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    climate emergency

    This aerial view shows Amazon forest degradation in the Menkragnoti Indigenous Territory in Altamira, Pará state, Brazil, on August 28, 2019.

    Human Activity Has Degraded Amazon Rainforest Much More Than Previously Thought: Study

    With Lula in power "there is hope now, but our paper shows it is not enough to resolve deforestation," said one co-author. "There is much more work to be done."

    Kenny Stancil
    Jan 27, 2023

    Peer-reviewed research out Friday shows that human activity has degraded much more of the Amazon rainforest than previously believed, with over a third of the remaining forest area afflicted and at risk of being irreversibly damaged.

    Deforestation in the Amazon has been well-documented, but the new paper published in Science focuses on anthropogenic disturbances that harm what is left of the biodiverse ecosystem and threaten its future.

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    Amazon Rainforest
    ​Workers build an electric bus at a factory in Lancaster, California on May 1, 2018.

    New Research Details Promise of Converting From 'War Economy to a Green Economy'

    "Military industrial production can be redirected to civilian technologies that contribute to societal well-being and provide green jobs," says the Costs of War project.

    Kenny Stancil
    Jan 26, 2023

    A pair of reports published Thursday show that many workers employed in the U.S. military-industrial complex support shifting manufacturing resources from military to civilian use—a conversion seen as vital to the fight against the climate emergency.

    Moving "from a war economy to a green economy" can help avert the worst consequences of the climate crisis, noted the Costs of War project at Brown University’s Watson Institute, publisher of the new research.

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    US Military
    A policeman with a dog stands on the edge of a lignite mine in the village of Luetzerath, western Germany

    Reaching 1.5°C of Global Heating by 2024 Isn't Even the Whole Story

    Does anyone out there still believe that our current system of growth at all costs is symbiotic with our existence?

    Simon Whalley
    Jan 26, 2023

    With the warmer El Niño climate pattern about to replace the colder La Niña in the Pacific Ocean at the end of the year, we are about to get a real glimpse into our collective future. While our governments have been pretending to focus on a distant 2050 target to limit warming to 2.7°F (1.5°C), there is a 50:50 chance that we will reach the landmark temporarily by next year. Sadly, this isn’t the extent of our problems. In 2009, scientists from the Stockholm Resilience Center identified nine planetary boundaries: including climate change - whose thresholds we could not cross if we wished to continue with human civilization. Spoiler alert: humanity is not listening.

    In 2009, when the boundaries were first established, we had already passed three of the nine boundaries—climate change, biodiversity loss, and excess nitrogen and phosphorus. With our current policies, we are on course to increase the global average temperature by as much as 6.5°F (3.6°C) by the end of the century. This doesn’t take into account the potential feedback loops and tipping points that many scientists predict will considerably worsen at 3.6°F (2°C) and potentially lock us in to a hothouse Earth scenario. Without urgent action to reduce emissions, we are forecast to pass 2.7°F (1.5°C) by 2032 and then 3.6°F (2°C) by 2043. This increased temperature has already led to heatwaves like the one that killed 53,000 people in Europe last summer. It’s leading to more severe storms, increased flooding like we saw in Nigeria and Pakistan last year, and longer and more frequent droughts like those in the U.S. Midwest and large parts of sub-Saharan Africa. It’s also leading to the rapid melting of Greenland and Antarctica, and it has been forecast that we could see several meters of sea-level rise as soon as 2066. This will affect all food production, with wheat harvests expected to decrease by 37% at 3.6°F (2°C) of warming, corn harvests projected to decrease by up to 18%, and soybean harvests projected to decrease by 12%. These are the most common crops grown on our planet. Some prominent climate scientists predict that at 7.2°F (4°C) of warming, the planet will be able to support less than 1 billion people. Our human population is expected to reach 10 billion by 2050 at the same time that our food production is decreasing.

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    Climate Emergency
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