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European Heat Wave: France, Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic Set June Records, and the Worst Is Still To Come

Wed, 2019-06-26 17:55 — Kathy Gilbeaux

Maximum temperatures across Europe on Wednesday, as seen by the American GFS weather model, in degrees Fahrenheit. (Weatherbell.com)

washingtonpost.com - by Ian Livingston - June 26, 2019

A ferocious heat wave has overtaken parts of Europe. A number of records have already been broken, and there are several days of extreme heat to go.

As the heat wave escalates toward its peak late this week, temperatures have already neared or surpassed 100 degrees (37.8 degrees Celsius) in parts of France, Germany, Poland and Spain. Even Switzerland has seen locations rise toward the mid-90s.

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Here’s How AI Can Help Fight Climate Change According to the Field’s Top Thinkers

Wed, 2019-06-26 10:06 — Kathy Gilbeaux

From monitoring deforestation to designing low-carbon materials

Steam and exhaust rise from a chemical factory and coking plant in Germany. Photo by Lukas Schulze/Getty Images

CLICK HERE - RESEARCH - Tackling Climate Change with Machine Learning

theverge.com - by James Vincent - June 25, 2019

The AI renaissance of recent years has led many to ask how this technology can help with one of the greatest threats facing humanity: climate change. A new research paper authored by some of the field’s best-known thinkers aims to answer this question, giving a number of examples of how machine learning could help prevent human destruction.

The suggested use-cases are varied, ranging from using AI and satellite imagery to better monitor deforestation, to developing new materials that can replace steel and cement (the production of which accounts for nine percent of global green house gas emissions).

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Scientists Shocked by Arctic Permafrost Thawing 70 Years Sooner than Predicted

Wed, 2019-06-19 09:20 — Kathy Gilbeaux

A cemetery sitting on melting permafrost tundra at the village of Quinhagak on the Yukon delta in Alaska. The scientists’ findings offer a further sign of a climate emergency. Photograph: Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images

CLICK HERE - STUDY - Threshold sensitivity of shallow Arctic lakes and sublake permafrost to changing winter climate

theguardian.com - reuters - Matthew Green - June 18, 2019

Permafrost at outposts in the Canadian Arctic is thawing 70 years earlier than predicted, an expedition has discovered, in the latest sign that the global climate crisis is accelerating even faster than scientists had feared.

A team from the University of Alaska Fairbanks said they were astounded by how quickly a succession of unusually hot summers had destabilised the upper layers of giant subterranean ice blocks that had been frozen solid for millennia.

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Dominica’s Indigenous Innovation

Wed, 2019-06-05 21:30 — Kathy Gilbeaux

CONCEPT DRAWING KALINAGO RESILIENCE HUB CHANNELING CULTURAL BUILDING PRACTICES AND MYTHOLOGY OF THE CENTIPEDE. PHOTO © ILLYA AZAROFF AND + LAB ARCHITECT PLLC

rocagallery.com - by Illya Azaroff - May 21, 2019

. . . Since Hurricane Maria struck in 2017, the tiny island of Dominica is rebuilding with the aim of becoming the first climate resilient and 100% sustainable nation in the world . . . Dominica can unlock the DNA of resilience through the vernacular building practices and rich cultural history of the Kalinago people that first inhabited the island . . .

. . . Rediscovering these historic threads of resilience have been key to developing new master plans for the territory under the Kalinago Institute for Resilience and Regeneration (KIRR), founded by my team together with leading experts and community leaders, including members of the Kalinago council of chiefs, Nichie Louis Patrick Hill and Dr. Michael McDonald. Its mission is to create a thriving Kalinago Territory as a low carbon, resilient region where citizens can live and excel within the carrying capacity of its ecosystems for multiple generations into the future.

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The Sahel in Flames

Mon, 2019-06-03 18:36 — Kathy Gilbeaux

Photo: Francesco Bellina/TNH

thenewhumanitarian.org - May 31, 2019

. . . In recent months, a surge in violence in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger – three Sahelian countries with shared borders and common problems – has left more than 440,000 people displaced and 5,000 dead, as militants – some with links to al-Qaeda and IS – extend their grip across the region.

As they gain ground, the jihadists are stoking conflicts between different ethnic groups that are accused of either supporting or opposing them, putting the region’s entire social fabric into question. Cycles of inter-communal violence are now claiming more lives and uprooting more people than direct jihadist attacks. Nobody seems able to stop it.

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IPBES Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services

Tue, 2019-05-07 08:55 — Kathy Gilbeaux

CLICK HERE - Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) - ipbes.net

nationalgeographic.com - by Stephen Leahy - May 6, 2019

The bonds that hold nature together may be at risk of unraveling from deforestation, overfishing, development, and other human activities, a landmark United Nations report warns. Thanks to human pressures, one million species may be pushed to extinction in the next few years, with serious consequences for human beings as well as the rest of life on Earth.

“The evidence is crystal clear: Nature is in trouble. Therefore we are in trouble" . . .

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CLICK HERE - UN Report: Nature’s Dangerous Decline ‘Unprecedented’; Species Extinction Rates ‘Accelerating’

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Melting Permafrost in Arctic Will Have $70tn Climate Impact – Study

Wed, 2019-04-24 09:17 — Kathy Gilbeaux

Greenhouse gases, which have been frozen below the soil for centuries, have already begun to escape. Photograph: John Mcconnico/AP

CLICK HERE - STUDY - Climate policy implications of nonlinear decline of Arctic land permafrost and other cryosphere elements

Study shows how destabilised natural systems will worsen man-made problem

theguardian.com - by Jonathan Watts - April 23, 2019

The release of methane and carbon dioxide from thawing permafrost will accelerate global warming and add up to $70tn (£54tn) to the world’s climate bill, according to the most advanced study yet of the economic consequences of a melting Arctic.

If countries fail to improve on their Paris agreement commitments, this feedback mechanism, combined with a loss of heat-deflecting white ice, will cause a near 5% amplification of global warming and its associated costs, says the paper, which was published on Tuesday in Nature Communications.

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This Scientist Thinks She Has the Key to Curb Climate Change: Super Plants

Wed, 2019-04-17 23:28 — Kathy Gilbeaux

Professor Joanne Chory at the Salk Institute, where she leads her Ideal Plant project. Photograph: John Francis Peters

Dr Joanne Chory hopes that genetic modifications to enhance plants’ natural carbon-fixing traits could play a key role – but knows that time is short, for her and the planet

theguardian.com - by Adam Popescu - April 16, 2019

If this were a film about humanity’s last hope before climate change wiped us out, Hollywood would be accused of flagrant typecasting. That’s because Dr Joanne Chory is too perfect for the role to be believable.

The esteemed scientist – who has long banged the climate drum and now leads a project that could lower the Earth’s temperature – is perhaps the world’s leading botanist and is on the cusp of something so big that it could truly change our planet.

She’s also a woman in her 60s who is fighting a disease sapping her very life.

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Does Unconscious Bias Affect Our Sustainable Lifestyle Choices?

Mon, 2019-04-08 09:21 — Kathy Gilbeaux

Credit: Getty Images

CLICK HERE - RESEARCH - Is Eco-Friendly Unmanly? The Green-Feminine Stereotype and Its Effect on Sustainable Consumption

forbes.com - by Carolyn Centeno Milton - April 3, 2019

. . . Brough co-authored a paper with professors from four other universities to understand how gender norms affect sustainable decision making. They report data from seven experiments that included over 2,000 participants from the US and China. What they found was remarkable.

They found that both men and women associated doing something good for the environment with being “more feminine.” This unearths a deeply held unconscious bias that Brough and team call the “Green-Feminine Stereotype.”

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'Yet another killer for children left starved by war': cholera grips Yemen

Thu, 2019-03-28 03:46 — Kathy Gilbeaux

Yemenis at a cholera treatment centre in the capital, Sana’a. Photograph: Mohammed Huwais/AFP/Getty Images

CLICK HERE - reliefweb - 1,000 children infected every day as Yemen cholera outbreak spikes

theguardian.com - by Karen McVeigh - March 26, 2019

Yemen is seeing a sharp spike in the number of suspected cholera cases this year, with 1,000 children a day infected in the last two weeks alone, agencies said.

More than 120,000 cases have been reported, with 234 deaths in the country, which has been at war for four years this month. Almost a third of the 124,493 cases documented between 1 January and 22 March were children under fifteen. Increasing rates of malnutrition among Yemen’s children have left them more prone to contracting and dying from the disease.

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