Most recent 40 articles: |
 |
Organizations |
 |
Organizations |
|
| Resilience,Resilience |
|
|
|
‘Hopeless’: our addiction to toxic hope - Resilience (Feb 27) |
|
Feb 27 · Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
resilience
When I have talked publicly about climate and ecological collapse, and the scary trajectories we seem to be on, one of the common challenges from audiences is along the lines of, 'You have to give people hope; you cannot leave people without hope; without hope yours is just a counsel of despair.’
It’s entirely understandable and I often find myself trying to explain exactly how – if not hope – then resilience, love, joy, survive this bad news. Part of my answer is that we need to go through dread and grief if we are to emerge into something stronger, something liberating. And part is to ask, what do we mean by ... | By Dave Rollo, Center for the Advancement of a Steady State Economy Read more ...
|
|
|
|
All planetary boundaries mapped out for the first time, six of nine crossed - Resilience (Sep 13, 2023) |
|
Sep 13, 2023 · You can choose which cookies you allow.
Read about how we manage personal data and cookies.
Planetary boundaries
The smoke from wildfires obscures the Seattle sky. Photo: JINGXUAN JI via Canva.
For the first time, an international team of scientists is able to provide a detailed outline of planetary resilience by mapping out all nine boundary processes that define a safe operating space for humanity.
Story highlights
From global warming to the biosphere and deforestation, from pollutants and plastic to nitrogen cycles and freshwater: Six of nine planetary boundaries are being crossed, while simultaneously pressure in all boundary processes is ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
Aquatic foods around the world face severe risks from environmental change, finds new research - Resilience (Jun 26, 2023) |
|
Jun 26, 2023 · You can choose which cookies you allow.
Read about how we manage personal data and cookies.
Blue foods
Fish being washed in Jamestown Fishing Village in Accra, Ghana. Photo: Worldbank via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Aquatic foods are essential for global diets, but they are also vulnerable to environmental change. This vulnerability has been largely understudied, according to a new paper
Story highlights
Human-induced environmental change puts many of the world’s largest aquatic food producers at risk, especially in Asia, Latin America and Africa.
This is the main finding of a new study by the Blue Food Assessment which was published in Nature ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
The Mercury is Off the Charts - Resilience (Jun 21, 2023) |
|
Jun 21, 2023 · Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
resilience
And the Fossil Fuel Industry is Off its Meds
We’ve reached the scariest moment yet in the climate saga: I noted in mid-April that there were all kinds of signs that a rapid increase in global warming was underway, and every day since has borne out that warning. We now have truly remarkable data about sea surface temperature - across the world’s oceans, and especially in the north Atlantic, we’re seeing numbers that aren’t just off the charts, they’re off the wall the chart is tacked to. It seems increasingly likely that 2023 will turn out to be the hottest year yet, even though a true El Niño won’t be fully ... | By Bill McKibben, originally published by The Crucial Years Read more ...
|
|
|
|
Climate misinformation in a climate of misinformation - Resilience (May 25, 2023) |
|
May 25, 2023 · You can choose which cookies you allow.
Read about how we manage personal data and cookies.
Information and communications technologies have made the world increasingly connected. Photo: Yuri Arcurs/Mostphotos.
When OpenAI released their version of the artificial intelligence ChatGPT to the public in November 2022, the playing ground for false news and misinformation online changed completely. Suddenly, anyone could, with relatively little effort, produce seemingly human-written text and highly realistic images – regardless of their truthfulness.
Misinformation and disinformation campaigns are not new, and topics such as climate change have been in the line ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
Misplaced positivity on climate is harmful. Preparing for breakdown could help. - Resilience (Jul 26, 2022) |
|
Jul 26, 2022 · People living urban consumer lifestyles notice the climate breakdown when it immerses us in its new extremes. For instance, looking at British media this July I saw the shock as the country experienced temperatures over 40C degrees for the first time in recorded history. Some people were puzzled by the heat. Likewise, an eerie feeling of something strange happening was also being experienced by many of us here in Nairobi. We recently experienced some of the coldest weather on record, with evenings dropping below 15C. In a recent visit to Tanzania, the same held true. Although this is the opposite effect, it is all part of the same phenomenon. As air moves around the planet in ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
Sufficiency means degrowth - Resilience (May 06, 2022) |
|
May 06, 2022 · It took me a while but I finally digested the 107 pages of Chapter 5: Demand, services and social aspects of mitigation in the last IPCC report on Mitigation of climate change. This chapter is worth the read if only because it’s the first one fully dedicated to demand-side strategies. What I find remarkable is its conceptual width, including a few ideas that are usually considered too radical in these kind of venues. But just like the rest of the report, it is long and – as academic writing too often is – full of abstract jargon and somnolent prose. What I want to do in this article is to explain why Chapter 5 is more radical (in the good sense of the term) that you may ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
Freshwater boundary exceeds safe limits - Stockholm Resilience Centre - Resilience (Apr 26, 2022) |
|
Apr 26, 2022 · You can choose which cookies you allow.
Read about how we manage personal data and cookies.
PLANETARY BOUNDARIES
Trees stand in the Florestal Reserve Adolpho Ducke in Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil. The planetary boundary for freshwater may now be transgressed potentially pushing the Amazon closer to a tipping point. Photo: IMF Photo/Raphael Alves (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Story highlights
• Reassessed planetary boundary for freshwater includes “green water” – rainfall, soil moisture and evaporation
• Green water is considered to be outside safe zone of Holocene-like conditions based on global changes to soil moisture
• Green water links the freshwater ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
The powerful link between educating girls and fighting the climate crisis - Resilience (Feb 24, 2020) |
|
Feb 24, 2020 · Hydrogen powered superyachts and donations from billionaires often grab headlines in the fight against climate change, whilst more simple and potentially more effective ways to tackle the climate emergency get less attention. One powerful catalyst for rapid change is the education of girls. Access to education is a basic human right, yet across the world, girls continue to face multiple barriers based on their gender and its intersections with other factors such as age, ethnicity, poverty and disability. However research shows that for each intake of students, educating girls has multiple benefits that go far beyond the individual and any particular society. It can also result in ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
It Bears Repeating: Renewables Alone Won't End the Climate Crisis - Resilience (Nov 26, 2019) |
|
Nov 26, 2019 · In a recent column about the dismal Canadian election, I wrote that most Canadians and their lacklustre political parties have no real appreciation of the physical and moral challenges posed by the disruptive force of climate change.
Although the media still portrays climate change as some vague threat to "the environment," it is really a self-made blitzkrieg that is already destabilizing a highly energy-intensive and complex human civilization.
Greta Thunberg has spoken prophetically: our civilized house is on fire.
But our collective politicians, blinded by ideology and technological illusions, refuse to panic, let alone call the community fire ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
New Models Point to More Global Warming than Expected - Resilience - Resilience (Aug 13, 2019) |
|
Aug 13, 2019 · Ed. note: This piece was first published at WeatherUnderground
Global climate models for the next major IPCC assessment show more warming than expected, bucking decades of consensus. Scientists are working to confirm and unravel the potential big shift….
Our planet's climate may be more sensitive to increases in greenhouse gas than we realized, according to a new generation of global climate models being used for the next major assessment from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The finding - hich run counter to a 40-year consensu - re a troubling sign that future warming and related impacts could be even worse than expected.
One of the new ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
What Kind of Rebellion will it Take to Save Humanity from Extinction? - Resilience - Resilience (Aug 09, 2019) |
|
Aug 09, 2019 · We live in a dystopian age. Governments have known since at least the mid-'90s about the potentially devastating impact of human-induced climate change. But for the most part they have either disputed and denied this, or pretended to be responding to scientists' findings.
Despite overwhelming evidence that the world has already passed certain tipping points, setting off large and unpredictable changes in the climate, why are governments still refusing to act on the scale and pace required?
Why are some still denying that there is a climate emergency?
Why, despite the sorts of technological advances that mean we can send people to the Moon and robots to Mars, are so ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
Deep adaptation, post-sustainability and the possibility of societal collapse - Resilience - Resilience (Mar 17, 2019) |
|
Mar 17, 2019 · I write this piece primarily to get you to read an academic paper that has attracted relatively widespread attention. It is entitled "Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating Climate Tragedy."
It is remarkable in a number of aspects. First, it was written by a professor of sustainability leadership who has been heavily involved for a long time in helping organizations including governments, nonprofits and corporations to become more sustainable. Second, the author, Jem Bendell, has now concluded the following after an exhaustive review of the most up-to-date findings about climate change: "inevitable collapse, probable catastrophe and possible extinction." Third, his paper was ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
Our Energy Challenge in 6 Eye-Popping Charts - Resilience - Resilience (Jun 18, 2018) |
|
Jun 18, 2018 · Renewable energy is winning and coal is on the skids. Disruption of the fossil fuel industry is well under way, and the global energy system is being decarbonised. We're right on track, right?
To avoid dramatic climate system tipping points, the world needs to decarbonise very quickly and start drawing down the level of carbon in the atmosphere, because it's already unsafe. As one dramatic example, in past periods when greenhouse levels were similar to the current level, temperatures were 3–6°C higher and sea levels around 25–40 metres higher than in 1900.
So climate warming is now an existential risk to human civilisation, that is, an adverse outcome that would either ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
The troubling realities of our energy transition - Resilience - Resilience (Mar 18, 2018) |
|
Mar 18, 2018 · I recently asked a group gathered to hear me speak what percentage of the world’s energy is provided by these six renewable sources: solar, wind, geothermal, wave, tidal, and ocean energy.
Then came the guesses: To my left, 25 percent; straight ahead, 30 percent; on my right, 20 percent and 15 percent; a pessimist sitting to the far right, 7 percent.
The group was astonished when I related the actual figure: 1.5 percent . The figure comes from the Paris-based International Energy Agency, a consortium of 30 countries that monitors energy developments worldwide. The audience that evening had been under the gravely mistaken impression that human society was much ... | By Post Carbon Inst Read more ...
|
|
|
|
A County of One Million Declares First-in-Nation Climate Emergency - Resilience - Resilience (Dec 07, 2017) |
|
Dec 07, 2017 · The Trump administration is busy waging war on the environment, but Climate Mobilizers are on the ground, playing offense - building power for emergency climate mobilization.
On Tuesday December 5, thanks to the efforts of TCM organizers, the County Council of Montgomery County, Maryland unanimously passed a resolutiondeclaring climate emergency -- making it the first county in the nation to do so.
The County also moved its emissions reductions goal up from 80% in 2050 to 100% by 2035, and is newly greatly emphasizing the need for developing and scaling the county's capacity for carbon drawdown.
The Council set an interim goal of 80% by 2027. It also greatly ... | By Post Carbon Inst Read more ...
|
|
|
|
Ice Apocalypse - Resilience - Resilience (Nov 28, 2017) |
|
Nov 28, 2017 · In a remote region of Antarctica known as Pine Island Bay, 2,500 miles from the tip of South America, two glaciers hold human civilization hostage.
Stretching across a frozen plain more than 150 miles long, these glaciers, named Pine Island and Thwaites, have marched steadily for millennia toward the Amundsen Sea, part of the vast Southern Ocean. Further inland, the glaciers widen into a two-mile-thick reserve of ice covering an area the size of Texas.
There's no doubt this ice will melt as the world warms. The vital question is when.
The glaciers of Pine Island Bay are two of the largest and fastest-melting in Antarctica. (A Rolling Stone feature earlier this year ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
In-depth: IEA Predicts Rise of Cheap Renewables and Chinas Move away from Coal - Resilience - Resilience (Nov 17, 2017) |
|
Nov 17, 2017 · Global energy use by fuel (in billion tonnes oil equivalent) and CO2 emissions (in gigatons) from 2000 through 2040 for each of the three scenarios. Figure 2.9 from the IEA's 2017 World Energy Outlook .
Current policies
The WEO's current policies scenario looks only at policies that are already in place in countries, with no additional interventions to reduce emissions, improve air quality, or otherwise alter the energy market as it stands today. There are still some technological changes that affect the price of different energy sources, but the relative portion of energy coming from each source is mostly unchanged through to 2040.
The projected CO2 ... | By Post Carbon Inst Read more ...
|
|
|
|
Theres Only One Way to Avoid Climate Catastrophe: De-growing our Economy - Resilience - Resilience (Oct 20, 2017) |
|
Oct 20, 2017 · You can almost feel the planet writhing. This summer brought some of the biggest, most destructive storms in recorded history: Harvey laid waste to huge swathes of Texas; Irma left Barbuda virtually uninhabitable; Maria ravaged Dominica and plunged Puerto Rico into darkness. The images we see in the media are almost too violent to comprehend. And these are the storms that made the news; many others did not. Monsoon flooding in India, Bangladesh and Nepal killed 1,200 people and left millions homeless, but Western media paid little attention: it's too much suffering to take in at once.
What's most disturbing about this litany of pain is that it's only going to get worse. A ... Read more ...
|
|
|