Dawning of the Light

Ahead of COP27 in Egypt, it has dawned on everyone in the climate modeling refinement and measured data from all over the world that there isn't any more room in the carbon allowance space to stay within the parameters agreed to by the UNFCCC to keep the warming of the planet below 1.5C. This problem is particularly wicked because emissions have not even peaked yet, according to the stats provided by the EIA. World energy use via fossil fuels simply keeps increasing.

"UN finds ‘no credible pathway to 1.5C in place’ in the current climate crisis. Current pledges for action by 2030, if delivered in full, would mean a rise in global heating of about 2.5C and catastrophic extreme weather around the world. A rise of 1C to date has caused climate disasters in locations from Pakistan to Puerto Rico."

It remains to be seen if COP27 in Egypt in November brings any action to bear on carbon reduction processes or practices. It doesn't seem like things are going to change much. Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has said she will skip next month's COP27 talks in Egypt, criticising the global summit as a forum for addressing climate change.

Building Industry Climate Action

 

The building industry is currently leading its climate action by developing standards and practices that decarbonize the physical construction of new and existing structures and infrastructure, as well as electrifying all energy use. The American Institute of Architects (AIA) is currently developing its national design criteria via the Committee on The Environment (COTE).

The basis for this approach is a published study done by the Worthen Foundation, for use by the industry: 

"Reducing and eliminating carbon emissions from the built environment — building decarbonization — is one of the best opportunities to combat climate change today. The built environment contributes approximately 40% of overall climate emissions, and the technologies necessary to decarbonize buildings are already proven. The William J. Worthen Foundation's Building Decarbonization Practice Guide is a free resource for design professionals, developers, funders, and policymakers, showing the steps that are required today to create a zero carbon future."

The AIA is developing the framework for building decarbonization and electrification for use by the profession, in concert with Architecture 2030.

"To support the 2030 Challenge, the American Institute of Architects created the 2030 Commitment Program, aimed at transforming the practice of architecture to respond to the climate crisis in a way that is holistic, firm-wide, project-based, and data-driven. Over 400 A/E/P firms have adopted the 2030 Commitment, and firms from all over the country have been tracking and reporting projects since 2010, with over 2.7 billion ft2 of project work reported in 2016 alone."

The architecture profession isn't waiting around for the US to adopt a formal framework along with the other countries around the globe, it's been underway for years now. The AIA is developing coursework for professionals that provide the resources and training necessary to meet the framework objectives.AIA California is leading this charge with developing coursework and Building Code revisions so that adoption is rapid and comprehensive.

"According to the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, the time for climate action is now. Architects play a crucial role in mitigating and adapting to climate change through sustainable and resilient design. Energy efficiency and renewable energy, materials transparency, the protection of water resources, and other sustainability strategies support mitigation by conserving resources and reducing carbon emissions."

The AIA was in attendance at COP26 and will also be present at COP27 in Egypt this November.

Climate Change: New Risks

 

 

Our warming planet is impacting the built environment as well as the natural systems, which are beginning to disintegrate. It's not just the increasing impact of burning forests and major flooding on structures that result in ongoing severe damage to entire communities now. It means that structures and traffic infrastructure will necessarily reduce their carbon content in the larger efforts to combat the increasing "forcing" of carbon emissions globally. The American Institute of Architects has taken an aggressive position on this with its 2030 Challenge, which changes how building types and construction materials are used in new construction.

This involves revising the building codes to raise the bar for decarbonization of the entire supply chain for construction and development. California is currently in the process of doing this. The insurance industry is also looking at increased risks for climate change damages, which will only increase. On the proactive side of this action is a shift in the professional liabilities involved with the design of building projects and infrastructure development. This is known as the "standard of care" that applies to licensed professionals. 

"A new report released by the Scalable Climate Action Group within the institute’s Strategic Council looks at levers of change that can potentially bring about widespread climate-change actions. These levers include climate literacy; environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investments; and policy changes. Also on the list is professional liability associated with neglecting climate concerns during design."

This reflects a changing policy environment which is leading the manufacturing and supply chains to provide electrified buildings and electric cars, as well as power generation with wind turbines and solar panels. This is a necessarily massive shift, which will take decades to completely implement, but that can be an achievable effort by the first world countries to shut down their historically excessive carbon emissions. We're twenty years behind in this necessary effort, so it has become more difficult to accomplish. But it's still achievable if it's done as a rapid global effort to repair the damage that human civilization has done.

Into the Furnace

 

The screenshot above comes from a video in April of 2019. It's a screen capture of a massive fire in Los Angeles, California near the Getty Center. This video record is documenting the opening of the International Rebellion in London with Jem Bendell leading the protest. "Europe has been experiencing unprecedented heat waves, particularly in the summer of 2018. It has resulted in a drop in food production of 20% and is now getting worse. The video shows a diagram of how these energy emissions are interacting to produce the global heating that we're experiencing. The future of our climate is not now under our control." This rebellion did not produce any policy changes in the UK government, but it became a precursor to the events following, as heat waves began to propagate across the planet in the following years.

Greta Thunberg and Al Gore, two of the world's leading voices in the fight against climate change, publicly reacted to the record-setting heat wave and wildfires gripping Europe in July of this year (2022). "With temperature records being smashed in parts of the United Kingdom and France, Thunberg, the Swedish environmental activist, warned that the worst is yet to come. As of Tuesday, at least 1,346 people had died in Spain and Portugal due to the current heat wave, and experts say that figure is expected to rise over the coming days as extreme heat continues to broil places like the U.K., where air conditioning is not common."

Alarm is rising as the fastest growing US cities risk becoming unlivable from the climate crisis. Cities that sprawl in the south-western US have in recent years experienced population booms, with people moving in droves for cheap yet expansive properties, warm winters and plentiful jobs. Large corporations are shifting their bases to states with low taxes and cheaper cost of living.This has been upended with the reality of the climate emergency, with parts of the southwest suffering the worst drought in more than 1,000 years, with record wildfires and extreme heat that is triggering some medical conditions, as well as deaths from heat exposure.

George Monbiot writes that this heatwave has eviscerated the idea that small changes can tackle extreme weather. "We have seen nothing yet. The dangerous heat England is suffering at the moment is already becoming normal in southern Europe, and would be counted among the cooler days during hot periods in parts of the Middle East, Africa and South Asia, where heat is becoming a regular threat to life. It cannot now be long, unless immediate and comprehensive measures are taken, before these days of rage become the norm even in our once-temperate climatic zone."

 "The world is burning once again". In another article by Monbiot, he emphasizes that mainstream climate advocates have adapted an approach of incrementalism in climate change which has been wiped out by corporate resistance and the focus on profit above all else. "I feel clearer about what effective political action looks like than I have ever done. But a major question remains. Given that we have left it so late, can we reach the social tipping point before we hit the environmental tipping point?"

It's late in the day, but it's imperative for us and our kids to force our governments and the corporations to take serious measures to stop carbon emissions and ditch the fossil fuel energy immediately. Our survival, and that of the biosphere, depends on our immediate and effective actions.

Update 8/13/22: The World Needs ‘Rapid Climate Cooling’ as 2℃ Overshoot Now Likely

Great Bear Rainforest

 

The climate-related conservation and resilience policies of many wealthy countries are beginning to emerge. As part of their 2016 Royal Tour, their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge officially endorsed Canada's Great Bear Rainforest under the Queen’s Commonwealth Canopy initiative. This initiative is the environmental protection of natural resources across the globe that are made up of countries that are part of the British Commonwealth.

This park encompasses the world’s largest intact coastal temperate rainforest. This unique rainforest has old-growth trees over 800 years old. The Kitlope valley is an important habitat for marbled murrelets, bald eagles, moose, grizzly, black bear, wolf and waterfowl. The Kitlope valley lies within the traditional territory of the Haisla First Nation, based out of Kitamaat Village. It was established in Canada on February 20, 1996, as part of a commitment to reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, operated via the Kitlope Heritage Conservancy.

Back in 1791-1795, the Vancouver Expedition explored Canada's western coast under the auspices of the British Royal Navy. In 1793, the explorer Mr. Whidbey discovered the Gardner inlet, and in a verbal description of the shoreline, described it as "a barren waste" that was "nearly destitute of wood and verdure", with only the solid granite mountains in view. Which means that the young trees were not there. Possibly in the intervening 200 years, the temperatures warmed enough that the trees grew rapidly from seed further inland and established a toehold on the steep granite slopes. This item was taken from "British Columbia Coast Names 1592-1906", a very interesting book loaded with excerpts from old manuscripts. (This could be the source of fossil-fuel pushback on climate change using the proliferation of pine forests to show that northern latitudes will benefit from global warming?)

 

I spent a week in the park last month, with a trip into Kitlope aboard a sailing ship. It's a stunning ecology with incredible snowcapped granite mountains covered in forests. There's nothing else like it, the wildlife is abundant in the clear, cold waters and the myriad waterfalls. It reminded me of the Norwegian fijords; there are a few scattered aging structures near the water's edge, without many habitable areas since there's no longer access to these areas except by boat. An account and photos of this experience by Valeria Vergara was published in June of this year. She points out that "in 2020, Raincoast, working closely with First Nations partners, secured the 5300 km2 Kitlope commercial hunting tenure in the Haisla and Xenaksiala homeland. This is part of a bold move initiated in 2005 to end commercial trophy hunting of bears, wolves and other coastal carnivores for entertainment and profit, and to help respect the stewardship of First Nation communities that view trophy hunting as profoundly inconsistent with their teachings and values."

Earlier, in 2015, "as old-growth forest remains an indeterminate definition in forestry regulation, forest companies have arguably continued to log old-growth according to arbitrary discretion. Deforestation, road construction and other operations have changed the local ecological landscape, altering wildlife habitat and affecting the livelihood of local communities. As a result, First Nations, united with environmentalists and NGOs, have been aggressively advocating for forest sustainability while calling governments to determine clearer objectives and improve logging practices." The map above shows how the various areas of the forest are laid out with restrictions on commercial activity as a result of environmental regulations, along with an extensive discussion of the adopted management strategy.

 It's critical for Canada to protect the biodiversity and pristine wilderness that still exists and to push back against several hundred years of exploitation of resources in this forest. By the late 1990's, ancient trees from this forest were being logged to make household items. The eventual agreement between  the First Nations, the forest industry, the government of British Columbia, and partner environmental groups announced a groundbreaking agreement to permanently protect 85% of the forests of the Great Bear from industrial logging in 2016.

This includes the existing Kitasoo Hydropower Project that services the Kitasoo-Xai’xais First Nation community of Klemtu in the heart of the Great Bear Rainforest.  Upgrades to existing infrastructure, including active storage at Baron Lake, will allow for greater power output from the facility. This project is a heavily greenwashed upgrade that will transition the plant off of diesel fuel. Further detail from coastal First Nations involves a $4.6 million contribution from BC’s Renewable Energy for Remote Communities program is funding the upgrade that will reduce carbon emissions by an estimated 11,160 tonnes over the facility’s operating life. "The Kitasoo hydroelectric facility – 100 per cent owned by the Nation – has supplied clean power to Klemtu for 40 years, helping it transition from a dependency on dirty diesel fuel. The planned upgrade is the latest step in the Kitasoo/Xai’xais efforts over the past four decades to build energy sovereignty and support community growth." A detailed examination of how this pact resulted from the “War in the Woods” includes a period that saw some of the largest environmental protests in Canada’s history: "What began in the early 1990s as a large-scale mobilization to protect the Clayoquot Sound region of Vancouver morphed into a movement to save all of the Central and North Coast forests of British Columbia, dubbed the “Great Bear Rainforest” in 1997 by environmentalists."

In the article, "The Great Bear loophole: why old growth is still logged in B.C.’s iconic protected rainforest", Jody Holmes, a biologist and project director with the Rainforest Solutions Project, spent years negotiating with the provincial government, forest companies, First Nations and others to help put in place new conservation areas and a different type of logging in the region. She says it is no accident that the iconic tree of the coastal temperate rainforest continues to be targeted.The 2016 agreement, Holmes now laments, “opened up an enormous loophole” that allowed the logging companies “to harvest every last stick of big, older trees,” while simultaneously claiming that they were meeting their conservation targets. “We’ve been pushing back on that for four years with the industry to absolutely no avail. In fact, they are fighting us tooth and claw on this one,” Holmes said. Other aspects of the Great Bear Rainforest agreement have opened up additional loopholes.The biggest of those are allowances that grant companies permission to build roads through nominally protected old-growth forests.

Deep Adaptation

 

Jem Bendell is a British professor of sustainability leadership and founder of the Institute for Leadership and Sustainability (IFLAS) at the University of Cumbria. In 2018, a climate paper by Professor Bendell went viral, being downloaded over a million times. It helped to launch a worldwide movement of people seeking to reduce harm in the face of societal disruption and collapse. Jem explains the concept of Deep Adaptation, how he developed the idea, what it means in practice, what he says to critics, and what his new book on the topic is about.

A published rebuttal to Bendell's original paper, from Jeremy Lent, disputes that collapse is inevitable and that other scenarios should be considered. Bendell's subsequent reply to Jeremy Lent emphasizes that the scale of the necessary changes are more than we can manage:"The wider destruction of the biosphere is itself a horror, is exacerbated by rapid climate change and drives species extinctions. The term “climate breakdown” has become popular in activist rhetoric but is not clear. A climate does not really “breakdown” – it changes. Sometimes it changes so fast that it leads to a breakdown in ecosystems. By which I mean a complex living system such as a forest, wetland, or hillside, shifts from one state to another, with a major change in the wildlife as well as nutrient and water cycling. To say rapid climate change “is merely a symptom of a larger crisis” misrepresents the specific existential threat involved."

Two years after the original 2018 Deep Adaptation paper was released, an updated version is now available, Revised 2nd Edition Released July 27th 2020:

"The approach of the paper is to analyse recent studies on climate change and its implications for our ecosystems, economies and societies, as provided by academic journals and publications direct from research institutes.That synthesis leads to my conclusion there will be a near-term collapse in society with serious ramifications for the lives of readers. The paper does not prove the inevitability of such collapse, which would involve further discussion of social, economic, political and cultural factors, but it proves that such a topic is of urgent importance. The paper reviews some of the reasons why collapse-denial may exist, in particular, in the professions of sustainability research and practice, therefore leading to these arguments having been absent from these reviews."

"It is a truism that we do not know what the future will be. But we can see trends. We do not know if the power of human ingenuity will help sufficiently to change the environmental trajectory we are on. Unfortunately, the recent years of innovation, investment and patenting indicate how human ingenuity has increasingly been channelled into consumerism and financial engineering. We might pray for time. But the evidence before us suggests that we are set for disruptive and probably uncontrollable levels of climate change, bringing starvation, destruction, migration, disease and war (Servigne and Stevens, 2020)."

The Deep Adaptation Forum is here.

 

Update 8/5/22: Don’t be a climate user – an essay on climate science communication

Horror Show

 

 

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has announced a new flagship UN report on climate change, indicating that harmful carbon emissions from 2010-2019 have never been higher in human history. This is proof that the world is on a “fast track” to disaster, António Guterres has warned, with scientists arguing that it’s ‘now or never’ to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees.

His latest statement opens with:

"We are on a pathway to global warming of more than double the 1.5-degree limit agreed in Paris.
Some government and business leaders are saying one thing – but doing another.
Simply put, they are lying.
And the results will be catastrophic.
This is a climate emergency." 

In an op-ed article penned for the Washington Post, Mr. Guterres described the latest IPCC report as "a litany of broken climate promises", which revealed a "yawning gap between climate pledges, and reality." This is a major wakeup call for the governments of the world, which need to begin immediate actions on carbon emissions because many current carbon sources are not accounted for. The collective pledges so far would mean a 14 percent increase in emissions.

This plea to the world sets the stage for more urgency of action on carbon emissions, and a political imperative to look at the issue of how all countries of the globe must make drastic reductions in fossil fuel use. There are also questions as to whether the analysis of carbon emissions is accurate, because many of the revised scenarios are projecting more emissions when the models are analyzed, using more data and accounting for a more complete synthesis of elements not previously considered. We are beginning to see that we have actually surpassed the carbon budgets already, and it will bring about massive destructive events in the ecosystem in the coming years. The veil has been lifted, and we must now deal with those realities. "First and foremost, we must triple the speed of the shift to renewable energy. That means moving investments and subsidies from fossil fuels to renewables, now." 

Update 8/5/22: António Guterres is backing windfall taxes on “immoral” oil