We continue to break record temperatures and hurtle toward disaster, but there have been some notable victories, too
The water that runs through the canals of Venice is clear, clearer than it has been in decades.
It apparently just needed a vacation from everyone else’s vacations. Without a constant stream of pollution from tourism boats, the water started looking like water again after a couple of months into the pandemic.
That would be good news for Venice’s 50,000 residents, except that clear canal water will do them little good when most of their city is underwater by the end of the century.
Cheery tales of a healing planet during a pandemic that’s pumping the brakes on human activity are often exaggerated expressions of wishful thinking, climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe told Street Roots.
Hayhoe is an atmospheric scientist and professor of political science at Texas Tech University, where she is director of the Climate Science Center. She is also the CEO of the consulting firm ATMOS Research and Consulting.
Q&A: Katharine Hayhoe is on a mission to change minds of faith-based climate-change deniers
News about the climate crisis, often overshadowed by the pandemic the past seven months, has been a mixture of good and bad, Hayhoe said. Given the magnitude of the crisis, she said, it’s mostly bad.
“The long-term upward trend in CO2 (carbon dioxide) is the result of cumulative, not annual, emissions — every single brick we’ve been putting on the pile every month since the dawn of the Industrial Era,” Hayhoe said. “Today, adding a brick 25% smaller for one to two months isn’t going to make a big difference.”
In some ways, the pandemic has been a dress rehearsal for the climate crisis. Human beings throughout the world have been called upon to embrace science, change their lifestyles and make sacrifices for the common good.
The United States — with 4% of the world’s population and 25% of its COVID-19 cases — shows little promise. Even the wearing of face masks has become a polarizing, and at times violent, political controversy.
“The pandemic has shown us that, even when imminent risk stares us in the face, political ideology will still prevent many from recognizing that threat,” Hayhoe said.
Yet many Americans care about the climate crisis. Concern about the crisis rose from 44% in 2009 to 60% this year, according to new polling from the Pew Research Center.
However, such concern comes largely from Democrats. Opinions among Republicans remain largely unchanged, according to the research.
“When it all comes down to it, many more of us will recognize the threat. And putting aside questions of culture, language, identity and political ideology, we will work together for the health and safety of our families, our communities, our countries and the world.”
Meanwhile, humanity is running out of time. Carbon Tracker, a London-based financial think tank, uses publicly available oil company data to measure the industry’s carbon footprint today and by 2040.
According to a study Carbon Tracker released Nov. 1, major oil companies must cut their combined production by a third in the next 20 years to keep emissions within international climate targets.
Mike Coffin, an oil and gas analyst at Carbon Tracker and the author of the report, said in a press release that none of the major oil companies’ emissions targets align with the 2015 Paris Agreement on emissions.
“If companies and governments attempt to develop all their oil and gas reserves, either the world will miss its climate targets or assets will become ‘stranded’ in the energy transition — or both,” Coffin said.
“The industry is trying to have its cake and eat it — reassuring shareholders and appearing supportive of Paris, while still producing more fossil fuels,” he said. “This (Carbon Tracker) analysis shows that if companies really want to both mitigate financial risk and be part of the climate solution, they must shrink production.”
While major oil companies need to cut their combined production by 34%, the Carbon Tracker study warns that other fossil fuel producers may need to make much deeper cuts.
According to the study, ConocoPhillips faces the biggest production cuts of 85%, while ExxonMobil, the biggest oil major, needs to cut its production by 55%.
“Cuts will have to be made across industry,” Mark Fulton, the chair of Carbon Tracker’s Research Council, said in the press release accompanying the study.
“After all, the majors alone represent a minority of global production,” Fulton said. “For investors, however, the focus will be on efforts to mitigate risks and maximize returns at their own investee companies rather than other potential asset stranding elsewhere.”
Investors and environmental activists continue to press companies to be transparent about their spending plans and drop projects that are not climate-friendly, he added.
Activists, however, scored some victories this summer on other fronts.
A federal judge ruled July 6 that the Dakota Access Pipeline, approved by President Donald Trump during his first month in office, be shut down in August because federal officials failed to adequately analyze the project’s environmental impact.
The decision came the day after two energy companies behind the controversial 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline abandoned the six-year project.
Company executives said the projected $8 billion pipeline was too expensive and faced uncertain environmental regulations.
In April, a federal judge in Montana halted construction on the United States’ portion of the 1,179-mile Keystone XL pipeline — citing, among other factors, concerns about insufficient environmental impact studies.
Work can’t resume until the U.S. Circuit Court and the Supreme Court deliver their final rulings on the case.
Internationally, six young Portuguese people filed a lawsuit this month with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, demanding that 33 countries be held accountable for fueling the climate crisis. The case was filed just as Portugal recorded its hottest July in 90 years.
“It terrifies me to know that the record-breaking heat waves we have endured are only just the beginning,” said one of the plaintiffs, Catarina Mota, in a formal statement.
“With so little time left to stop this, we must do everything we can to force governments to properly protect us,” she said. “This is why I’m bringing this case.”
The plaintiffs in the case are Mota, 20; Cláudia Agostinho, 21; Martim Agostinho, 17; Sofia Oliveira, 15; André Oliveira, 12; and Mariana Agostinho, 8. They receive legal support from the Global Legal Action Network, a nonprofit advocacy group based in the United Kingdom.
“This case is being filed at a time when European governments are planning to spend billions to restore economies hit by COVID-19,” said Gerry Liston, legal officer with GLAN, in the press release.
“If they are serious about their legal obligations to prevent climate catastrophe, they will use this money to ensure a radical and rapid transition away from fossil fuels,” he said.
IN OREGON: Paradise lost? State faces a natural — and political — climate crisis
Portugal wasn’t the only hot spot this summer. Los Angeles County recorded 121 degrees, its highest-ever temperature, on Sept. 7. Baghdad hit a record-breaking 125 degrees on July 28 and 29.
Gavin Schmidt, the director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, which keeps the agency’s temperature records, blames human activities that emit greenhouse gases for what could be one of the hottest summers in history.
“Until we stop doing that, we’re going to see this over and over again,” Schmidt said in a press statement.
However, along with international lawsuit and victories against the pipelines, Hayhoe sees other rays of hope.
“When it all comes down to it, many more of us will recognize the threat,” she told Street Roots. “And putting aside questions of culture, language, identity and political ideology, we will work together for the health and safety of our families, our communities, our countries and the world.”
The first step, Hayhoe said, is looking scientific reality squarely in the face. An ailing human race offers a planet in even more critical condition barely any time to recover, she said.
“As the pandemic passes, carbon emissions will most likely bounce right back up again, and possibly then some, as industry does its best to make up for lost productivity, income and wages,” she said. “So any slowdown is temporary at best.”
She acknowledged the situation sounds grim.
“If even such extreme, draconian measures to alter human behavior as we’ve seen the last few months aren’t enough to impact climate change, how do we even have an ice cube’s chance of fixing it long-term?” she said.
Yet Hayhoe insisted the outlook is far from hopeless.
“The reason why the pandemic isn’t likely to reduce carbon emissions long term is because those emissions weren’t reduced by sustainable changes in human behavior — by increasing efficiency, replacing fossil fuels with clean energy and drawing carbon down into the soil,” she said.
If humans take those actions, she said, they stand a much better chance of survival.
Street Roots is an award-winning, weekly publication focusing on economic, environmental and social justice issues. The newspaper is sold in Portland, Oregon, by people experiencing homelessness and/or extreme poverty as means of earning an income with dignity. Street Roots newspaper operates independently of Street Roots advocacy and is a part of the Street Roots organization. Learn more about Street Roots. Support your community newspaper by making a one-time or recurring gift today.
© 2020 Street Roots. All rights reserved. | To request permission to reuse content, email editor@streetroots.org or call 503-228-5657, ext. 404.
