engine-at-traffic-signals/11604/
*Most efficient cars (mostly small-mid sized)
www.carsguide.com.au/car-advice/the-most-efficient-cars-detailed-city-small-family-sports-suv-and-luxury-30253
*Electric cars reduce lifecycle emissions, battery production emissions in comparison with traditional vehicles still uncertain
www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-how-electric-vehicles-help-to-tackle-climate-change
www.bbc.com/news/amp/science-environment-51977625
https://theicct.org/publications/EV-battery-manufacturing-emissions
*Electric car batteries may be responsible for major local pollution and human rights violation
www.forbes.com/sites/tilakdoshi/2020/08/02/the-dirty-secrets-of-clean-electric-vehicles/?fbclid=IwAR1jfXy_Z0xpU3WoXuH-eCxPTwxw4DjttqPEuAjqFAANxTqRzIsr1VjXCDk#49dd0210650b
*Hybrid cars may pollute three times more than in lab tests
www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54170207
*Electric bikes 10-20 times more energy-efficient than cars
www.curbed.com/2017/6/5/15743080/transportation-cycling-electric-bikes-commuters
*Electric vehicles have a smaller carbon footprint, no matter the source of electricity
https://earthjustice.org/features/electric-vehicles-explainer
*Norway's EV success story, of a 54% market share of battery electric vehicles (2020), is thanks to (amongst other factors) lowering taxes on EVs and raising them on fossil fueled cars, making EV vehicles cheaper.
https://elbil.no/english/norwegian-ev-policy/
*There are 145 million electric cars predicted to be on the roads by 2030, and with them, more than 12 million tons of lithium-ion batteries are expected to retire by then, threatening to leave a mountain of electronic waste, as well as climate, environmental and human rights impacts.
www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/20/electric-car-batteries-what-happens-to-them
*New research suggests 12 best ways to get cars out of the city
https://theconversation.com/12-best-ways-to-get-cars-out-of-cities-ranked-by-new-research-180642
Glaciers & Sea Level
www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/climate-change/global-warming/the-melting-ice-caps
*Sea level Jan2000: 14.94cm Jan2018: 21.36cm
www.sealevels.org/
*Glacier retreat - by 2100 half of glaciers will be gone
www.antarcticglaciers.org/glaciers-and-climate/glacier-recession/mapping-worlds-glaciers/
*Glaciers retreat - by 2100 galciers will lose 18-36% of their mass
www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/melting-glaciers-may-add-10-inches-to-sea-levels-by-2100-study/story-JgtRWWc4Ou3UbKmVlukDiI.html
*Sea level rise - 1/3 by glaciers, 1/3 by thermal expansion, and 1/3 by slowing gulf stream (mostly from glaciers) & land sinkage (from water consumption, wetlands dry, heavy buildings)
https://sealevelrise.org/causes/
www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-sea-level
*Sea level rise by 62-238cm by 2100
https://sealevelrise.org/forecast/
*Sea level projections up 60-100cm
www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/02/antarctic-greenland-ice-melt-less-bad/
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/sea-level-rise-may-double-forecast-for-2100/
*Sea levels at 1900 were 0.188 meters lower than in 2018 (1.6mm/year)
https://scitechdaily.com/nasa-research-reveals-the-true-causes-of-sea-level-rise-since-1900/
*Sea level rise of 0.5-2.1m could increase ties by 0.1-0.5m, elevating potential sea level rise risks alongside worse hurricanes
www.bbc.com/future/article/20200703-how-humans-are-altering-the-tides-of-the-oceans
*Ocean acidification might be worse than expected
www.earth.com/news/ocean-acidification-will-be-worse-than-expected-in-the-arctic
/?fbclid=IwAR3xDImQSUgPP22fBMAvaEwT2rlkpt7eouc0NncmWyo15ru4BGpk_9EeIuE#.XxJDRtwfM-Q.facebook
*Current summer (2020) breaking big records with hottest summer in Svalbard. Even the direst climate model scenarios tend to underestimate the current trends
www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/07/29/arctic-climate-change-hastens
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-0860-7
*Last fully intact ice shelf in the Canadian Arctic lost more than 40% of its are in two days at the end of July, as the Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of Earth
www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/07/canadian-ice-shelf-area-bigger-than-manhattan-collapses-due-to-rising-temperatures
*Arctic could be ice-free by 2035
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/10082020/arctic-sea-ice-melt-pools-warming-climate
*Greenland's Melting Ice Sheet Passed a Point of No Return in the Early 2000s. Even if global warming was to stop today, the ice sheet would continue shrinking
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/14082020/greenland-ice-sheet-melt-climate-change
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200813123550.htm?fbclid=IwAR0WferxzrQBX_PcewIsBDWk_KcR1wuvmMHaUb-JIwqyugVfPk-4DIMKqp4#:~:text=The finding%2C published today%2C Aug,into the ocean from glaciers
*Estimated 28 trillion tonnes of ice lost since 1994, 7.6 trillion tonnes from Arctic Sea ice, 6.5 from Antarctica ice shelves, 6.2 from Mountain glaciers, 3.8 form Greenland ice sheet, 2.5 from Antarctica Ice sheet and 0.9 from Southern Ocean sea ice about 68% of the ice loss was caused by warmer air and 32% by warmer oceans.
www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/23/earth-lost-28-trillion-tonnes-ice-30-years-global-warming?fbclid=IwAR3EbfIS-oSjUS_ixVdaNHf-Gave6nW_UhI9gv8HXKSnZltq_UeEVtH92mQ
www.ecowatch.com/earth-sea-ice-melt-study-2647072206.html?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1
*Ice sheets melting at worse-case-scenario pace, faster than the models used to guide researchers
www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-crisis-ice-sheets-melting-global-warming-greenland-antarctic-a9699921.html
*Cyclones could push ice from the Arctic
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2020/08/methane-hydrates-tipping-point-threatens-to-get-crossed.html?fbclid=IwAR0aGt9eNtltaqWNjXSQmxO1go1UnsNxNNLpDhQYu-RWfgRKvGzGqMu9xs4
*Present-day glacier coverage: 10-11% of land, with 15m km2 of the 24m km2 of water source in ice caps (2.5m km3), glaciers and permanent snow
www.eniscuola.net/en/argomento/cryosphere/the-earths-ice/how-much-ice-is-there-on-the-earth/
www.usgs.gov/special-topic/water-science-school/science/ice-snow-and-glaciers-and-water-cycle?qt-
science_center_objects=0#qt-science_center_objects
*625 gigatonnes of ice was lost from 1961 to 2016, raising sea level by 27 mm. Currently we lose 335 billion tons of ice a year, corresponding to almost 1mm sea rise annually
https://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/glaciers-lose-9-trillion-tons-of-ice-in-half-a-century/
*Greenland lost almost 4 trillion (=1 Gigaton) tonnes of ice since 1992, causing a sea level rise of ~11mm
https://thecbdalert.com/2019/09/04/climate-change-greenlands-ice-faces-melting-death-sentence/
https://orbi.uliege.be/handle/2268/242139
*Ice loss in Antarctica & Greenland increased sixfold in the last 30 years
www.livescience.com/antarctica-greenland-ice-shelf-loss.html
*Antarctic Ice sheet lost between 2006-2015 ~155Gt/year(0.43mm), while in 1997-2006 about ~52Gt/year(0.14mm) [2007-2016 rate = 3 times of 1997-2006, so divided by 3] ( = 1997-2015 ~2070Gt/5.7mm rise) [1mm rise =3.6Gt. So 1000mm (1 Meter) rise = 3,600Gt loss by 2100]
www.climatesignals.org/events/antarctic-melt-1992
*Currently projected high tide lines for 2100 (under low carbon emissions) - 80 million more people affected than previously calculated. Under high emissions scenario - 630 million.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12808-z
*Over the long-term, paleoclimate records indicate that greenhouse gas emissions in the 20th and 21st centuries could cause 95 to 180 feet (29 to 55 meters) of sea level-rise, depending on future emission levels.
www.climatesignals.org/events/antarctic-melt-1992
*Sea level rise scenarios for 2100, measured by tidal gauge: 18cm low to 201cm high
www.researchgate.net/figure/NOAA-PROJECTIONS-FOR-GLOBAL-SEA-LEVEL-RISE-TO-2100-THE-LOWEST-SCENARIO-ASSUMES-VERY_fig15_289999590
*[If 00.43 SLE = 113,915gt then total global ice mass is 65.59 SLE = 17,376,011gt ]
[Between 2012-2016 the retreat was about 665gt/year, Between 1992-2017 Antarctica alone lost 2720gt, Greenland is losing <283gt/year and Antarctica 145gt/year,
So in 30 years, they lost together about 12,000gt (8490+4350). Conclusion: Out of the total ice mass of 17,376,011gt, 0.069% (12,000gt) of ice was lost in the past 30 years]
www.antarcticglaciers.org/glaciers-and-climate/what-is-the-global-volume-of-land-ice-and-how-is-it-changing/?fbclid=IwAR0jwcSMFg6I2WKCs-rzAyaFR5SIYJWr2o8Is9Z4mp8d2dV9WUGZsqBXlLE
*19% of Antarctic ice sheet surface melted in past 20 years (between 1999-2019 more than 2.63m km2, nearly a fifth of the total area)
*[Arctic sea ice] won't come back in any time frame meaningful to human existence"
www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUzokM-WTZ0&feature=youtu.be&t=1111
*[Documenatries compilation] Scientists say old climate models are now obsolete. Climate Scientist Laura Landrum: "The climate in Arctic is changing so fast that it's now transitioning into a new climate, that can't be predicted by the recent past". Dr. Sala: "Melting of the arctic is the most dramatic transformation of a large environment ever". Prof. Jason E. Box: "Projections for the future are really conservative".
*Rate of ice loss is now in line with the IPCC's worst case scenario, as about 28 trillion tonnes of ice between 1994-2017 (equivalent to about 35 millimetres of sea leve rise), which is enough to cover the entire UK with an ice sheet 100 metres thick. The greatest quantities were lost in the Arctic sea, raising the risk of a feedback mechanism known as albedo loss.
www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/25/global-ice-loss-accelerating-at-record-rate-study-finds
*Sea levels are rising faster than most pessimistic forecasts: New research indicates that economies have to emit even less carbon than budgeted to keep oceans from rising more than 1 meter at 2 degrees celsius warming.
*Evidence of Pine Island Glacier (which is two thirds the size of England) in Western Antarctica's tipping point is confirmed in a new research - with ocean temperartures reaching 1.2 degrees celsius.
The Western Antarctica Ice Sheet contains enough ice to raise sea level by over three metres.
"Should the glacier enter unstable irreversable retreat, the impact on sea level could be measured in metres, and as this study shows, once the retreat starts it might be impossible to halt it".
www.northumbria.ac.uk/about-us/news-events/news/antarctic-tipping-point
*Water explusion mechanism in the West Anarctica ice sheet could raise sea levels by up to 30% more than previously thought. This means an extra meter added to the sea-level rise predictions of the next 1,000 years: 4 meters rise instead of 3.2.
*[Article from 2017, could be outdated] Possibility of an early BOE (Blue Ocean Event, or Arctic sea ice dissappearance) is usually ignored in climate models, as it's calculated to happen around 2040-2050, and not earlier. An earlier BOE happening between 2020 to 2030, could result in a carbon budget of zero, or even a negative number.
www.resilience.org/stories/2017-06-21/the-impacts-of-an-ice-free-arctic-a-climate-paradigm-shift/
*Greeland's worst-case-scenario glaciers melting might be polluting coastal areas with shocking amounts of mercury
*Just 2% of Arctic ice cover consisted of old, thick ice in March 2020, after a decline of more than 86% since 1985
www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/reporting-state-climate-2020
*Melting of polar ice shifts the Earth itself, not just sea levels
https://phys.org/news/2021-09-polar-ice-shifting-earth-sea.html
*Data visualization for sea level rise in cities
https://earth.org/data-visualizations/sea-level-rise-cities/
*The Arctic is changing so fast, it's shocking the scientsts who study it
Biodiversity
*Biodiversity down by 50% by 2100
www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/feb/25/half-all-species-extinct-end-century-vatican-conference#img-1
*Estimation of 3 to 30 million species
www.thoughtco.com/how-many-animal-species-on-planet-130923
*Estimation of 9 million species
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110823180459.htm
*Biodivesrity and extinction
https://biodivvy.com/about/ www.urbangreenbluegrids.com/biodiversity/
www.globalissues.org/article/171/loss-of-biodiversity-and-extinctions https://wwf.panda.org/knowledge_hub/all_publications/living_planet_index2/
*Biodiversity loss causes
www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/09/why-we-need-a-paris-agreement-for-nature/
*Extinction data
https://ourworldindata.org/extinctions
*Today 3 billion fewer bird than 50 years ago
www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/3-billion-fewer-wild-birds-soar-the-skies-than-in-1970-study-finds
*Over 20% of reptiles worldwide face risk of extinction (21% of 10,106 reptile species analyzed), with 6 of the 7 sea turtle species threatened (and the 7th lacks data to make classification).
Worldwide, the greatest threat to reptile life is habitat destruction, followed by hunting, invasive species and climate change, with forest reptiles (such as the King cobra) being more threatend than desert-dwellers.
www.pbs.org/newshour/science/over-20-percent-of-reptiles-worldwide-face-risk-of-extinction
*North America has lost more than 1 in 4 birds in last 50 years
www.audubon.org/news/north-america-has-lost-more-1-4-birds-last-50-years-new-study-says
*Comparison of animals being killed for livestock vs. vegan crops
www.bitesizevegan.org/bite-size-vegan-nuggets/qa/do-vegans-kill-more-animals-than-meat-eaters/
*Agriculture takes more than one-third of the world's landmass and endangers 62% of all threatened species
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200720145917.htm
*"If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos". The 10 quintillion insects of the world make about 80% of all animals, and their numbers are dropping fast.
www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2020/05/where-have-all-the-insects-gone-feature/
*About 100 million marine animals are killed by plastic a year
http://noplasticoceans.com/how-many-animals-die-from-plastic/
*Major difference in high vs. low emission scenarios for global biodiversity loss
https://theconversation.com/climate-change-could-cause-abrupt-biodiversity-losses-this-century-135968
*Fifth of countries at risk of ecosystem collapse, analysis finds, as more than half of global GDP ($42tn) depends on high-functioning biodiversity
*Almost 90% of the world's animal species will lose some habitat due to agriculture by 2050
*"Death by a thousand cuts": Insect decline in the Anthropocene
www.pnas.org/content/118/2/e2023989118
*Polar bears could go extinct by the end of the century due to starvaction, if Arctic sea ice continues to melt at its projected rate
https://bigthink.com/surprising-science/polar-bears-could-be-extinct-by-2100
*Insects of declied by about 75% in the past 50 years, and the consequences may soon be catastrophic
*Main causes of extinction: Over-exploitation (72%), agriculture (62%), urban development (35%), invasion and disease (27%), pollution (22%), landscape modification (22%), climate change (19%), human disturbance (14%), transport (14%), energy production (11%) and geological events (1.4%)
https://ourworldindata.org/threats-to-wildlife
*Study finds correlation between rate of marine animal extinction and temperarture changes, even when the large five mass extinctions are excluded. Their findings predict that an increase of 5.2 celsius at present rate of increase will likely result in a mass extinction comparable to the major mass extinctions, even without other, non-climatic anthropogenic impacts.
www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-25019-2
*Komodo dragon and other animals added to list of endangered species
www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/komodo-dragon-monitor-lizard-endangered-b1914615.html
* Biodiversity loss risks 'ecological meltdown' - the UK has about half of its biodiversity left
www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-58859105
*1 million species of animals are currently threatend with extinction, many within a few decades.
If we continue to lose biodiversity, the world’s most vulnerable people will not be able to adapt to climate change nor sustainably produce food.
*Incorporating estimates of the true number of invertebrate extinctions leads to the conclusion that the rate vastly exceeds the background rate and that we may indeed be witnessing the start of the Sixth Mass Extinction
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/brv.12816
*New study estimates that by 2080, around 70% fo the world's oceans could be suffocating from a lack of oxygen as a result of climate change, potentially impacting marine ecosystems worldwide. New models find mid-ocean depths that support many fisheries worldwide are already losing oxygen at unnatural rates and passed a critical threshold of oxygen loss in 2021, with oceans closer to the poles being particularly vulnerable to deoxygenation
https://news.agu.org/press-release/climate-change-has-likely-begun-to-suffocate-the-worlds-fisheries
*The average animal-dispersed plant has experienced a 60% reduction in its ability to keep pace with climate change
www.science.org/content/article/seed-hauling-animals-decline-some-plants-can-t-keep-climate-change
*Almost two-thirds of species at deep-sea hydrothermal vents are at risk of extinction
https://phys.org/news/2021-12-two-thirds-species-deep-sea-hydrothermal-vents.html
*Infrastructure such as roads and hotels is needed to drive biodiversity tourism, according to a Costa Rica-based study
*Flying insect numbers in Great Britian have plunged by almost 60% since 2004, according to a splats on car registration plates survey (a survey from Denmark from 1997 to 2017 found an 80% decline).
The study suggests an average of a 34% decline of flying insects per decade
*Climate change increases cross-species viral transmission risk
www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04788-w
*The global food system is the primary driver of biodiversity loss, with agriculture alone being the identified threat to 24,000 out of 28,000 (86%) species at risk of extinction.
The global rate of species extinction today is higher than the average rate over the past 10 million years.
A reform of food systems is a matter of urgency and should focus on three interdependant actions:
*Global dietary patterns need to move towards more plant-heavy diets
*More land needs to be protected and set aside for nature
*We need to farm in a more nature-friendly, biodiversity-supporting way, limiting the use of inputs and replacing monoculture with polyculture farming practices
www.unep.org/news-and-stories/press-release/our-global-food-system-primary-driver-biodiversity-loss
*The desert's fragile "living skin" (the biocrust, which covers 12% of the planet's surface), home to fungi, lichen and bacteria that protect the deserts from erosion like a glue that holds the soil together, is being destroyed by climate change and human activity. The biocrust could be nearing a tipping point, as it has an upper heat limit, that we don't fully understand yet. Without it, there will be no soil, as it will have been blown by winds into rivers and our lungs. The biocrust prevents the horrible dust storms and bowls like we saw in the 1930s, absorbs water, provides stability for plant growth, increases soil fertility, aids in carbon storage, reduces mudslides and impacts the hydrological cycle in the region, protects municipal groundwater sources, and prevents dust from lowering the albedo of nearby glaciers
www.wired.com/story/the-fragile-skin-of-the-desert-cant-take-much-more-heat
*Emperor penguins could go extinct within 30-40 years, due to their babies' increasing exposure to water instead of solid ice, which could make them die of cold and drown
https://globalnews.ca/news/8816107/emperor-penguin-extinction-risk-climate-change/
*At least 76% decline of global freshwater migratory fish, in less than 50 years (1970-2016)
www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/migratory-freshwater-fish-decline-globally
*Ocean fish number cut in half in 42 years (1970-2012)
www.scientificamerican.com/article/ocean-fish-numbers-cut-in-half-since-1970/
Population
*Richest 30% responsible for 79% of carbon (only) emissions - 1,6 billion people, while richest 10% are responsible for half of emissions - 0.8 billion people
https://qz.com/563523/the-richest-10-of-people-generate-half-the-worlds-carbon-emissions/
www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/population_and_sustainability/climate/
https://populationmatters.org/the-facts/climate-change
www.cbc.ca/news/technology/population-climate-change-1.5331133
www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-05/scientists-call-for-population-control-in-mass-climate-alarmwww.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/want-to-fight-climate-change-have-fewer-children
www.thebalancesmb.com/how-overpopulation-impacts-the-environment-4172964
*Making the world a better place for others is good for all
www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvskMHn0sqQ
*Surprising new estimations for 8.8 billion people by 2100 - talks of open immigration policies and inverted age structure - 2 billion less than UN projections
www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/15/world-population-in-2100-could-be-2-billion-below-un-forecasts-study-suggests
*Life expectancy past and future projections
https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy (US & Europe)
www.census.gov/library/working-papers/2019/demo/paa19_medina_sabo.html
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/future-life-expectancy-projections
*Example from USA (2019) - 8% of families living with a child under 18, at a fertility rate of 1.7 children, And with 82% belonging to the richest 10% of the world ($25K annual income per household). The birth rate of the richest 82% is 53 births per 1000 women annually, while of the 18 is 63 of 1000 (bigger by 16% only).
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN
www.statista.com/statistics/183790/number-of-families-in-the-us-by-number-of-children/
www.statista.com/statistics/236814/percentage-distribution-of-us-families-in-the-us-by-income/
www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-family-income-in-the-us/
*New study predicts peak population 9,730 billion people in 2064 and 8,790 in 2100. Scenario of meeting the 'Sustainable Development' Goals will result in 6-7 billion people in 2100.
www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30677-2/fulltext?fbclid=IwAR01NHMeplIj8bsICRtgsn_fUCFnmM5YhqpEcUIKQ0l8BLEvzz-EpO7_MGw
*Dr. Jane O'Sullivan reacts to the research with contradicting keypoints, claiming that their findings do not convey the "Business-As-Usual" scenario, and that the UN projections have been quite accurate in recent years - and therefore the studies' results that differ from the UN's, could be off
https://overpopulation-project.com/will-global-population-peak-below-10-billion/?fbclid=IwAR0vF9BI7GlipKSpZxuobNWLzf4kHc89usbsFBh2BWdbfRb74vbRAf42gZ4
*A research (*by two scientists) links deforestation with population growth to collapse of mankind in a matter of decades, if current resource consumption trends continue
www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-63657-6
*Possible improvement in life conditions in Europe for the remaining population, after half of it was deceased from the black plage [*Needless to say that death should not serve as a controller of population size but birth rate instead]
www.livescience.com/45428-health-improved-black-death.html
*China could halve population by 2100
www.nextbigfuture.com/2020/07/forecast-for-china-population-to-halve-by-2100.html?fbclid=IwAR1a5z7vARyhX6O9F1jHFnfH5wfyq8r_Yfuq7TjiVuL2njZ32TOSkt4W2ZY
*When talking about population, some rich people wrongly blame the poor for environmental impacts
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/26/panic-overpopulation-climate-crisis-consumption-environment
*New projections of escalating growth increase the tension between humanity's expanding needs and what the planet can provide
www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/9/140920-population-11billion-demographics-anthropocene/
* Social dimensions of fertility behavior and consumption patterns in the Anthropocene study: "We argue that bottom-up social mechanisms rather than top-down government interventions are better placed to bring about those ecologically desirable changes."
www.pnas.org/content/117/12/6300
*Ageing paranoia, its fictional basis and all too real costs"
https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:368449
*[Opinion] An ageing population is good for us and the planet
*Overpopulation and the Impact on the Environment
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/1906/
www.everythingconnects.org/overpopulation-effects.html
*Prof. Paul Ehrlich: "Collapse of civilisation is a near certainty within decades"
*Research that conducted an online analysis of 228 organizations' websites, from climate change groups to health institutions, concludes that most conservation and environmental organizations don't address population growth head-on.
www.ecowatch.com/the-population-conversation-2653328821.html
*Study calculates 83 million excess deaths from global warming by 2100
www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-24487-w
*About 1 billion (half of the world's) children live in extremely high-risky countries for climate change impacts
www.unicef.org/reports/climate-crisis-child-rights-crisis
*Borin into the Climate Crisis: Why we must act now to secure children's rights
*About 58.6 million people are facung severe acute food insecurity in East Africa
Misc
*Peaceful protests makes influence
www.rewire.org/peaceful-protest/
www.bbc.com/future/article/20190513-it-only-takes-35-of-people-to-change-the-world
www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/education/why-less-than-10-make-change-happen/
www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/news/research-finds-tipping-point-large-scale-social-change
*Study outlines the positive social "tipping elements" needed to address climate change
https://grist.org/climate/stis-can-save-the-planet-no-not-those-stis/
*Leading climate change discussions with information can cause people to shut down and reject, while a more compassionate approach asking them what they know and want to learn is more engaging
*Natural causes to climate change:
Fires, Water vapor, Volcanic activity, Swamp and peatland drying, Solar activity, Permafrost melting, Orbital changes
www.eartheclipse.com/global-warming/natural-and-man-made-causes-of-global-warming.html
https://greentumble.com/3-main-natural-causes-of-climate-change/
*Climate change and nature loss are interlinked and and must be tackled together, says a report by 50 leading scientists.
"Quick fixes" for climate change risk harming nature.
"Simple 'quick fixes'", such as misguided tree planting, larg-scale bioenergy crops or technological innovations, are shown to be ineffective (and sometimes actively harmful) when implemented without a holistic approach.
www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-57425311
*Ignoring climate change will yield 'untold suffering', panel of 14,000 scientists warns
www.livescience.com/earth-vital-signs-climate-change-suffering.html
*Prediction over time: detailed scenario [opinion]
https://eand.co/this-is-just-the-beginning-of-the-climate-apocalypse-db33a473fd91
*Severe droughts in Madagascar causes the country to be on the brink of climate change-induced famine
www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-58303792
*Studies that calculated carbon footprint analysis suggest that for the [examined] average course graduate [from a one year university course], [these] decisions reduced their individual carbon emissions by 2.86 tons of CO2 per year, by developing a strong personal connection to climate change solutions
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0206266
* Climate Action Tracker's temperature estimate of all adopted national policies (‘current policies’ scenario) is 2.9°C
*For mileniia, human populations have resided in the same narrow part of the climate envelope available on the
globe, characterized by a major mode around ∼11 °C to 15 °C mean annual temperature (MAT).
In a business-as-usual climate change scenario, the geographical position of this temperature niche is projected to shift more over the coming 50 y than it has moved since 6000 BP.
www.pnas.org/content/117/21/11350
*Report calls for tan end to the luxury lifestyle of the super-rich
*During 2021's East Africa droughts are causing at least 26 million people to struggle for food, and risks lives of wild animals, with reported losses of up to 70% of livestock
www.bbc.com/news/av/world-africa-59513118
*Chemical pollution has passed safe limits for humanity, say scientists
Energy & Targets
*Majority of remaining fossil fuels must stay in the ground to limit climate crisis below critical threshold, study shows.
The autuors also noted that their findings may be an underestimate, since their model doesn't consider future Earth system feedbacks, nor does it take into account underlying uncertainties around the deployment of technologies needed to curb emissions.
In reality, countries are actually projecting an average increase in fossil fuel production of 2% annually
*Different impacts of eco-anxiety, eco-depression, and eco-anger on climate action and well-being
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/09/08/us/fossil-fuel-budget-climate-change-study/index.html
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2667278221000018
*Fossil fuel air pollution could be responsible for 1 in 5 deaths worldwide, more than 8 million people each year
www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2021/feb/fossil-fuel-air-pollution-responsible-1-5-deaths-worldwide
*Inside the world's first diplomatic alliance to keep oil and gas in the ground
*Current climate policies take us on a "catastrophic pathway" towards a 2.7 degrees temperarture rise
https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/09/1100242
*Nearly half of existing facilities will need to close prematurely to limit heating to 1.5 degrees
Promising large-scale solutions:
-Converting CO2 from the air to synthetic limestone, with a potentional for sequestring >25 GT CO2/yr,
-Ocean pasture restoration, with a potentional for sequestring >25 GT CO2/yr,
-Marine permaculture/restoring primary productivity of oceans, with a potentional for sequestring >25 GT CO2/yr,
-Direct air capture with CO2 pumped underground, with a potentional for sequestring >25 GT CO2/yr,
-Ocean alkalinization,
-Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage,
-Agriculture, forestry and improved land use,
-Ocean downwelling
*Climate plan, by Arctic News
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2019/06/climate-plan.html
Economic aspects
*A comprehensive comparison of 'degrowth' with established pathways to limit climate change highlights the risk of over-reliance on technology to suuport economic growth, which is assumed in established climate modelling
www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2021/05/11/1-5-c-degrowth-scenarios-suggest-need-for-new-mitigation-pathway.html (www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-22884-9/figures/1)
*New research suggests global transformations that prompt "degrowth" could cut humanity's climate footprint in time to meet the Paris climate agreement target
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/18062021/degrowth-economies-climate-change-technology-gdp
*Could humans really destroy all life on Earth? [Santoshi Mathew, Professor of Physics and Astronomy]
www.bbc.com/future/article/20210520-could-humans-really-destroy-all-life-on-earth
*Expert economists explain in a new study how economic effects of climate change will be worse than previously calculated
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14747731.2020.1807856
*Climate change questions the future of economic growth
https://environment-review.yale.edu/economic-growth-era-climate-change
*Study says we current economic and population growth, under business-as-usual scenario, will cause a decrease in economic growth, even with technological advancements, due to resource depletion
*New report says prioritizing nature is better for the economy too
www.greenqueen.com.hk/new-wef-report-says-prioritizing-nature-is-a-10-trillion-opportunity-that-would-create-395-million-jobs/
*UK Case Study of Household Management: "...Although economic instruments can have some impact on the waste process, the decisions that individuals make about what to buy, how to use, and how to dispose of products have fundamental importance if the waste problem is to be tackled effectively"
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0013916505283421
*The Doughhut Economy
*Opinion: Carbon pricing is not sufficient to mitigate climate change, as it has five central weaknesses:
1) problem framing and solution orientation, 2) policy priorities, 3) innovation approach, 4) contextual considerations, and 5) politics.
Suggested instead is 'Sustainability transition policy' that tackles climate change as a system problem, instead of a market failure.
www.pnas.org/content/117/16/8664
*Leaked IPCC report reveals that the growth model of capitalism is unsustainable
*COP26: Document leak reveals nations lobbying to change key climate report
www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-58982445.amp
*Solving the climate crisis requires the end of Capitalism
https://patternsofmeaning.com/2021/10/11/solving-the-climate-crisis-requires-the-end-of-capitalism/
*"A missions-oriented approach to transform capitalism is the only way to make progress towards sustainable development"
www.nature.com/articles/s41893-021-00828-x
*Why the next stage of capitalism is coming
www.bbc.com/future/article/20210525-why-the-next-stage-of-capitalism-is-coming
*Covid-19 led to 9.3% reduction in human ecological footprint compared with 2019, as human consumption decreased
www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/21/human-consumption-of-the-earths-resources-declined-in-2020?CMP=share_btn_fb&fbclid=IwAR3Fbdl9uu8drzjwSQsVO9KkNt34u93dXTn30Ctw-uKzBo85-6azosxCZ0E
*Covid-18 led to a 7% drop in carbon dioxide emissions, the biggest ever, caused mostly by reduction in the transportation section, with aviation and road transport falling by almost a half at peak times.
While pandemic lockdowns are a temporary respite, according to the UN the world needs to continue a 7.6% yearly reduction in CO2 emissions by 2030, to reach the more ambitious temperature limit of 1.5 degrees celsius, above pre-industrial-revolution temperatures.
www.ecowatch.com/global-carbon-emissions-down-by-record-7-in-2020-2649451548.html
*Carbon emissions rapidly rebounded following COVID pandemic dip
www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03036-x
*Climate change may have had 'key role' in the Coronavirus pandemic, driving several species of bats into closer contact
www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/climate-change-may-have-had-key-role-in-pandemic-study-1.5296935
*Case closed: 99.9% of scientists agree climate emergency is caused by humans
*Think big on climate: the transformation of society in months has been done before
Greenhouse Gas Emissions by Sector pie by The Environmental Artist
The purpose of this pie is to give an idea on which industries contribute most to climate change.
It is important to remember that the numbers shown here are not 100% accurate, as often times different sectors overlap in their influence, and therefore the pie surpasses 100%.