Dead Zones: Industrial Agriculture versus Ocean Life
https://climateandcapitalism.com/2020/08/12/dead-zones-industrial-agriculture-versus-ocean-life/

The dead zone in the Baltic Sea is larger and in many ways more destructive than the one in the Gulf of Mexico. In 2007, the nine nations that surround the sea adopted an Action Plan “to achieve a Baltic Sea in good environmental status by 2021,” including elimination of eutrophication. They agreed: “By 2010 to halt the degradation of threatened and/or declining marine biotopes/habitats in the Baltic Sea, and by 2021 to ensure that threatened and/or declining marine biotopes/habitats in the Baltic Sea have largely recovered.”[18]

In 2018, with only three years left to achieve those ambitious goals, a scorecard published by WWF found that “all nine Baltic Sea countries have failed to make good progress,” and that “eutrophication status of most parts of the Baltic Sea remains poor and even deteriorating in some sub-basins.” The overall results were “bleak and unsatisfactory.”[19]

In WWF’s view, “the Baltic Sea environment remains in a critical state due to lack of efficient delivery of measures and management.” But what their study actually reveals is unwillingness to challenge an agricultural system that, as sociologist Philip McMichael puts it, “is ultimately about combining commodified inputs (seeds, fertilizer, antibiotics, privately-owned genetic materials, pesticides and so on) with land or water or factory farms to produce outputs as ingredients of processed commodities to fuel labor or machinery, without regard for social or ecological consequence.”[20]

Unless fundamental changes are made to the agro-industrial system that rules today, coastal dead zones will continue to grow and multiply

The IPCC scenarios are clear that, without speculative negative emissions schemes on a mass scale, the only way to keep global warming under 1.5C or 2C is for high-income nations to adopt degrowth strategies.

It's remarkable that this fact gets so little attention.

https://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/1294293822013181955?s=19


2019 Is Green Growth Possible?
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13563467.2019.1598964

The notion of green growth has emerged as a dominant policy response to climate change and ecological breakdown. Green growth theory asserts that continued economic expansion is compatible with our planet’s ecology, as technological change and substitution will allow us to absolutely decouple GDP growth from resource use and carbon emissions. This claim is now assumed in national and international policy, including in the Sustainable Development Goals. But empirical evidence on resource use and carbon emissions does not support green growth theory. Examining relevant studies on historical trends and model-based projections, we find that: (1) there is no empirical evidence that absolute decoupling from resource use can be achieved on a global scale against a background of continued economic growth, and (2) absolute decoupling from carbon emissions is highly unlikely to be achieved at a rate rapid enough to prevent global warming over 1.5°C or 2°C, even under optimistic policy conditions. We conclude that green growth is likely to be a misguided objective, and that policymakers need to look toward alternative strategies.

Antarctica:

1. melting is accelerating
2. record melt of 15%: Dec 2019
3. hottest day ever 18.3°C: Feb 2020
4. irreversible collapse has begun
5. rapid deglaciation of West Antarctica set to begin by 2027 with staggering consequences for humanity
6. sea level rise chaos by 2035

https://twitter.com/ClimateBen/status/1225740144000536576/photo/1
https://t.co/eGAaQauOXn

This is an excellent animation depicting the threat posed by Antarctica's Thwaites glacier, which is the about the size of Florida and could be the most dangerous glacier in the world.

Why scientists are so worried about this glacier
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRUxTFWWWdY

TUHO:

Canada's last intact ice shelf collapses into the sea
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAXKN3y4SYs



A Swiss glacier’s stunning collapse was caught on camera https://t.co/ddYNqa2H8w

Melting arctic ice fuels climate change and extreme weather events | DW News
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjhj7lEVFZU

Seven top oil firms downgrade assets by $87bn in nine months | Business | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/...20/aug/14/seven-top-oil-firms-downgrade-assets-by-87bn-in-nine-months

Analysis by the climate finance thinktank Carbon Tracker shows that in the last three month alone, companies including Royal Dutch Shell, BP, Total, Chevron, Repsol, Eni and Equinor have reported downgrades on the value of their assets totalling almost $55bn.

The oil valuation impairments began at the end of last year in response to growing political support for transition from fossil fuels to cleaner energy sources, and they have accelerated as the pandemic has taken its toll on the oil industry.

Lockdowns have triggered the sharpest collapse in demand for fossil fuels in 25 years, causing energy commodity markets to crash to historic lows.

The oil market collapse, which reached its nadir in April, has forced companies to reassess their expectations for prices in the coming years.

BP has cut its oil forecasts by almost a third, to an average of $55 a barrel between 2020 and 2050, while Shell has cut its forecasts from $60 a barrel to an average of $35 a barrel this year, rising to $40 next year, $50 in 2022 and $60 from 2023.

puda jako obnovitelny zdroj


Topsoil is a Renewable Resource
https://www.facebook.com/groups/Soil4Climate/permalink/2771188076486262/

One of the most pervasive myths concerning agriculture, right up there with the false belief that cows are inherently deleterious to the environment, is the oft-repeated notion that it takes 500 to 1000 years to form an inch (2.5cm) of topsoil. Untrue.

Contrary to what many scientists say, and most people believe, topsoil can be formed rapidly. This is a crucial aspect of the regenerative agriculture revolution, for it is only by forming topsoil quickly that billions of tons of excess carbon can be removed from the air to restore grassland ecosystems, fix the broken hydrological cycle, and cool the planet.

The estimate that it requires 1000 years to form 1” of topsoil was originally made by Charles Darwin, who observed that approximately 2” of topsoil had accreted on top of Roman ruins that were roughly 2,000 years ago. It apparently did not occur to Darwin that atop marble or stone blocks might not be the ideal site for topsoil formation. The soil he measured was likely blown there by the wind or tracked in by animals.

ACRES U.S.A. ... there’s a widespread belief, actually dogma, that the formation of soil is an exceedingly slow process. ... You describe the formation of topsoil as being breathtakingly rapid.
DR. CHRISTINE JONES. People have confused the weathering of rock, which is a very, very slow process, with the building of topsoil, which is altogether different. ...
ACRES U.S.A. Why have many soil scientists denied the phenomenon of rapid soil-building?
JONES. Because they do their research in places where it’s not happening, where the carbon is running down and the soils are deteriorating. We need to measure carbon on farms where soil-building is occurring and see what the farmers and ranchers are doing to make that happen.

Excerpt from interview with Australian soil ecologist Dr. Christine Jones
SOS: Save our Soils
Acres, March 2015, Vol. 45, No. 3
http://www.amazingcarbon.com/PDF/Jones_ACRES_USA%20%28March2015%29.pdf

In his book, “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” author Michael Pollan describes how Virginia regenerative farmer Joel Salatin is able to form 1 inch of new topsoil in a few years.

Graziers using Holistic Planned Grazing (aka “Adaptive Grazing”), developed by wildlife biologist Allan Savory, have reported an inch or more of new topsoil formation per year.

[34:35] “We found almost a foot of new topsoil built directly on top of that gravel and sand layer, in 10 years.”
Allen Williams, PhD - Restore Soil and Ecosystem Health with Adaptive Grazing (2018, 42 mins.)
https://youtu.be/BwH6od6Jaq8

[2:16] “In the last 3 years, we’ve accumulated about 2, 2 1/2 inches of soil ....”
Rapidly Building Soil - See how we’re building soil and biodiversity with managed grazing
Mastodon Valley Farm (2019, 4 mins.)
https://youtu.be/1daaoX2uFqA

Soil Carbon Cowboys
(2013, 12 mins.)
https://youtu.be/MDoUDLbg8tg

Allan Savory’s TED Talk - How to fight desertification and reverse climate change (2013, 22 mins.)
https://www.ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_green_the_world_s_deserts_and_reverse_climate_change

Warming Greenland ice sheet passes point of no return
https://news.osu.edu/warming-greenland-ice-sheet-passes-point-of-no-return

me fascinuje :o)
jak zvratit co zvratit ? vzdyt ani nezpomalujem a co setrvacnost ? :o)
Už není cesty zpět. Grónské ledovce roztály na kritickou hranici - Seznam Zprávy
https://www.seznamzpravy.cz/...z-neni-cesty-zpet-gronske-ledovce-roztaly-na-kritickou-hranici-116148

Heating of the world’s oceans could radically reorganise marine food webs across the globe causing the numbers of some species to collapse while promoting the growth of algae, new research has warned.
Healthy marine food webs that look like a pyramid, with smaller numbers of larger predatory species at the top and more abundant smaller organisms at the bottom, could become “bottom heavy”.
The types of species that could become less abundant in the oceans are the same ones targeted by commercial fishing and also are socially and culturally important to many communities around the globe.
In the research, published in the journal Science, researchers at the University of Adelaide recreated a marine habitat in a series of 1,800-litre tanks and then subjected some to temperature and CO2 changes.

Marine food webs could be radically altered by heating of oceans, scientists warn | Environment | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/...-webs-could-be-radically-altered-by-heating-of-oceans-scientists-warn