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The Environment
Some may feel that optimism undermines the spirit of political activism and thus makes people less open to “structural change”. This is not an unreasonable proposition: if optimism is based on positive experiences, why would anyone want to hobble a system that has improved the quality of life for so most of humanity?
What I find surprising is the sharp rise in public concern about the environment during the pre-Covid Trump administration, despite the administration’s anti-environmental rhetoric, aggressive deregulation and cost-cutting measures. Apparently, the administration’s top-down messaging was unable to override the inclination of Americans to care more about nature when bread-and-butters worries subside.
“News organizations increasingly use the terms “climate emergency” and “climate crisis” to convey the urgency of climate change; yet, little is known about how this terminology affects news audiences...[The results of our study] showed no effect of terminology on climate change engagement; however, “climate emergency” reduced perceived news credibility and newsworthiness compared to “climate change.” …No interactions with political ideology were found.” - Feldman & Hart (2021) Upping the ante? The effects of “emergency” and “crisis” framing in climate change news.
The following list is from “Adaptation Actions for Water Utilities” (Environmental Protection Agency. December 10, 2024). The EPA actually lists 49 adaptation actions and includes numerous examples and links. Read it while you can.
AI technologies can be used to analyze large amounts of data and identify patterns that aid in selecting superior plant varieties used in plant breeding to accelerate crop improvement and develop new varieties with higher yields and greater resilience to climate changes, such as more frequent and severe periods of drought.
AI Overviews are a wonderful tool but shouldn’t be considered the final word on a topic or query. They are, however, a good place to begin an exploration.
With that in mind, I’ll start subsequent Survive and Thrive posts with an AI Overview on the topic under consideration and then proceed to whatever more I’ve found out in my own explorations.
A year ago I posted Some Tips for Living in a Warmer World, which was rather long on dire predictions and short on tips. I hope to flesh out those tips in this series.
The last four posts focused on countries with the highest CO2 emissions as a percent of global CO2 emissions: total emissions per country, per capita emissions, changes in emissions since 2000, and the decoupling of emissions from economic growth. This post will look at global trends in CO2 emissions since 2000 and 2010.
It’s rather obvious from the above that CO2 emissions are no longer rising in sync with economic growth, ie, they have decoupled (for the most part).
Per the above chart, CO2 emissions have declined since 2000 in most of the high-income developed countries but are still climbing in several middle-income nations.
The Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR) is a joint project of the European Commission Joint Research Centre and the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency which estimates emissions of all greenhouse gases (GHGs), air pollutants and aerosols. The latest EDGAR report is a treasure trove of greenhouse gas emissions data…
This series of posts will focus on countries with the highest CO2 emissions: China, the U.S., India, Russia, Japan, Iran, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Canada, and South Korea. First, the percent of total global CO2 emissions for each country
“Food production is the biggest driver of biodiversity loss across the world. This was true for most of our history and is still true today.” -Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser/Our World in Data
Americans used to be fairly united on the need to protect the environment through stricter laws and regulations. That consensus took a nosedive in the 1990s and has never recovered…
Climate change and the environment were simply non-factors in this year’s election - no surprise, given that polls have repeatedly documented declining public concern about the environment. For example, in a recent Gallup poll “environmental quality” ranked 12th among issues that Americans worry about, after inflation, crime and violence, hunger and homelessness, the economy, healthcare affordability and availability, federal spending and the budget deficit, illegal immigration, drug use, the Social Security system, the possibility of terrorist attacks, and the availability and affordability of energy. That’s a lot of competition for scarce resources.
By 2023, US Fish and Wildlife and other US agencies had adopted a wildlife management framework called Resist-Accept-Direct, or RAD. The RAD framework allows natural resource managers the option to actively shape “change in ecosystem composition, structure, processes, or function toward preferred new conditions” (Schuurman et al, 2022). That option allows moving species outside their historic range, to benefit the receiving ecosystem, the migrating species, or both.
A sense of panic rarely leads to thoughtful planning. More often panic leads to bad policies, rushed implementation, poor outcomes, and political backlash. Better to tread carefully and self-correct as necessary.
So what does that mean for humans and the planet? Some predictions: unpredictable weather, extreme heatwaves, heat stressed cities, increased wildfires, severe droughts, water scarcity, increased frequency, intensity and/or amount of heavy rain and flooding, loss of species/mass extinctions, deforestation, lower crop yields, reduced food security, and widespread economic hardship. These problems will vary by region and local preparedness. Worst off will be countries that lack the resources or political will to build resilience and adapt to the coming onslaught of troubles…What to do?
On the left we have intensive farming, clearly not the way to go. On the right, “agroecological agriculture”, clearly on the side of virtue and biodiversity. Now here’s another example of intensive agriculture…
“Intensive” is rarely used in a positive context for farming. People tend to associate it with low animal welfare, pollution and faceless corporations…But there are lots of different ways to farm intensively.” - - Emma Garnett, Five misused food and farming terms, from natural to intensive – and what they really mean, 2023