Climate Emergency
‘Multiple disasters all in one day’: New Mexico’s brutal week of fire and flood | The Guardian
It’s part of a troubling trend. By Rye’s tally, the number of state-declared disasters in New Mexico has quadrupled since 2019. “We are seeing an increase in the impacts to our state in various ways and it has become increasingly challenging over the last couple of years,” she said. “And we are not out of the clear yet.”
The threats are only going to rise as the world continues to warm.
Youth Activists Score Huge Climate Win in Hawaii – Mother Jones
Hawaii officials have announced a “groundbreaking” legal settlement with a group of young climate activists, which they said will force the state’s Department of Transportation to move more aggressively towards a zero-emission transportation system.
Climate activists, Stonehenge and art: it's about protecting humanity's heritage. But, also, it's about prompting the public to consider and debate: what is the common heritage of humanity?
More than 1,000 hajj pilgrims die amid temperatures approaching 52C in Mecca | Hajj | The Guardian
The death toll from this year’s hajj has exceeded 1,000, with more than half of the victims unregistered worshippers who performed the pilgrimage in extreme heat in Saudi Arabia.
Well Beyond the U.S., Heat and Climate Extremes Are Hitting Billions - The New York Times
Between May 2023 and May 2024, an estimated 6.3 billion people, or roughly 4 out of 5 people in the world, lived through at least a month of what in their areas were considered abnormally high temperatures, according to a recent analysis by Climate Central, a scientific nonprofit.
The damage to human health, agriculture and the global economy is just beginning to be understood.
LOL, you think it's costing a lot now? Just wait.
Climate disasters around U.S. are costing Americans billions - YouTube
NBC News’ Bill Karins details how intense weather around the country is wreaking financial havoc. The data from the weather agency shows the country might be on track to match or even pass the cost of 28 individual billion dollar weather disasters last year.
A practical guide to building community resilience. Ordered.
Lifehouse: Taking Care of Ourselves in a World on Fire | Verso Books
In this book Adam Greenfield, author of Radical Technologies, recovers lessons from the Black Panther survival programs, the astonishingly effective Occupy Sandy disaster-relief effort and the solidarity networks of crisis-era Greece, as well as municipalist Spain and autonomous Rojava, to show how practices of mutual care and local power can help shelter us from a future that often feels like it has no place for us or the values we cherish.
"Everyone has seen, this can actually undo everything else that you have in your life." - Daniel Gallas
From the BBC's Global Story Podcast: Is Brazil's flood catastrophe a climate warning?
It shouldn't be framed as a question because it's obvious. Yes. The answer is yes.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has declared it a "climate catastrophe". Officials are writing off whole neighbourhoods – telling residents these places can never be made safe.
Just a glimpse of the incredible suffering that is already being endured by those that live in the Global South. The majority of the human population have not created the climate emergency that they bear the brunt of.
All of us in the U.S. are a part of the top 10%, our lifestyles are causing this suffering. We may not realize it but our day-to-day energy use is the cause of this suffering.
We must change how we live. Now.
In May 2024 there was more record-breaking heat across the globe.
Parts of Southeast Asia, because of geographical location, suffered particularly-extreme temperatures.
Excellent practical advice for the necessary adaptions to the climate emergency. But it's important to remember that adaption is much easier for the wealthier nations of the Global North.
Extreme heat is getting worse. Can we learn to live with it? | The Excerpt - YouTube
May 2024 marked the twelfth straight month of record-high temperatures for the planet. Here in the U.S., temperatures across the country are likely to break records again this summer, increasing health risks to those spending long periods outdoors – from construction workers to migrants illegally crossing the border.
Watching the world burn.
A fast-moving wildfire spreads north of Los Angeles, forcing evacuations : NPR
California’s wildfire season is off to an aggressive start. This year so far, fires have consumed about 41,900 acres, higher than the average of 27,100 acres burned during the same period for the past five years, according to CalFire data.
When it comes to confronting the white supremacy that the 10% of the Global North quietly uphold and defend we can't be polite. This system is violent, genocidal and is responsible for our climate emergency.
There is no reason to play nice. Their lifestyles are making the planet unlivable.
An inspiring, somewhat comforting episode of The Great Simplification podcast: The Next Generation’s Dilemma: Confronting the Metacrisis.
As the human predicament continues to accelerate, the conversations regarding the future are still dominated by older generations - yet it is their younger successors who will face the brunt of these issues throughout their lives. Today’s Reality Roundtable with Priscilla Trịnh, James Branagan, and Natasha Linhart, focuses on Generation Z’s perspective of the metacrisis, how learning the reality of the human predicament has affected their worldview, and what they see as viable future paths for themselves and the world. How might we approach intergenerational relationships to encourage the transfer of knowledge in both directions, without blame or resentment? What are the unique challenges that young people face when addressing the layers of complexity and risk in the world, and thinking about how to respond? Could fostering community, empathy, and personal responsibility act as a bridge across generational divides, steering us towards a more unified and compassionate future?
Let me clue you in if you have any delusions about this: Yes, the polar bears will go extinct and not just this particular sub-group. Also, The Paris Agreement Goals are missed. This is a certainty.
If Paris Agreement Goals Are Missed, These Polar Bears Could Go Extinct - The New York Times
Polar bears in the Southern Hudson Bay could go extinct as early as the 2030s because the sea ice that helps them hunt for food is thinning, a new study suggests.
“We’ve known that the loss of Arctic sea ice would spell disaster for polar bears, so this might be the first subpopulation that disappears.”
Florida then: We don’t need no stinkin' climate policy: Florida Gov. DeSantis signs bill that deletes climate change from state law : NPR.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis this week signed legislation that erases most references to climate change from state law. The new law takes effect July 1.
Florida now: South Florida rains flood Miami, Fort Lauderdale
Torrential downpours in South Florida over the past 24 hours have flooded roads throughout the region, creating life-threatening conditions — and forecasters warned heavy to excessive rainfall was expected to last through Friday.
The big picture: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declared an emergency in Broward, Collier, Lee, Miami-Dade and Sarasota counties “due to major flooding” soon after the mayors of Miami and Fort Lauderdale both declared local states of emergency on Wednesday evening.
Texas then: We don't need no stinkin' environmental regulations.
Texas now: In February 2024, Axios reported that Texas air quality was expected to get worse with:
Nearly 70 of Texas' 254 counties are expected, by 2054, to see an increase in days with an average air quality index of 100 or higher under current climate conditions.
This seems to be a trend. From 2022: Texas heat leads to worst summer smog pollution in a decade | The Texas Tribune
Texas has seen more days with unhealthy levels of smog pollution this year than it has in a decade, state data shows, as vehicle and industrial emissions react with record-high temperatures, spiking ozone concentrations.
Since the beginning of the year, Texas air monitors have recorded 43 days as of Tuesday when ozone concentrations were high enough somewhere in the state to be considered unhealthy by the Environmental Protection Agency. That’s double the number of unhealthy ozone days recorded by this time last year, and it’s the most in the period of January to mid-July since 2012, air monitoring data maintained by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality shows.
...
But while smog levels spike this summer, Texas politicians and regulatory agencies are fighting the federal government, hoping to block stricter regulations on the pollutant.
Let's talk about Texans being asked not to drive.... - YouTube
Of course, it's not just Texans that don't want to deal with the problems that come with burning fossil fuels. Most of the Global North, especially those in the US, do not want to deal with it. We have refused to deal with it. So now we will reap the whirlwind.
I've been thinking that climate fiction that imagines a future where we actually fight the crisis, a future worth fighting for, is super subversive (and it is) but I'm coming around to thinking that encouraging folks (even ones who aren't "writers") to engage in that imaginative act--imagine the future you want and what it would take to get there--is 100% part of how we fight this.
I have deep sympathy for non-human species and for the humans of the Global South that have contributed so little to the climate emergency.
The specific problem is the hyper consumption of privileged middle class whites in the US and other wealthy, over-developed nations: The 10%.
When we face the consequences we'll cry, complain and blame anyone but us. But we insist on keeping this lifestyle. We're inflicting the damage upon ourselves and upon billions of others.
We REFUSE to change, WE deserve to suffer.
Wildfire smoke prematurely killed over 50,000 Californians in a decade | The Guardian
Our climate reality in 2024 is already starting to look and feel like the beginning minutes of a dystopian climate disaster movie. The footage of the dead howler monkeys laying on the forest floor is heart breaking. It's only a matter of time before we see a human mass death event like the one described in the first chapter of Kim Stanley Robinson's Ministry for the Future.
As we enter the month of June, scorching temperatures are already making deadly heat waves around the world. Data confirmed last month was the hottest May on record, putting the Earth on a 12-month streak of record-breaking temperatures...
"We're going to see a more chaotic planet as the climate heats up... the heat wave scenario that keeps climate scientists up at night: a major power outage that could cut off air conditioning and cause thousands of deaths from extreme temperatures."
In Mexico, it's already so hot that howler monkeys and parrots are falling dead from the trees. "What we're experiencing right now goes beyond what is normal," says Ruth Cerezo-Mota, climate researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. "We have been saying this for many years now."