Sunny climate, stormy climate | Weekly digest #10
Welcome to a new edition of Sunny climate, Stormy climate - your weekly dose of climate news
Hello! Welcome to the 10th edition of Sunny climate, Stormy climate! Here, every week I bring to you 5 stories about the changing climate and its impact on us!
3 stormy ones - concerning stories that are a source of alarm
2 sunny ones - green shoots that tell you that all is not yet lost
So let’s look at what we have this week!
Stormy news
Records are heating up: July 4th 2023 is officially the hottest day on record!
Illustration: Fiona Katauskas/The Guardian What is the TL:DR?
From now on, 4th of July will not be remembered just as the US Independence day, but also the hottest day we have on record (since records have been maintained - roughly since 1900 in most places)
July 3rd became the hottest day on record with a global average temperature of 17.01 deg C beating the previous record of 16.92 deg C set in August 2016
Unfortunately though, it couldn’t hold the record for too long and was beaten the very next day - with average global temperature on July 4th reaching17.18 deg C!
What other records have we broken?
The record for the highest sea surface temperature levels was broken in April 2023
The Antractica (which has winter right now) also saw its highest recorded temperatures for July last week
Why should we be concerned?
This temperature record will probably be broken again. And again. At least in the coming year.
Unprecedented levels of green house gases combined with the El Nino that has started, means that we will likely see heat records continue to be broken
This has kind of become a pattern this summer. Just the number of times temperature records have featured in this 3 month old newsletter should give you a sense:
Weekly digest # 9 (July 3rd) - Heat waves in India, China and US
Weekly digest #8 (June 19th) - Record breaking temperature in Siberia
Weekly digest #4 (May 15th) - Vietnam records highest ever temperature
Weekly digest #2 (May 1st) - Spain records highest ever April temperatures in European mainland
US climate reporter quits after being threatened
What are we talking about?
Chris Gloninger was a TV meteorologist working for KCCI-TV in Des Moines in the United States
He had recently been reporting about the connection between extreme weather events and climate change. “I started just connecting the dots between extreme weather and climate change, and then the volume of pushback started to increase quite dramatically,” he said in an interview with the Associated Press.
He started getting outraged e-mails and even threats
Sadly, on June 21, he announced he was leaving the channel and his 18 year old career in broadcasting altogether
Why is this concerning?
Climate journalists and news reporters play an important role in creating awareness about the climate crisis. However, they cannot play that part if we don’t let them say the truth.
This is not an isolated incident and a common experience for meteorologists across the country
It is an indication of the extent of climate change denial that is prevalent in our society today
Agreement on taxes on shipping emissions to fund climate action delayed again.
Why does shipping matter?
Global shipping is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emission. It makes up 3% of all GHG emissions and at the current rate is expected to make up to 10% by 2050.
What are we talking about?
Talks between 175 nations to impose a levy on global shipping for its greenhouse gas emissions could not reach an agreement.
Countries pushing for a levy include EU member states including Greece, as well as South Korea and Japan, which are all major shipping nations. The US has also signaled its willingness to consider a levy, and the World Bank has backed it.
Countries blocking the tax included some that are outwardly committed to climate action, including Brazil, Australia, South Africa and Indonesia, and the host country of this year’s Cop28 UN climate summit, the United Arab Emirates.
Reduction in the carbon intensity of international shipping by 40% by 2030, compared with 2008 levels. Intensity refers to the emissions produced per cargo and distance travelled.
Reduction in the total emissions from international shipping by at least 20% by 2030, with an ambition to reach 30% cuts by that date.
The IMO also said international shipping would reach net zero “close to” 2050.
Sunny news
Rate of Amazon deforestation in Brazil reduced by 1/3rd under the new President Lula
Well, this news is not exactly what I would call sunny. It’s more like cloudy weather that with sun rays trying to fight their way through the clouds
What is the TL; DR?
The Brazilian government revealed that deforestation in the Amazon rainforest decreased by one-third during the first six months of President Lula’s administration
Satellite images indicated that from January to June, approximately 2,649 square kms of rainforest were cleared, in contrast to the 3,988 square kms that were deforested in the first half of 2022
The deforestation has not yet stopped, only the rate of deforestation has reduced. Despite the drop, the area cleared during the first half of this year is still greater than the size of Luxembourg.
What steps has the Lula government taken to reduce deforestation?
Lula has pledged to end deforestation, or forest clearance, by 2030.
Earlier this year, Lula decreed six new indigenous reserves, banning mining and restricting commercial farming there.
The govt. aims to allocate three million hectares (7.4 million acres) of protected land by 2027 and strengthen Brazil's environmental monitoring network.
Additionally, Lula has been actively seeking financial support from the world's wealthiest nations to fund initiatives focused on safeguarding the rainforest.
One man’s mission to reforest a barren Irish hillside
What is rewilding?
Rewilding is a form of ecological restoration aimed at increasing biodiversity and restoring natural processes.
There has been some kind of a ‘rewilding movement’ in the western world with (mostly rich) people trying to bring back natural biodiversity in tracts of lands they own
What is the story we are talking about here?
Over the past 14 years Daltun, a farmer-cum-activist, author and sculptor has turned 30 acres of rugged hillside in Beara, into a showcase of biodiversity and climate action.
He fenced off the land to keep out feral goats, sika deer and other non-native animals, eradicated rhododendron and other invasive alien plants, and let nature do the rest.
“The result was amazing,” Daltun said during a tour of the land last week. “Almost from the start the whole place started to transform. You started to see drifts of wildflowers: dog violet, primrose, bluebell, bugle, wood-sorrel. And tree seedlings started to pop up.”
The site now has forest canopy and an abundance of insects and native mammals, such as pine martens, otters and lesser horseshoe bats. Wrens chirp from nests and ravens fly overhead. A recent drought dried up nearby streams but water still trickled through Daltun’s property.
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