TUESDAYS — YOUR INBOX — ASSUREDLY ______________________________________________________________________
CURATED ECOLOGICAL NEWS 1.5°C in the rear view
“There is no room for doubt: Earth is getting hotter. The question now is how hot will it get? A May 2024 survey asked 380 leading climate scientists whether the 1.5°C goal will be achieved. Only 6% said yes. 77% expect that global temperatures will rise more than 2.5°C by 2100, and 42% think the increase will be over 3°C. “According to the UN, ‘A continuation of the mitigation effort implied by current policies is estimated to limit global warming to a maximum of 3.1°C (range: 1.9–3.8) over the course of the century’. This isn’t just a matter for future concern. 2024 was the hottest year since preindustrial times, and the first full year in which the average temperature passed the 1.5°C target. 2024 is almost certainly an indicator of what is to come, especially if, as James Hansen argues, global warming is speeding up.” More at: Resistance to sale of western states’ public lands
“Public outcry was swift and forceful after a U.S. House committee last month hastily approved an amendment directing the federal government to sell off more than half a million acres of public land. A few days later, lawmakers advanced the larger bill that stripped the federal lands provision. Yet leaders on both sides of the issue say the battle over selling off federal lands is likely just heating up. “In Western states, where most federally owned lands are located, some leaders view these lands as a treasured inheritance. Others feel that too much of the land in their states is controlled by officials in Washington, D.C., leaving it off-limits for development and curtailing its economic value. Trump officials and allies have embraced the latter view. “A federal judge in Arizona temporarily halted the Oak Flat land exchange while two lawsuits challenging the exchange proceed. Without the injunction, the public lands about 40 miles east of Phoenix would have been handed over to a private mining company as early as June 16. “Today’s decision enjoins the Forest Service from conveying the federal lands until 60 days after publication of the environmental impact statement. One lawsuit seeking the temporary injunction was filed by the San Carlos Apache Tribe and the other by a coalition of conservation and recreation groups, and the Inter Tribal Association of Arizona, Inc.” More at: States sue to preserve California’s EV sales rules
“[The current occupant of the White House] last Thursday acted to overturn California’s electric-vehicle rules that sought to stop the sale of new gasoline-only cars by 2035. Soon after, a group of 11 states filed suit in U.S. District Court in northern California challenging the repeal of the electric-vehicle rules. Washington joined the California-led effort. “Washington Attorney General Nick Brown noted that transportation is the largest contributor to greenhouse-gas pollution in the state. White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said ‘Americans didn’t vote for our auto and trucking industries to be destroyed by California’s EV mandate’. “U.S. Rep. Michael Baumgartner, a Washington Republican, said that the ‘totally unworkable California and Washington electric truck mandate’ would have tanked the state’s economy and raised inflation. The Washington Trucking Association President and CEO Sheri Call described California’s EV trucking regulations as a ‘disaster’ for Washington. “[State of Washington] Ecology Director Casey Sixkiller said the state won’t slow down on its clean-vehicle progress. Residents are experiencing climate change manifest in sea-level rise, wildfires, flooding and droughts, he added.” More at: Ocean acidification planetary boundary breached
“As the United Nations Ocean Conference opened last week in Nice, France, a major scientific report revealed that one of Earth’s planetary boundaries — ocean acidification — has already been crossed. The study found that ocean acidification (OA) crossed its critical planetary threshold by the year 2020. In some regions, that boundary was surpassed as early as 2000. “Ocean acidification results from the absorption of excess atmospheric CO2 by seawater. This chemical shift decreases carbonate ion concentrations — essential for organisms that build shells or skeletons out of calcium carbonate. The process fundamentally threatens coral reefs, shellfish, and plankton species that underpin marine food webs. “The most alarming revelation in the study is the extent to which OA has infiltrated both surface and subsurface waters. The polar regions show the biggest changes in ocean acidification at the surface. Meanwhile, in deeper waters, the largest changes are happening in areas just outside the poles, and in the upwelling regions along the west coast of North America and near the equator. “The study notes that 43% of suitable habitat for coral reefs has been lost. In polar regions, pteropods, tiny planktonic snails vital to food webs, have lost up to 61% of their habitat. Coastal shellfish like mussels and oysters have seen a 13% decline in suitable habitat globally. “The planetary boundary framework defines nine essential Earth system processes that regulate the stability and resilience of the planet. Crossing these boundaries increases the risk of irreversible environmental change.” More at: Tonga to recognize whales as legal persons
“Tonga, a Pacific Island nation with deep connections to the ocean and its non-human inhabitants, could become the first country in the world to recognize that whales have inherent rights. Speaking at the United Nations Ocean Conference in Nice, France, Tongan Princess Angelika Lātūfuipeka Tukuʻaho called for the recognition of whales as legal persons. “‘This would effectively give whales agency within the legal system’, said Grant Wilson of the U.S.-based Earth Law Center. Tonga’s announcement is part of a broader global rights of nature movement progressing in dozens of countries. Panama, Spain, Ecuador and Bolivia are among the countries that have such laws on the books. “Advocates behind the movement say that unlike conventional environmental protections, which largely regulate the amount of allowable pollution, rights of nature laws take a preventative approach. Much of the momentum behind the rights of nature movement is generated by a widespread belief that existing laws have failed to stop Earth’s multiple environmental crises — including severe damage to Earth’s oceans.” More at: Defy Beyer-Monsanto by saving and sharing seeds
“Seed sharing has been a venerable tradition since the dawn of agriculture. Sharing has been a way of honoring the renewal of life, developing new seedlines, and maintaining a farmer’s independence while helping other farmers. “Modern capitalism, armed with new technologies and legal powers, has savaged this tradition of seed-sharing, with disastrous results. For the past several decades, large biotech corporations have aggressively engineered seeds and the design of seed markets to make them proprietary monopolies. “Jack Kloppenburg of the Open Source Seed Initiative (OSSI) has been at the forefront of seed-sharing issues for forty years. His book Seeds and Sovereignty is about the corporate capture of genetic resources. The sharing tradition began to erode in 1980, when the doors were opened by a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Chakrabarty, that allowed lifeforms to be patented. And intellectual property rights have been applied that restrict seed-saving and exchange, which have been deeply problematic. “Some parts of the open seed movement have turned to legal licenses as a way to assure the shareability of seeds. However, small farmers and breeders, by temperament and habit, are not eager to become enforcers of legalistic, complicated licenses. ‘You end up looking like Monsanto, with a two-page, single-spaced license that can only be understood by lawyers’, said Kloppenburg. “So OSSI has focused more on changing the culture of seed sharing and breeding, by trying to cultivate social practices and a culture of sharing, using an ‘honor system’ pledge. The OSSI Pledge is two sentences. ‘You have the freedom to use these OSSI-Pledged seeds in any way you choose. In return, you pledge not to restrict others’ use of these seeds or their derivatives by patents or other means, and to include this Pledge with any transfer of these seeds or their derivatives’.” More at: Food sovereignty — community control of food
“At its heart, food sovereignty is a people-led response to the existential threats and multiple crises facing agri-food systems. Led by peasant farmers, agricultural workers, and indigenous peoples, these citizen networks are seeking to fundamentally transform agri-food systems in terms of conviviality, equity, ecological sustainability, resilience, and justice. “Since it was first proposed by the agrarian movement La Via Campesina (LVC) in 1996, the concept of food sovereignty has rapidly moved from the margins to the center stage in international discussions on food, environment, and well-being. The food sovereignty movement affirms that food is a basic human right — as opposed to a commodity. “The definition of food sovereignty is “the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems” (La Via Campesina 2007). “The dominant model of economic development continues to fuel historically unprecedented concentrations of wealth and power by a tiny minority of hyper-rich individuals. Their strategic priority is to ensure that economic rules do not constrain their activity in any way, and allow instead for continued private accumulation as well as the externalization of social and environmental costs. “A fundamentally different economics is needed for widespread transitions to food sovereignty. Degrowth as well as re-localized economies are essential for food sovereignty. Diverse communities thus require alternative forms of economic organization. Fortunately, more-than-capitalist economies persist across the world. In fact, much of the world’s economy is informal, cooperative, hidden, community-based, and unwaged.” More at: AI — Saving grace? Or tempting trap?
“On one hand, AI is said to be leading us toward a perfect future of ease, health, and broadened understanding, to usher in a permanent era of enlightenment and plenty. On the other hand, AI is poised to thrust us into a future of unemployment, environmental destruction, delusion, and disinformation. “Utopia and apocalypse have long exerted powerful pulls on human imagination and behavior. New technologies tend to energize these two polar attractors in our collective psyche because toolmaking and language are humanity’s two superpowers, which have enabled our species to take over the world, while also bringing us to a point of existential peril. “Language supercharges our toolmaking talent by enabling us to learn from others; it is also the vehicle for formulating and expressing our hopes and fears. AI, because it is both technological and linguistic, and because it is being adopted at a frantic pace and so disruptively, is especially prone to triggering the utopia/apocalypse reflex. “The article Visions of AI Utopia by Future Sight Echo, informs us that AI will soften the impacts of economic inequality by delivering resources more efficiently, and will also reduce humanity’s impact on the environment by minimizing energy requirements and waste of all kinds. “There is abundant evidence that people with money share these hopes for AI. The hottest stocks on Wall Street (notably Nvidia) are AI-related. Capital is being shoveled in the general direction of AI so rapidly (roughly $300 billion just this year, in the US alone) that, if its advertised potential is even half believable, we should all rest assured that most human problems will soon vanish — Or will they? “Full disclosure: I’ve gone on record calling for AI to be banned immediately. My reason is that AI gives us humans more power than we already have; and that, collectively, we already have way too much power vis-à-vis the rest of nature. We’re overwhelming ecosystems through resource extraction and waste dumping to such a degree that, if current trends continue, wild nature may disappear by the end of the century. “Let’s be specific. What, exactly, could go wrong because of AI? For starters, AI could make some already bad things worse — in both nature and society. Through its massive energy demand, AI could accelerate climate change by generating more carbon emissions. AI needs vast amounts of water. AI requires millions of tons of copper, steel, cement, and other raw materials. AI could widen the divide between rich and poor by replacing lower-skilled workers with machines while greatly increasing the wealth of those who control the technology. AI could accelerate corporate political influence. “Knowledge is power. As AIs become increasingly savvy at producing and acting on knowledge, what will they or those who control them do with it? In whose interest will they act, especially if AIs begin cooperating with one another? Google DeepMind AI researcher, Chris Summerfield, is less worried about the technology itself than about humans’ capacity to understand how it works and to interact with it intelligently. “Ultimately, Summerfield argues that large language models (LLMs) are not sentient—at least not in any way humans can understand — that they’re unlikely to take over and destroy the world, but that they may well exacerbate existing problems. After all, AI’s limitations are not that dissimilar from those of the human brain, he says. “However, the most horrific visions for AI go beyond just making bad things worse. A recent Brookings commentary was titled, ‘How Unchecked AI Could Trigger a Nuclear War’. Some AI philosophers opine that AI might come to view biological humans as pointless wasters, and terminate humanity. “AI forecasts may miss a crucial factor. Most people tend to ignore limits, or even to believe that there are none. Earth is finite, and therefore lots of things we can imagine doing just won’t happen. I would argue that discussions about AI’s promise and peril need a dose of limits awareness. “There will be environmental limits to the energy, water, and materials that AI needs. And there’s a crucial limit to AI development that’s inherent in the technology itself. Large language models need vast amounts of high-quality data. As more information workers are replaced by AI, more of the data available to AI will be AI-generated rather than being produced by experienced researchers. Which means AI could become trapped in a cycle of declining information quality, which tech insiders call ‘AI model collapse’.” More at: Can we learn from our mistakes? — We haven’t yet.
“This article applies learning from the past in order to better steer the future. History is of course littered with moments that proved to be inflection points; sometimes this was clear to those living through these ruptures, other times the significance of the moment only became clear with hindsight. “The academic Peter Turchin predicted [in 2020] that a confluence of instability and disruption would occur around now, and reality has duly delivered. The fundamental foundations of the global geopolitical system are profoundly challenged. Constraining climate change to <1.5°C looks progressively more doubtful, and global conflict flashpoints are mounting and escalating. Global extinction rates continue to soar far beyond background levels, and a technological dystopia continues to take shape. “It is with these epochal patterns in mind that a look back and forth may be insightful. This first [of two] parts is a look back through time to a representative cross section of moments in history in which societies faced notable calamities and particularly severe conditions. The intent of this is to look with open eyes at what has been thrown at humans in the past. This will provide the basis for the forward-looking second part, informed by learnings from these historical events. What follows are some none-too-cheerful but important overviews. “Late Bronze Age Collapse, from approximately 3000-1000 BC. These societies underwent near-total collapse over the course of just a few decades up to approximately 1180 BC. The archaeological evidence and radiocarbon dating indicates that climate-driven droughts and agricultural failures and consequent famines affecting whole regions of the Mediterranean and Levant occurred. “6th Century European/Asian ‘Fog’, between the years of 536-547 CE. Records and narratives from Europe, the Middle East and Asia describe a significant cooling event that significantly reduced insolation levels. The main consequence was widespread crop failures, and eventually full-blown famines. Glacial ice cores indicating that large volcanic events had taken place which had injected aerosols into the upper atmosphere, reflecting insolation. “Classical Mayan Collapse/Meso-American Drought, from approximately 800-925 CE. During this time very significant drops in population occurred, social structures disintegrated, elites disappeared, record keeping ceased, and large-scale construction ceased in the major cities. Analysis of isotopic composition of water bound in sediments in Lake Chichancanab indicate that severe drought occurred during the period. Famines were caused by agricultural output declines. “14th Century European Great Famine, starting in the winter of 1313. period of severe weather lasting until 1317 occurred across continental Europe and the British Isles. Heavy rainfall and severe flooding led to ubiquitous crop damage, harvest failure, and livestock loss, and consequently a severe famine. As second order effects including disease, disorder and criminality spiked, people resorted to cannibalism and eating seed grain. Approximately 10-15% of the population did not survive. “General Crisis of the 17th Century describes a prolonged period of approximately 80 years. The drivers of this crisis were in many cases localised, but in aggregate they led to profound changes in the socio-political organisation. The General Crisis was characterised by violence and social breakdown, leading to severe constraints to the food supply, resulting in famines and spread of disease. “19th Century Hunger Crises; two major famines and periods of societal disruption centred on the years 1816-17 and 1875-78. The ‘year without a summer’ (1816) included frost and snowfall, excessive rainfall and storminess, resulted from much-reduced insolation following the eruption of Mount Tambora (in modern-day Indonesia). This in turn drove widespread agricultural failure and crop loss, severe price rises and famine, spread of disease, and widespread social unrest and rioting. “What can be learned from this procession of historical disasters? Perhaps the first and most obvious golden thread is the climate really, really matters. The fragility of human societies and the systems they were reliant on was painfully borne out. The size and complexity of the societies in question also seems to have an important bearing on the outcomes.” More at: | 
