Farmers on the front lines of #ClimateChange #auspol

Though we first met Richard Wiles when he was executive director at the Environmental Working Group (which he co-founded), he’s also a major player in the ongoing effort to better understand the future’s hotter, less stable climate (also see our deep-dive with Mark Hertsgaard on the subject). 

Wiles’s current organization, Climate Central, is on the front lines of the climate battlefield, authoring countless papers, special reports, and graphics, and informing critical news stories on climate issues—and how best to handle them. 

Richard’s refreshingly frank assessments on climate change stand out in this space, where the focus on opaque numbers can make the issue feel less urgent than it actually is. 

Below, he paints the picture of what climate change will look like in real terms and presents a new idea about how we might slow it down (hint: actual trees are involved).
A Q&A with Richard Wiles
Q
If we continue on the same path or anything resembling the current emissions path, what will the United States look like in 50 years?

A
The first thing to know is that parts of South Florida will be gone.

 Even with reduced emissions, or a dramatic lowering of emissions, the most prized real estate in South Florida, where thousands of people live, will be routinely underwater, period. You can move up the coastline and look at different low-lying, coastal cities: Charleston, South Carolina; Norfolk, Virginia; and coastal cities in Maryland and North Carolina, and they’re not just going to face major issues of sea level rise, but also major issues with storm surge during hurricanes.

 Even if we limit change to 2 degrees Celsius, which is the goal agreed to at the Paris climate summit in 2015, every major coastal city will see a huge impact (and it’s worth noting that without significant additional commitments by major polluting nations this goal is not particularly likely to be achieved).
“Even if we limit change to 2 degrees Celsius, which is the goal agreed to at the Paris climate summit in 2015, every major coastal city will see a huge impact.”

We’ll also have less snowpack in the West, where it’s critical for water supplies. And earlier snowmelt means drier forests, which then tend to be set up for big wildfires. When it rains, a greater percentage of rainfall will come in these huge downpours. So we’ll get more 2in, 3in, 4in, 5in, 12in rains like what we saw in Houston, South Carolina, Louisiana, and Missouri this year. These out-of-control episodes of 14 inches of rain in 24 hours. So you’re going to see a lot more localized flooding and all the damage that comes with that. Everything will need to be redesigned, from sewage treatment plants to roadways, to people’s homes, in order to handle these gigantic downpours. Hurricanes will be stronger and more intense. Whether there will be more of them or whether they make landfall and hit harder, nobody knows. But it is clear that a greater percentage of the hurricanes that do happen will be big old monster storms.
The next thing you’re going to see for sure is heat. This is the one that nobody really talks about much because it’s kind of boring—it’s just heat. But, in the United States, particularly along the Gulf Coast and in the Southwest, we’re going to see an increase in the number of so-called danger days, where it’s really hazardous to be outside for a long period of time. In Florida, for example, danger days are going to go from 25 days a year to about 140 days a year in 2050. And it’s the same story with Texas, Louisiana, all along the Gulf Coast, and in the Southwest as well. There’s not as much humidity in the Southwest, but the heat is just going to be completely over the top there. We’ll see radical increases in the number of days above 100 or 110 in places like Phoenix and Tuscon. Even places in Southern California that aren’t on the coast will be seriously affected. And in addition to the quality of life issue, that level of heat is truly going to make outdoor work—construction, agriculture, infrastructure like highway-building— in many places impossible for portions of the year.

Q
Can you explain more about the heat issue? What will that physically be like to experience?
A
One of the things that people really need to think about is (and it might be the most compelling, single way to think about how climate change is like a death spiral) is that the hotter it gets, the greater the demand for air conditioning. And it is going to get a lot hotter, especially the extremes: Yes, the average temperature is going to go up, but more importantly you’re going to get many more extremely hot days. So, if you go to a place like India, there are probably 300 million people (about 20 percent of the population) that want and will get (and deserve) air conditioning in the next ten or twenty years, and that’s like powering AC for the entire United States today. How are they going to power that up? They’re mostly going to power that up with coal. So the more air conditioning demand you have, the more demand for electricity you have, and the majority of that electricity is going to come from fossil fuels even with unprecedented ramp-ups in renewables. For the next couple of decades at least. And that is going to accelerate climate change, making it even hotter, upping the demand for more air conditioning. So you see the problem.
Q
What are the consequences of global warming when it comes to disease? Could we see an increased range of disease-carrying mosquitoes, or the release of something that’s been trapped in the ice?
A
No one really knows. What we do know is that warming temperatures are increasing the range and the number of days that are prime breeding and survival days for many disease vectors, like mosquitos that transmit Zika and West Nile, or the ticks that carry Lyme disease. In some places we are headed toward a year-round mosquito season—not a good thing. But what’s worse is that we really have no idea what we are doing. We are warming the planet at least 10 times faster than it has ever warmed in the past 800,0000 years. Could this rapid warming create ideal conditions for a sudden, massive disease outbreak? Theoretically, yes, it could. Is it likely? No, it is probably not very likely. Can we be sure about that? No, we can’t, which to me is a very scary thing.
Q
What if we stopped polluting today? What change are we already locked into?
A
Even if we stop polluting today, like, if the whole world turned off all fossil fuel emissions today, you’re still looking at several feet of sea level rise. What’s probably more relevant, since we can’t turn off all fossil fuel emissions today, is that even if we took aggressive action to curb climate change, we will be putting multiple gigatons of carbon into the atmosphere, for many, many, decades to come.

Q
So what, realistically, can we do in the face of all this doom and gloom?
A
The real bottom line is that there’s only one way to deal with this, and that is through massive policy intervention. It could be an elegant, simple thing, like taxing carbon a lot, and we’re done. Or it could be extremely complicated, like the Clean Power Plan. But it needs to be powerful and significant. Electric cars and efficient light bulbs are great, but they can’t make change at scale unless something forces the current polluting cars and power sources off the market. There aren’t enough Teslas in the world right now to really make a difference, and what people forget about Teslas is that they’re only as good as the power source (if the electricity you’re using to power them comes from fossil fuels, for example).
If everyone committed to the agreement made in Paris, global emissions would be 6 gigatons a year less in 2030 than they are projected to be if we didn’t have any commitment. So from about 60 gigs a year to 54 a year in 2030. This is an increase from where we are now, and while everyone is all proud of themselves for reducing emissions by 2030, and, you know, making sure that they don’t go up, which is where we’re headed, being at 54 gigatons in 2030 won’t get it done—we need to be at, like, 30. So there’s just a gigantic gap between what we’ve committed to and what needs to happen to keep the world anywhere close to two degrees, and we already know (see question 1) that two degrees is still a situation that sucks.
Q
Are there any reasonable ways to take carbon out of the atmosphere?

A
There’s one thing out there that could help a lot and it’s called carbon negative, or negative emissions. To be clear, we’re not talking about geoengineering where you put shiny dust into the stratosphere that deflects sunlight away, or crazy satellites with mirrors, or sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere to absorb ultraviolet rays. None of that science fiction BS. Carbon negative is basically taking carbon out of the atmosphere and putting it somewhere safe and permanent. You can do in a number of different ways, like accelerated weathering of rock, or giant carbon-sucking vacuum cleaners (which haven’t been proven at scale), or you can use photosynthesis: Trees, crops, and perennial grasses, our best option by far.
Q
How would it work?
A
Let’s pretend the world got its act together and committed to drastic action to stop global warming. You need three things, done simultaneously and aggressively. One, radical reductions in fossil-fuel emissions. Two, dramatic acceleration in the deployment of renewables. And three, large-scale implementation of negative emissions strategies.
With negative emissions, we could tip the scale toward real reductions in net carbon emissions, relatively quickly at legitimate scale, by pulling multiple gigatons of carbon out of the atmosphere and putting them in the ground or in plants and trees. Think of it as a massive global effort to get carbon out of the atmosphere—through, basically, more vegetation and improved farming systems. It’s as simple as that. We could restore hundreds of millions of degraded hectares of agricultural land, or just degraded land in general, all around the world. There’s no fancy technology, no science fiction.
“If we’re honest with ourselves, it’s obvious that windmills and solar panels will not get us there fast enough. Not even close.”
Of course, there are big questions, like where it should be done, what plants should be used, and which forests and plants are the most efficient carbon absorbers; and we would need to make sure we don’t compete with water, energy, and food supplies. But despite those questions, which are serious, we know that there’s plenty of land that could be used in this way, and there’s a path forward here that’s not super difficult. It’s not really on anybody’s radar screen, because it’s not very sexy or glamorous. It’s just planting and restoring lands in a way that efficiently takes up carbon—but, it is sitting there in plain sight as a powerful option, and it should be a much bigger part of the conversation: When you add negative emissions to the equation you can legitimately have some kind of realistic hope that we might not just go flying off a cliff. Because if we’re honest with ourselves, it’s obvious that windmills and solar panels will not get us there fast enough. Not even close.

Q
How is this different than carbon sequestration, which we’ve heard about in the past?
A
Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) typically refers to capturing carbon from fossil fuel emissions and physically pumping the carbon back underground, in gas form. CCS may have a role in some carbon negative systems, but when applied to fossil fuel emissions CCS is not carbon negative. Not to mention that it costs way too much, and to date doesn’t actually work at scale. What negative emissions strategies do is literally take carbon out of the atmosphere using plants and trees—efficient natural systems that do this much more elegantly than humans can. It’s not about technology, or putting fancy gizmos on power plants.
Q
How would this differ from the old-fashioned carbon offsets we’ve historically been able to purchase online?
A
The policy setup is totally different. Offsets have historically been a largely unverified license to pollute, as long as someone, somewhere, theoretically offsets that pollution by not doing something bad, say cutting down a forest, that they may not have been going to do anyway. And too often, the pollution we are allowing with offsets falls on poor communities who didn’t have any say in the bargain. Carbon negative would not be anybody’s permission to pollute. It has to be fundamentally disconnected from ongoing, aggressive action to reduce fossil fuel emissions.
Q
Is anyone doing carbon negative projects successfully? Even at a small scale right now?
A
There are, and part of the reason for that is there are a million versions of what this could look like. Carbon negative could involve rotational grazing (which can store a lot of carbon above and below ground in pastures), or no-till farming, or it could be restoring a wetland or a forest or grassland. Those would all probably qualify, though very few of them are being understood that way or measured that way—in general, we make very few measurements of carbon being stored in soil, though it’s just a pretty simple approach. You do a baseline measurement of your carbon, you understand what plants would maximize the potential carbon storage per acre, and you measure the inputs and outputs.
The important thing about this whole idea is scale. Carbon negative is only worth talking about if you’re talking about hundreds of millions of acres of land. And the primary mission for these lands would have to be taking carbon out of the air—it can’t get tied up in other conservation purposes. No one has articulated that vision yet, and we at Climate Central want to do that. We’re going to do that.
Q
What are the next steps to execute carbon negative programs?
A
First, we need to start talking about it—define it, show people the math and get it floating around in people’s consciousness. Then we need to get the science right. Climate Central is beginning to ask these questions: Where would it work based on water and climate? Which soils would it work on? What are the water and food trade-offs when crops are grown for carbon storage? Which crops, which plants, and which places could get the most carbon in the ground most efficiently? We are just beginning to make the case, lay out the path, identify the key questions, and articulate the vision. But it needs to be done, and it needs to be done quickly.
Currently, if you’re honest at all, our climate situation is so damn bleak, with the new president aiming to roll back the progress that has been made, and climate deniers in charge of the congress. Even so, carbon negative at scale, combined with aggressive emission reductions and deployment of renewables, could give us actual, legitimate hope. This isn’t crazy talk. This is very doable. If we do this aggressively and commit to it, then maybe we have a shot. If not, we have no shot. No shot at 2C, maybe no shot at 3C, maybe no shot at 4C for that matter.
Carbon negative could also provide a path forward that would work across the political spectrum. It could be a powerful program for farmers and ranchers with currently unproductive land; they could become part of a National Carbon Reserve. 

You could create contracts that would allow carbon to be locked up on that land for 100 years, priced per acre. Would farmers do it? 

Yes, they would. I worked on agricultural policy for twenty years. 

I can tell you that if the price is right, farmers will sign up. Is there money in the federal budget for that? Yes. If we had a carbon tax of even the tiniest amount, would it pay for that?

 Yes. So, in the United States, there are 400 million acres of land we could start with. That’s a big chunk of land. It’s really not that tricky. It’s just about whether or not we want to do it.

Press link for more: goop.com

Book review: Wolfgang Streeck’s How Will Capitalism End? – a grim economic forecast #auspol

Capitalism as we know it is irrevocably in its death throes, argues German sociologist Wolfgang Streeck, which on its own is not a novel thesis. In our age of regular financial crashes and bursting bubbles, illiberal movements and borderless wars, even Nobel Prize winners and mainstream thinkers – I think of Joseph Stiglitz, among others – say that the post-war free market regime is broken, and that the superglue we’re using to stick it together won’t hold for much longer.

Yet Streeck’s analysis of why neo-liberalism is imploding – and this time unable to reinvent itself – is a fresh take, if not necessarily a light read for the layman. Though Marxism has for some time now been out of vogue, his post-Marxist analysis of the political economy of globalisation, one augmented by the work of many contemporaries, rings remarkably timely. Perhaps it’s time to dust off the Marx and Engels after a quarter of a century on the book shelves.
After all, contemporary social scientists failed miserably to predict such dramatic phenomena as Donald Trump’s victory in the United States presidential election, the Euro crisis, the rise of ISIL or the viability of right-wing populists across Europe.

But if Streeck’s on the mark, that’s no grounds for celebration. Particularly unnerving about his analysis in How Will Capitalism End?: Essays on a Failing System, and unlike some of his ilk – such as the American sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein or, for that matter, even Marx himself – Streeck has little faith that, at least in the near future, anything vaguely benevolent will follow the disaster that is looming. On the contrary, capitalism’s end will be ugly, and we’re only just now getting a taste of how ugly.

As far as Streeck is concerned, capitalism is an inherently unstable, dysfunctional economic model that has survived for more than 200 years lurching from one systemic crisis to another. Yet, until now, it has always managed to regroup and repackage itself, often ingeniously, staving off demise through complex metamorphoses.
“The history of modern capitalism,” argues Streeck, “can be written as a succession of crises that capitalism has survived only at the price of deep transformations of its economic and social institutions, saving it from bankruptcy in unforeseeable and often unintended ways.” Marx and Keynes, Weber and Luxemburg, all foretold its death with different explanations, but they underappreciated capitalism’s resourcefulness.
But this time, argues Streeck with conviction, capitalism’s at the end of its own tether – really. There’s no longer enough of its spoils or the soothing ointment of liberal democracy to go around.

The symptoms of contemporary capitalism’s dire crisis – stagnation, debt, and inequality – are not new but they’re more acute now than ever before, and mutually reinforcing as they beget one another. The persistent decline in economic growth worldwide has only accelerated since the 2008 financial crisis, the vast gap between the few haves and the many have-nots now greater than at any time in the 20th century.
Graphs and charts show us that sky-high indebtedness in leading industrial states has governments, households and financial firms trapped in a vicious cycle in which their economies, shackled by debt, cannot recover. Greece is not alone, but rather one example among many.
And, finally, there’s the vast inequality in income and wealth that has only grown wider and wider in the post-Cold War decades. It’s not one of these symptoms that will shake capitalism to its foundations, but rather a combination of them and other afflictions: “death by a thousand cuts”, writes Streeck, refusing to be pinned down on exactly how capitalism will finally meet its maker.

Press link for more: The Nation

Glee to Gloom: Climate and the ‘Trump effect’ #auspol

Glee to gloom: Climate and the ‘Trump effect’
When the world triumphantly celebrated the signing of the landmark Paris climate pact last December, it was hard to imagine that only a year later it might face an existential threat.

Then again, who could have predicted at the time that a self-promoting reality TV impressario—and avowed climate sceptic—was months away from capturing the White House?
“The Paris Agreement was bound to be tested sooner or later,” said Myles Allen, head of the climate research programme at the University of Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute.
“It has just come sooner than most expected.”

Campaign promises to “cancel” the 196-nation deal notwithstanding, there are reasons to think that US President-elect Donald Trump will not seek to derail it, or that he would fail if he tried.
For one thing, the first universal action plan for curbing global warming—in force since last month—has already been ratified by the US and 116 other countries.
That makes pulling out a highly visible and lengthy process, lasting at least four years.
“Overtly withdrawing has a cost,” both political and economic, said Princeton international affairs professor Michael Oppenheimer.
Countries deeply invested in the agreement—including China, the European Union and almost all the world’s developing nations—would likely register displeasure in other arenas.
The idea of a carbon tax on US goods, for example, has been mooted.
Lost opportunity
But should the US turn away from the global transition to clean energy, the highest cost would be lost opportunity.

In 2015, renewables outstripped fossil fuels globally for the first time in attracting investment, and overtook carbon-rich coal as a source of electricity.
Trump may find that his options within the US are also limited.
Domestically, he has threatened to scrap Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan, defang the Environmental Protection Agency, and shelve incoming regulations designed to push down US greenhouse gas emissions.
Under the Paris Agreement, Washington has pledged to cut US carbon pollution 26-28 percent by 2025 compared to 2005 levels.
US emissions have declined in recent years, albeit slowly.
But the main drivers have come not from the federal government but the market and individuals states, and these forces are likely to dominate no matter what Trump does, analysts say.

“Trump will have little effect on trends in the US power industry, where coal is being rapidly replaced by natural gas and renewables,” said William Sweet, an energy expert at NYU Tandon School of Engineering.
Pouring money into new coal-fired power plants—a sector Trump has vowed to revitalise—no long makes economic sense, Sweet and others said.
Market momentum, however, is not enough to win the race to cap global warming under two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), the “do-not-cross” red line set down in the Paris treaty.
An increase so far of 1 C (1.8 F) compared to pre-industrial era levels has already caused on uptick in deadly storms, droughts, wildfires and flooding.
‘Leadership vacuum’
National carbon-cutting pledges annexed to the Paris pact would, at best, yield an unliveable 3 C world.
On top of all this, virtually all of the climate-saving scenarios laid out by scientists depend on technologies for sucking carbon out of the air that don’t even exist yet.
This suggests that political will—at a national and global level—remains critical for continued progress.
And that could be a problem.
“There is a real risk of a leadership vacuum,” said Thomas Spencer of the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations in Paris.
The G20 meeting next July in Hamburg, Germany will offer the first clear clue as to whether Germany, China—if any nation—can step up to fill the void if the US disengages, he said.
A Trump administration hostile, or simply indifferent, to climate change action could dim the odds of preventing dangerous warming.
In the US, the auto-industry has already indicated it will try to water-down impending fuel efficiency standards, while stringent rules on capping gas-industry methane leaks are likely a dead letter.
Even if Trump doesn’t do a complete about face on climate, “we are likely to see a slowing down of progress compared to what would have happened if Clinton had been elected,” said Oppenheimer.
Internationally, he said, this will have repercussions.
“Countries could say, ‘if the US is not going to take their (emissions reduction commitments) seriously, we’re not going to either’.”
Scientists point to recent red flags.

Shattered temperature records in the Arctic; evidence that Greenland’s ice sheet, which could raise sea levels by six metres (20 feet), is far more sensitive to warming than thought; an unexplained surge in emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas 28 times more potent than CO2—all of which suggest that the margin of error has largely disappeared, they say.
“Nature will have surprises in store,” Allen said.

Press link for more: phys.org

Trump, aided by fake news, wages a war on science and your children’s future #auspol

“Science is my passion, politics is my duty,” explained Thomas Jefferson, the nation’s first Secretary of State.

In sharp contrast is ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, the man President-elect Donald Trump has picked to be the newest Secretary of State. Tillerson has worked his entire life for a company that dedicated itself to suppressing climate science and spreading disinformation about the gravest threat Americans, and indeed all of human civilization, faces today.

For nearly two decades — including the entire time Jefferson was vice president and president — he was also president of the nation’s oldest scientific society, which was founded by the great American scientist Ben Franklin.

America was created during the Age of Reason, so it’s no surprise many founding fathers had a passion for science. Historian Gary Wills called the Declaration of Independence a “scientific paper.”

Fast-forward to today and both the incoming president and vice president, along with roughly the entire cabinet, are active deniers of the most well-established science.

But accurate climate science has arguably never been more important than it is now.

 For it is that science (and the 2015 Paris climate deal resulting from it) that represent our last, best chance to save America from permanent megadrought and other catastrophic impacts, like sea level rise, that are irreversible for 1,000 years.

The Trump team appears to be dedicated to policies that would create a hundred Syrias and intractable refugee problems here and around the world.

Thus far, the media seem utterly paralyzed by how to confront this wave of disinformation, however, failing to communicate clearly to the public that this is not just some abstract “war on science,” this is a war on your children’s future, a war on human civilization.

Rather than calling it out as misleading or false, major media outlets have been reinforcing the disinformation spread by Trump and those associated with his transition in their headlines — headlines that are inevitably read by far more people than the actual story.

The overwhelming majority of climate scientists — over 97 percent — understand that humans are the primary cause of climate change. Every other major country agrees with the science, which is why they agreed unanimously with us last December to keep ratcheting down carbon pollution to avoid civilization-destroying impacts.

Those facts aren’t reflected in the headlines, however. CNN, for instance, ran a “repeat the lie” headline, “Trump: ‘Nobody really knows’ if climate change is real,” on Monday. 

Then on Wednesday they ran another: “Trump aide Anthony Scaramucci: Scientific community gets ‘a lot of things wrong’.”

In this article, we learn Scaramucci is “not a scientist” but he knows climate scientists are wrong about the climate. How? “There was overwhelming science that the earth was flat,” he said. “We get a lot of things wrong in the scientific community.”

In fact, it was early scientists — and the rigorous methods they developed — that debunked such myths.

 Modern scientists, using even more advanced methods of observation and analysis, have been beacons lighting the way for the world to eradicate so many childhood diseases and understand the dire consequences of unrestricted carbon pollution. Heck, Scaramucci himself said several months ago, “The science of climate change is pretty much irrefutable at this point.”

But now we live in a world of fake news, with a president-elect whose statements and world view have no relationship whatsoever to the facts or scientific reality.

The New York Times was itself suckered by Trump’s hypnotic lies after interviewing him recently. 

Their story opened, “President-elect Donald J. Trump on Tuesday tempered some of his most extreme campaign promises… pledging to have an open mind about climate change.”

Literally the only reason the Times uses that phrase is that Trump said he has an “open mind” on climate six times. Everything else he said was alarming anti-scientific gibberish, as many pointed out.

If the media doesn’t stop printing things that aren’t true, they are no different than fake news sites. It is no longer tenable — if it ever was — for the Washington Post to run nonsense headlines that haven’t been fact-checked, like “Trump’s climate plan might not be so bad after all,” from long-debunked purveyors of misinformation like Bjorn Lomborg.

It is no longer tenable for USA Today to keep running “opposing view” opinion pieces based on widely debunked misinformation alongside their “Our view” opinion pieces based on actual climate science. But they’ve already done it three times since September.

Finally, those platforms that consistently push misinformation and attacks on climate scientists must be called out as the “fake news” sites that they are. A good example is the Wall Street Journal editorial page.

A June study by Climate Nexus found that “an analysis of 20 years of the Wall Street Journal’s opinion pages on climate shows a consistent pattern that overwhelmingly ignores the science, champions doubt and denial of both the science and effectiveness of action, and leaves readers misinformed about the consensus of science and of the risks of the threat.”

Consider one recent Journal opinion piece, where Prof. Roger Pielke Jr. portrayed himself as a victim of an attack on academic freedom when he was fired by Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight. The reverse is true.

Pielke wrote an article for Silver based on analysis long criticized by scientists. We and others published critical comments from top scientists. “This is the same old wrong Roger,” Dr. Kevin Trenberth told us. “He is demonstrably wrong and misleads,” Prof. Michael Mann said. A third scientist called Pielke’s piece “surprisingly sloppy.” A fourth called his conclusions “ludicrous.”

Pielke’s op-ed claims he was “attacked by thought police in journalism,” which includes Foreign Policy, the London Guardian, Mashable, Slate, The New Republic, and the New York Times. In fact, he omitted the key detail behind his firing: He sent intimidating emails to Trenberth and Mann, as HuffPost reported. Trenberth said Pielke “was very accusatory and threatened me if I did not respond.” Mann called it a “thinly veiled” threat of legal action. Silver told HuffPost he apologized to Trenberth and Mann for the emails.

For a quarter century, climate scientists have been ignored and even attacked, putting the fate of our children — and the next 50 generations — on a knife’s edge.

The stakes in the renewed war on science are existential and irreversible. So it’s time the media picked the side of facts — and not lies.

By Dr. Joe Romm

Dr. Joe Romm is Founding Editor of Climate Progress, “the indispensable blog,” as NY Times columnist Tom Friedman describes it.

Press link for more: thinkprogress.org

What satellites can tell us about how animals will fare in a changing climate#auspol

A young polar bear sitting on the shore in southern Beaufort Sea, Alaska. In some parts of the Arctic, sea ice loss is causing polar bears to spend longer periods on shore each summer. Credit: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service/Eric Regehr

From the Arctic to the Mojave Desert, terrestrial and marine habitats are rapidly changing. These changes impact animals that are adapted to specific ecological niches, sometimes displacing them or reducing their numbers. From their privileged vantage point, satellites are particularly well-suited to observe habitat transformation and help scientists forecast impacts on the distribution, abundance and migration of animals.
In a press conference Monday at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco, three researchers discussed how detailed satellite observations have facilitated ecological studies of change over time. The presenters discussed how changes in Arctic sea ice cover have helped scientists predict a 30 percent drop in the global population of polar bears over the next 35 years. They also talked about how satellite imagery of dwindling plant productivity due to droughts in North America gives hints of how both migratory herbivores and their predators will fare. Finally, they also discussed how satellite data on plant growth indicate that the concentration of wild reindeer herds in the far north of Russia has not led to overgrazing of their environment, as previously thought.
Long-term polar bear declines
Polar bears depend on sea ice for nearly all aspects of their life, including hunting, traveling and breeding. Satellites from NASA and other agencies have been tracking sea ice changes since 1979, and the data show that Arctic sea ice has been shrinking at an average rate of about 20,500 square miles (53,100 square kilometers) per year over the 1979-2015 period. Currently, the status of polar bear subpopulations is variable; in some areas of the Arctic, polar bear numbers are likely declining, but in others, they appear to be stable or possibly growing.
“When we look forward several decades, climate models predict such profound loss of Arctic sea ice that there’s little doubt this will negatively affect polar bears throughout much of their range, because of their critical dependence on sea ice,” said Kristin Laidre, a researcher at the University of Washington’s Polar Science Center in Seattle and co-author of a study on projections of the global polar bear population. Eric Regehr of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Anchorage, Alaska, led the study, which was published on December 7 in the journal Biology Letters.
“On short time scales, we can have variable responses to the loss of sea ice among subpopulations of polar bears,” Laidre said. “For example, in some parts of the Arctic, such as the Chukchi Sea, polar bears appear healthy, fat and reproducing well — this may be because this area is very ecologically productive, so you can lose some ice before seeing negative effects on bears. In other parts of the Arctic, like western Hudson Bay, studies have shown that survival and reproduction have declined as the availability of sea ice declines.”
Regehr, Laidre and their colleagues’ results are the product of the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List assessment for polar bears. To determine the level of threat to a species, IUCN requests scientists to project what the species population numbers will be after three generations. Using data collected from adult females in 11 subpopulations of polar bears across the Arctic, Regehr and Laidre’s team calculated the generation length for polar bears—the average age of reproducing adult females—to be 11.5 years. They then used the satellite record of Arctic sea ice extent to calculate the rates of sea ice loss and then projected those rates into the future, to estimate how much more the sea ice cover may shrink in approximately three polar bear generations, or 35 years.
Lastly, the scientists evaluated different scenarios for the relationships between polar bear abundance and sea ice. In one of them, the bear numbers declined directly proportionally with sea ice. In the other scenarios, the researchers used the existing, albeit scarce, data on how polar bear abundance has changed with respect to sea ice loss, using all available data from polar bear subpopulations in the four existing polar bear eco-regions, and projected forward these observed trends. They concluded that, based on a median value across all scenarios, there’s a high probability of a 30 percent decline in the global population of polar bears over the next three to four decades, which supports listing the species as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List.
“It is difficult to predict what population numbers will be in the future, especially for animals that live in vast and remote regions,” Regehr said. “But at the end of the day, polar bears need sea ice to be polar bears. This study adds to a growing body of evidence that the species will likely face large declines as loss of their habitat continues.”
Drought and mountain lions
The southwestern United States is expected to become more prone to droughts with climate change. The resulting loss of vegetation will not only impact herbivores like mule deer; their main predator, mountain lions, might take an even larger hit.
To estimate the numbers and distribution of mule deer and mountain lions in Utah, Nevada and Arizona, David Stoner, a wildlife ecologist at Utah State University in Logan, Utah, used imagery of plant productivity from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, flown on NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites, plus radio-telemetry measurements of animal density and movements. He found that there is a very strong relationship between plant productivity and deer and mountain lion density.

“Measuring abundance of mule deer in the western United States is logistically difficult, hazardous and very expensive. For mountain lions, it’s even worse,” Stoner said. “But measuring changes in vegetation is relatively easy and more affordable. With this research, we’ve provided a model that wildlife managers can use to estimate the density of deer and mountain lions, two big game species of great economic importance.”

Adult female mountain lion in Oquirrh Mountains, Utah. This collared female was part of a study examining mountain lion population dynamics that ran from 1997 to 2013. Credit: Utah State University/David Stoner

Using maps of vegetation productivity during a severe drought that occurred in the southwestern United States in 2002, Stoner modeled what would be the deer and mountain lion distribution and abundance, should extreme drought become the norm.
“During 2002, there was a 30 percent decrease from the historical record mean in precipitation,” Stoner said. “Using measurements of vegetation stressed by drought, our model predicted a 22 percent decrease in deer density. For mountain lions, the decline was 43 percent. Mountain lions occur at far lower densities than deer, and so any loss of their prey can have disporportionate impacts on their reproductive rates and overall abundance.”
Mule deer are popular game animals, bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars to rural areas through recreational hunting and tourism. But deer can also have adverse economic impacts; they cause vehicle collisions, devour crops and damage gardens.
“Droughts will make human landscapes more attractive to deer, because farms and suburban areas are irrigated and would remain fairly green,” Stoner said. “And mountain lions will go wherever the deer are. We’re going to lose some of the economic benefits of having those animals, because they’ll be fewer of them, but the costs are going to increase because the remaining animals will be attracted to cities and farms.”
Longer journeys for wild reindeer
The Taimyr reindeer herd in the northernmost region of Russia is the largest wild reindeer herd in the world and a key of source of food for the indigenous population of the Taimyr Peninsula.
“Reindeer populations are declining all over the world, in some places catastrophically; in Taimyr, there has been an about 40 percent drop since 2000 and the herd is now at 600,000 animals,” said Andrey Petrov, an associate professor at the University of Northern Iowa, in Cedar Falls.

Petrov examined historical data going back to 1969 and determined that there are ongoing changes in the distribution and migration patterns of the wild reindeer due to climate change and human pressure. The reindeer have moved east, away from human activity. At the same time, the herd is now traveling farther north and higher in elevation during the summer, possibly to avoid increasing temperatures and more abundant mosquitoes.
“Taimyr reindeer now have to travel longer distances between their winter and summer grounds, and this is causing a higher calf mortality,” Petrov said. “Other factors contributing to the higher mortality are the increased mosquito harassment and the fact that rivers are opening earlier than before and the animals have to cross them during their migration.”
Petrov also used imagery from the NASA/United States Geological Survey Landsat satellite program to determine how the presence of reindeer in their summer grounds impacts vegetation. He found that, as expected, plant biomass decreased while the reindeer were grazing, but it bounced back a few weeks after the animals left the area. This finding argues against overgrazing as a possible factor for the Taimyr reindeer population decline that occurred after 2000.
“The work discussed at today’s press conference is emblematic of the many ways in which satellite remote sensing supports our efforts at natural resource management and wildlife conservation,” said Woody Turner, program scientist for NASA’s Biological Diversity Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
Laidre and Stoner’s research projects received funding from NASA. The National Science Foundation funded Petrov’s research.

Press link for more: NASA

Clean energy is good business #auspol

In 2005, Walmart announced a goal to be fully supplied by renewable energy sources, and to work to avoid and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We didn’t set this goal because anyone forced us to. 
We set it because we wanted to help address climate change and improve lives, while also strengthening our company and reducing expenses. We thought it would be a win-win: good for society, and good for Walmart.
Eleven years later, that’s exactly what we’ve seen. By investing in solar energy, for example, Walmart has contributed to less greenhouse gas emissions, and helped create thousands of jobs for American solar companies. Walmart is now one of America’s leading commercial solar and on-site renewable energy users, and gets about 25 percent of its global energy from renewable sources.
To give another example, by doubling the efficiency of our U.S. fleet from 2005 to 2015, Walmart avoided the emission of nearly 650,000 metric tons of CO2, while also saving nearly $1 billion in the past fiscal year.
This experience is a big reason why I chose to join the “Risky Business Project,” which is co-chaired by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson.
The Project’s first report, released in 2014, concluded that global climate change posed a serious risk to America’s economy. It detailed pressing dangers to businesses large and small—such as lower crop yields, increased health costs, and disaster-caused property losses.
In December, the Project released its latest report—focusing on how to respond to those risks. It concludes that private businesses have an unmatched opportunity to help the U.S. mitigate the risks from climate change. Because companies have such size, scale, and reach, great progress can happen if they lead the way.
“Walmart plans to work with thousands of partners throughout the supply chain with the goal of reducing emissions an additional 1 gigaton by 2030. That’s the equivalent of the total emissions of all passenger vehicles in the U.S. over a year.”

The report also confirms what I and others have witnessed first-hand: by taking action to reduce emissions, a business can save money and create value for itself and its customers.
All this is especially true for sectors like retail and consumer goods, which depend on supply chains—both in the U.S. and internationally. After all, retailers don’t make very much themselves; they predominantly buy items from others. And they will face unique harm if the complex supply chains they rely on are weakened by climate change.
Last month, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon announced a new science-based emissions target: to reduce emissions 18 percent in Walmart’s stores, clubs, distribution centers, and fleet by 2025 compared to 2015 levels. Walmart’s goal is to have 50 percent of operations powered by renewable sources by 2025. Doug had previously submitted this plan to the Board of Directors I serve on, and we were happy to support it. It follows a commitment Walmart made last year in Paris, and was developed and approved by experts inside and outside the company.
Perhaps even more powerfully, Walmart plans to work with thousands of partners throughout the supply chain with the goal of reducing emissions an additional 1 gigaton by 2030. That’s the equivalent of the total emissions of all passenger vehicles in the U.S. over a year. By tracking the progress of the suppliers it works with, and by showing them how serious it is about this issue, Walmart can accomplish exponentially more than it can alone.
When Doug described this announcement last month, he was clear in stating his belief that the plan would strengthen Walmart as a business. He really believes in this, and so do I. A lot of discussions out there are about government regulations, and they are important. But those of us involved with Walmart’s journey can attest that the business benefits of reducing emissions are just as evident as the societal ones.
Risky Business’s data shows that if U.S. businesses make investments now towards a diversified clean energy economy, they and consumers will save an average of $366 billion per year on fossil fuel costs by 2050. There will be many more U.S. jobs overall—particularly in sectors like utilities, construction, and manufacturing. As with any major economic transition, there will be challenges. We will need to work together to help everyone make the transition successfully.
Moving to a renewable energy economy would be highly beneficial to the U.S. and the world—but it will only work if private companies lead the way. I hope more will join the effort at this critical time, and help strengthen the economy at the same time they strengthen their own businesses.
Commentary by Rob Walton, a member of Walmart’s board of directors. He served as chairman of the board from 1992-2015.

Rising Ocean Acidification #Auspol

How Rising Ocean Acidity Could Send Us Into A Downward Spiral.
Our oceans are getting more acidic, and it’s having big effects on some very small animals—with worrying implications.
Ocean acidification, a result of excess carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, can disrupt plankton blooms, according to new research published in Nature Geosciences. It’s a troubling finding, scientists say, because those blooms are helping mitigate some of the effects of carbon dioxide pollution.

The plankton in question are coccolithophores, single-celled organisms smaller than the pixels on your monitor that make their energy with photosynthesis. Coccolithophores are known for their scaly armor of round calcium carbonate plates, the stuff of sea shells. They produce about half of all the calcium carbonate in the oceans.
Calcium carbonate, as the name suggests, is part carbon. Animals like coccolithophores get that carbon by ingesting carbon dioxide, which dissolves from the atmosphere into seawater. That’s where ocean acidification enters the story.

The oceans absorb about a quarter of the carbon dioxide we dump into the atmosphere by way of smokestacks and car exhausts. Carbon dioxide makes water more acidic (that’s why sparkling water has a little bite to it) and since the industrial revolution we’ve decreased the oceans’ pH from about 8.2 to 8.1. That might not sound like much, but if your blood pH fell by one-tenth of a point you’d start getting sick. Before humans’ influence, ocean pH had been stable for thousands of years.
Higher acidity makes it harder for coccolithophores and other organisms to build their shells because it limits the supply of carbonate. Research has shown that our more acidic oceans are corroding the shells of some animals, including oysters, and impacting their populations. The effect on coccolithophores may have much wider reaching consequences.
Like many plankton, coccolithophores have an annual bloom, a period of massive reproduction and growth when conditions are right. Some coccolithophore blooms can be seen from space. When it happens, the plankton suck up a tremendous amount of the dissolved carbon dioxide near the sea surface.
When they die shortly thereafter, they take that carbon with them to the ocean floor, locking it away so it can’t return to the atmosphere and contribute to climate change. It’s one of the only natural processes we know of that can sequester carbon for a long time.

Except it doesn’t happen in more acidic seawater. When study author Ulf Riebesell and his colleagues increased carbon dioxide levels to what we might see near the middle or end of this century, the coccolithophores just didn’t bloom.
Riebesell says his group believes the problem begins before the bloom starts. “You can imagine being a phytoplankton cell you have to survive the whole year round, and then you wait for this very short period when you explode,” he says. They found that this pre-bloom population had decreased by a factor of about five under more acidic conditions.
“When the time was right for bloom the seed population was way too low to even get going,” says Riebesell, an oceanographer at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel in Germany.
The lack of a bloom goes beyond coccolithophores. In normal conditions they tend to clump together with other organic matter—dead plankton, poop, that kind of thing—and drag it all down with them, taking even more carbon out of the system.
Without that, a feedback loop can develop that amplifies the effects of carbon dioxide, explains Christopher Gobler, an oceanographer at Stony Brook University.
“As the ocean acidifies, there’s going to be fewer coccolithophores, less carbon sinking in the ocean and therefore more going into the atmosphere,” says Gobler. “It’s really one of the true fears that scientists have about climate change.”
Without a coccolithophore bloom to remove carbon from near the ocean surface, that water is already saturated with dissolved carbon dioxide, meaning it has less capacity to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere. More carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will make our world heat up faster and make the oceans more acidic, perpetuating the cycle.
And Riebesell thinks we should be thinking beyond this one species of plankton. “For me the coccolithophores are kind of the canary in the coal mine,” he says. The changes his group saw in coccolithophores may happen to other animals as well, with just as broad effects.
Like many scientists these days, Gobler is looking beyond the research.
“It would appear that on the policy front this country is at a pivot point with regards to how we deal with carbon emissions. There are important decisions to be made and very real consequences. I think everybody needs to be aware of the consequences so these decisions are made in the light of reality,” Gobler says.

Press link for more: Forbes.com

Climate change forced over 1 million Africans from their homes in 2015 #auspol

By  Esther YuHsiLee

At least 12 million people lived in ongoing displacement caused by conflict, violence, and other disasters across the African continent in 2015. 

And in the future, climate change may be the lead driver of even greater displacement.
In the Africa Report on Internal Displacement — a new report by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre that focused on internal displacement across the entire African continent — researchers found that “disasters triggered by rapid-onset natural hazards” forced 1.1 million people from their homes across 33 African countries last year. What’s more, disaster-induced displacement makes people more vulnerable from one year to the next and more susceptible to food insecurity since planting and harvesting become disrupted when farmers are absent.

“The figure of 12.4 million internally displaced people (IDPs) is more than double Africa’s 5.4 million refugee population across the continent, and is a reminder of the protracted nature of many conflicts in Africa,” Alexandra Bilak, the director of the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), said in a statement. “But it still underestimates the full scale of Africa’s internal displacement crisis because data over time is not available for the millions more who become trapped in displacement as a result of disasters and development projects.”

Flooding was the primary trigger of immediate displacement, forcing 14 million people out of their homes in the six-year period leading up to 2015. Earlier this year, 56,000 people were forced from their homes in Ethiopia because of severe flooding. At the same time, droughts contribute to strains on agricultural, pastoral livelihoods, and food security.

Researchers said that extreme patterns of alternating periods of flooding and drought in countries like Malawi could lead to an increase in the number of IDPs in the future. A flood in January 2015 wiped out infrastructure and killed livestock, displacing more than 336,000 people in the process. Four months after the flood, almost a third of those people were still living in displacement camps. And droughts across south Africa have led to severe food shortages in Malawi.

“Projected weather patterns over the 21st century include an increase in drought and heavy rainfall in southern and east Africa, more intense precipitation in west Africa and more frequent heatwaves in north Africa,” the report predicted.

Already, scientists predict that climate change could lead to food insecurity across the globe and greater numbers of people moving to places that aren’t under water or drought conditions. In poorer countries, floods and droughts could even lead to mass migrations and political upheavals.

In Nigeria, about 90 percent of the nearly 2.1 million people displaced as of August 2016 were on the run because of Boko Haram, but the changing landscape has also led to food insecurity and unstable living situations. Over the past 45 years, the surface area of Lake Chad has shrunk by 90 percent, forcing people to migrate south to access water and to allow livestock to graze.

Researchers noted that they were unable to estimate the number of people who continue to be displaced because of earlier disasters, “but what evidence does exist suggests the figures are probably significant.” That’s because sudden disasters may make it difficult to track people on the run. When they return, they may be unable to recover “and achieve a durable solution,” the report says.

Short-term improvements are expected in South Sudan with improved harvests, but ongoing fighting in the country has driven more than 2,400 people to Uganda’s northern region on a daily pace. Last week, a team of UN human rights experts warned that South Sudan would could “see a repeat of what happened in Rwanda,” referencing the genocide of nearly 800,000 mostly-Tutsi minority in 1994.

IDPs are protected under international humanitarian law, but few laws fully address the obligation of state parties and countries to protect them when they are on the run within their own countries. December marks the four-year anniversary of the African Union (AU) Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa, more commonly known as the Kampala Convention. The treaty established state responsibilities for the prevention of internal displacement and the protection of IDPs.

“This report offers a timely reminder of the scale and complexity of internal displacement as we mark the anniversary of the entry into force of the Kampala convention, Africa’s landmark commitment to preventing internal displacement and protecting the rights of IDPs,” African Union Special Rapporteur on refugees, asylum seekers, migrants and IDPs Maya Sahli Fadel said in a statement.

Press link for more: Think Progress

Canberra showing us the Renewable Energy future #auspol

Canberra Struts Its Renewable Energy And Emissions Reduction Stuff
A new report from the ACT Government highlights its many actions during this year to drive down greenhouse gas emissions and accelerate uptake of renewables.
An annual climate action report states the ACT Government has slashed emissions from its operations by 17% since 2012-2013. The Government has committed to being emissions-free in the next four years.
In addition to its world-leading and award-winning 100% renewable energy target, there has also been a push for improved energy efficiency among Canberra’s households.
Energy Efficiency Improvement Scheme (EEIS) initiatives have now reached 70,000 households and through the use of items such as high efficiency light globes, standby power controllers and door seals, 670,000 tonnes of abatement has been achieved in the nation’s capital.
Also highlighted in the report is a battery storage initiative that will see more than 36 MW of new-generation solar batteries rolled out in more than 5000 Canberra homes and businesses over a four year period.

Canberra Struts Its Renewable Energy And Emissions Reduction Stuff
A new report from the ACT Government highlights its many actions during this year to drive down greenhouse gas emissions and accelerate uptake of renewables.
An annual climate action report states the ACT Government has slashed emissions from its operations by 17% since 2012-2013. The Government has committed to being emissions-free in the next four years.
In addition to its world-leading and award-winning 100% renewable energy target, there has also been a push for improved energy efficiency among Canberra’s households.
Energy Efficiency Improvement Scheme (EEIS) initiatives have now reached 70,000 households and through the use of items such as high efficiency light globes, standby power controllers and door seals, 670,000 tonnes of abatement has been achieved in the nation’s capital.
Also highlighted in the report is a battery storage initiative that will see more than 36 MW of new-generation solar batteries rolled out in more than 5000 Canberra homes and businesses over a four year period.
Canberra battery storage initiative
“The ACT is an example to the rest of Australia, and the world, of what cities and regions can achieve if they show leadership and ambition,” said Minister for Climate Change Shane Rattenbury.
“But, this is the beginning – not the end – of the ACT’s transformation into an entirely renewable energy powered region.”
Renewable energy isn’t just lowering emissions in the ACT, it’s generating jobs.
“The renewable energy jobs growth rate here in the ACT is six times higher than any other state and territory and twelve times higher than the national average. At the same time, we have delivered Australia’s lowest ever renewable electricity prices,” said the Minister.
Adding to the many feathers in its increasingly green cap, the ACT’s pioneering reverse auctions for large scale wind and solar power have captured the attention of cities around the world.

A reverse auction for 200 megawatts of large-scale wind generating capacity was finalised in March 2016 and another for 200 MW of large-scale wind, solar and other nominated renewable energy technology was conducted in May.
Also this year, the ACT Government implemented legislation for new zero net carbon emissions across the Territory by 2050.
The 2015–16 Minister’s annual report: Climate Change and Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act can be viewed here (PDF).

ACT Gov

Climate Change Is Mauling the Arctic Worse Than We Even Thought #auspol

Temperatures in the Arctic this year were the highest since records started more than a century ago, and are driving a decline in sea ice cover, snowpack melt, ocean acidification, and other environmental catastrophes that will accelerate the decline of the Arctic’s fragile ecosystem — with potentially dire consequences for the rest of the earth.

On Tuesday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Arctic Research program released its annual Arctic Report Card — and it paints a bleak picture. “Rarely have we seen the Arctic show a clearer, stronger or more pronounced signal of persistent warming and its cascading effects on the environment than this year,” said Jeremy Mathis, director of NOAA’s Arctic Research Program.
On the Arctic’s overall health, “I would give it a F,” Mathis told Foreign Policy. “And I would give our response to the changes we’re seeing in the Arctic a D+.”
Unfortunately for the rest of the world, the Arctic’s environmental health has a major impact on the rest of the globe, he added. “What happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic,” Mathis told FP.

The Arctic in many ways acts as a global air conditioner — one that is slowly breaking down. In the past, the snow- and ice-covered polar region reflected a lot of sunlight back into space. The region stayed chilly, and helped circulate cooler air through the world’s oceans and jetstreams, regulating to a degree global climate.
But rising temperatures thanks to ever-higher atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases are melting the snow and ice, making for a darker surface that absorbs more sunlight than it used to. That compounds the region’s warming and ensures that the earth as a whole absorbs more heat energy as the reflective ice layers recede.
Additionally, as the region thaws, it could release billions of tons of carbon trapped in the permafrost; NOAA’s report says that permafrost soils contain about twice as much carbon as is currently in the atmosphere.
“If all of that were to be broken down and released into the atmosphere, it could triple the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere,” Mathis told FP.
The litany of doomsday statistics in the report are numbing: The extent of North American spring snow cover was the lowest recorded since satellite coverage began in 1967; summer sea ice extent in 2016 tied 2007 for the second-lowest in the records dating back to 1979 (and in September was retreating even faster than in the record year of 2012); and there has been a 3.5° C increase in Arctic air temperature in the last 15 years, double the rate of global temperature increase. Some areas of the Arctic had temperatures more than 8° C above the norm in January.

Still, Mathis finds a few reasons for optimism. The Arctic has so far been an oasis of cooperation between many countries that are otherwise adversarial to the United States, including Russia and China. Matthis’ program runs a research station in Northern Russia, for example, and has kept working as normal despite U.S. and European sanctions on Russia.

The thawing Arctic also opens the region to new economic and commercial activities, from oil drilling to new maritime trade routes. “Communities living in the Arctic are struggling to deal with change,” Mathis said. “Commercial developments could provides jobs and resources for those communities. That’s an opportunity for us to not only grow the national economy but also interconnect other countries’ regional economies.”

The United States, which this year chairs the international forum overseeing the region, the Arctic Council, has prioritized improving Arctic communities, ocean stewardship, and addressing climate change under President Barack Obama. But a change in administration could usher a new approach to the region, as Donald Trump and his top cabinet picks, many of whom are climate change skeptics, take office in January. Some climate scientists, fearing the new administration’s hostility to their work, are even frantically copying down U.S. climate change data lest it vanish after Trump steps into the Oval Office. The Republican-controlled Congress has also been hostile to Obama administration climate-change initiatives, including climate research and efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
Mathis, still living happily in a fact-based reality, is hopeful the change won’t impact NOAA’s mission to document the pace of change in the Arctic. “This report is really beyond reproach when it comes to presenting the facts,” he said.

Press link for more: foreignpolicy.com