TADEAS:

Arctic ice loss is worrying, but the giant stirring in the South could be even worse
https://theconversation.com/...rrying-but-the-giant-stirring-in-the-south-could-be-even-worse-119822

Almost all (around 93%) of the extra heat human activities have caused to accumulate on Earth since the Industrial Revolution lies within the ocean. And a large majority of this has been taken into the depths of the Southern Ocean. It is thought that this effect could delay the start of significant warming over much of Antarctica for a century or more.

However, the Antarctic ice sheet has a weak underbelly. In some places the ice sheet sits on ground that is below sea level. This puts the ice sheet in direct contact with warm ocean waters that are very effective at melting ice and destabilising the ice sheet.

Scientists have long been worried about the potential weakness of ice in West Antarctica because of its deep interface with the ocean. This concern was flagged in the first report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) way back in 1990, although it was also thought that substantial ice loss from Antarctica wouldn’t be seen this century. Since 1992 satellites have been monitoring the status of the Antarctic ice sheet and we now know that not only is ice loss already underway, it is also vanishing at an accelerating rate.

The latest estimates indicate that 25% of the West Antarctic ice sheet is now unstable, and that Antarctic ice loss has increased five-fold over the past 25 years. These are remarkable numbers, bearing in mind that more than 4 metres of global sea-level rise are locked up in the West Antarctic alone.

TADEAS:

Climate scientists: the Arctic is currently experiencing an abrupt climate change event and summer sea ice looks set to vanish by 2035. Most of us fully expect global warming of 2.5 - 4.5°C.

Media: we could still avoid warming of 1.5°C by 2100. Arctic sea ice? Never heard of it.

https://twitter.com/ClimateBen/status/1283078208615780353?s=19

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.