Are YOU a cause of deforestation?

What could be more innocent this weekend than a brisk stroll through your local shopping mall? All air-conditioned and centrally-heated, antiseptically clean, and crammed full of shops with must-have frocks and trainers and clothes and make-up and jewellery and mobile phones and shirts and trousers and computers and chocolates and more clothes and shoes and cosmetics and toys and even more clothes and accessories and skirts and furniture and even more cosmetics…..might you, have you, contributed to the tearing-down of trees in some far-away rain forest?

According to Global Canopy, you probably have.[1] They are a non-profit company that tries to monitor the role of the world’s largest corporations in the sustainability of the planet, looking at production, supply chains transport- all the aspects of a modern operating firm, in fact. What impressed us was the way that they try to work with companies by providing data and feasible strategies instead of just standing outside in the rain with placards. But they are no patsies, either. Get this from their website

The 10th edition of the Forest 500( their regular survey-LSS) reveals that almost a quarter (23%) of the companies and financial institutions that have featured in each of the 10 annual assessments have still not published a single commitment on addressing deforestation…….Meanwhile, nearly two-thirds (63%) of companies that have set commitments are failing to publish adequate evidence of their implementation

They go on to name names, which we dare not here, for lack of a proper legal department. But you’ll see them tomorrow during the course of your excursion. And that’s before you stop off in the Food Concessions on level four………

Why is all this important? Well we at LSS think that deforestation if one of the major causes of the worlds ills. It not only contributes humongously to global warming, it interferes catastrophically with hydrological cycles, driving desertification and land degradation. (ever wondered where all those migrants come from?) It may even be releasing new pathogens such as respiratory viruses into the human ecosphere, as we have alluded to before in these pages (LSS Passim) The World Counts has a nifty little website here to bring you somewhat up to speed [2].

Now we at LSS are not urging you to give up the accoutrements of civilised life today. We are Whigs, not Cistercian Monks, and certain member of the Editorial Board might find immediate changes to their lifestyles very uncomfortable indeed. But look again at the way Global Canopy work; with the grain of corporate life (weak pun intended) Can you ,should you find ways to bring pressure on companies by investing differently? By purchasing a little more slowly, and perhaps a little more judiciously? By getting just one item a week from a charity shop? If you want to donate to, or help these people in some other way, we would applaud that, too. As Tesco used to say back in the 1990s; every little helps.

Thanks to G Herbert for this story

[1]https://globalcanopy.org/press/10-years-of-data-reveals-the-major-companies-persistently-ignoring-their-role-in-driving-deforestation/

[2] https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/planet-earth/forests-and-deserts/why-is-deforestation-a-problem

#deforestation #supply chains #palm oil #global warming #shopping malls #consumer

Global warming: five graphs to frighten anyone

Looks like we’ll need that carbon capture machine from yesterday’s blog (LSS 19 11 2024) Global warming is accelerating fast. An excoriating series of graphs, compiled by the industrious team of Helena Horton, Lucy Swan, Ana Paz and Harvey Symons, of the Guardian, punches the information right between your eyes. in a series of vivid clear and easy to grasp graphics [1] We thought that five in particular were especially noteworthy : Earth Surface Temperatures (up) Heat stress (up) Ocean surface temperatures (really up) and emissions(really, really up)

If you want to know why all this has been caused by human activity, click here [2]

But the consequences are feeding into our daily lives now, wrecking our political and social systems. For as people see their lands ravaged and turned uninhabitable by all this, they flee to the last surviving places where life may still be tolerable. It’s called migration. And so we close with a question. it’s particularly for the older sorts, who gripe and snipe at every effort to produce clean energy. How will you restore the ravaged lands of the south, and thereby stop the flow of migrants at source?

[1]ttps://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/nov/20/the-climate-crisis-in-charts-how-2024-has-set-unwanted-new-records

[2]tps://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/how-do-we-know-build-carbon-dioxide-atmosphere-caused-humans

#climate change #migration #global warming #fossil fuels #carbon emissions #electric vehicles

How to help viruses live longer and kill more of us

Illness is like gambling. It’s all about statistics. The longer you stand near a virus/bacteria/fungus, or whatever, the higher are your chances of contracting it. So what if the air we breathe becomes ever more virus-friendly, helping them to live longer and infect more people? No, we hadn’t thought of that either. But read this CO₂ boosts airborne Viruses from Nature Briefings:

Carbon dioxide is often used as a proxy for healthy air — such as when CO₂ monitors are deployed to determine COVID risk. Now it seems that high levels of CO₂ actually help viruses to survive in the air. Using an innovative instrument to study airborne pathogens in unparalleled detail, researchers determined that CO₂ appears to help keep the particles we exhale at a pH-level that is more hospitable to viruses. “By increasing the CO₂ in the air, we’re getting rid of a natural means by which viruses become inactivated,” said environmental chemist Allen Haddrell, who led the new work. “It’s fascinating, but it’s also horrifying.”STAT | 10 min read

The link from Stat, by the admirable Megan Molteni is so good that we’ve provided a double link [1]

Are all crises interlinked? We’ve run other blogs here suggesting, for example ,the link between habitat destruction and the release of new infectious diseases. How the floods brought on by global warming have acted as huge artificial vectors for old diseases like malaria. Or even that a steady rising background level of CO₂ could have disastrous consequences for health (LSS passim) This is just a further indication that this gloomy thought may be right. But any parent or grandparent reading this would do well to find out more.

[1]https://www.statnews.com/2024/06/04/co2-ventilation-research-virus-airborne-life-haddrell-celebs/?utm_source=Live+Audience&utm_campaign=2a53b9910b-nature-briefing-d

#global warming #climate change #disease #public health #virus #bacteria

Five Problems in the in-Box of a World Government

It’s election time in some of the world’s biggest democracies. This year India, the USA and UK all go the polls, and the EU has just done so (we don’t count the recent sham in Russia) All of these places face immense problems. And we don’t think they can solve them, because the root causes are global, making frontiers out of date. Imagine then, if a Global President were elected this year and took office on 1st January 2025. What would be the top five problems in their in-box?

1 Intractable conflicts. People draw imaginary lines and then fight bloody wars across them. The current conflicts between Russia-and -Ukraine and Israel- and- Palestine are current examples, with no obvious resolution, if the nation state remains the highest form of political organisation. Older readers will recall how the conflicts between Mercia and Wessex dwindled once they were combined into England. It was the same after France and Germany joined the EU. A World Presidency would imply that all these ancient hatreds are in fact futile.

2 Climate Change/Global Warming What happens in the Antarctic, the Amazon Basin and the Great Barrier Reef affects us all equally. The existence of endlessly competing polities, each jockeying for its own advantage may fatally slow efforts to deal with this existential threat. A World Government would rapidly co-ordinate mitigation efforts and resource allocation, and it is likely that this one would indeed soon be a memory.

3 Migration and identity crisis People move from poor areas to richer ones according to the same irrevocable laws that govern the movement of ions in an electric field. Yet the deep crisis of identity this provokes has produced toxic political and intellectual consequences in the richer countries, which make it impossible to transfer resources to the poorer ones. By ordering this done, a World Government would have essentially removed the motivation to migrate at all, thus ending the crisis forever.

4 Pandemics Recent experience has shown that economy-shattering pandemics can spread with lightning speed. And, believe us, Covid-19 was mild compared to some viruses which are waiting in the wings. For some reason, those pesky viruses don’t respect frontiers any more than molecules of carbon dioxide do, suggesting that the whole idea of national solutions may be somewhat out of date.

5 Grasping the Opportunity If humanity is to survive, it would be judicious to give ourselves extra chances. Colonising the Moon or Mars would provide ample second homes, even if our local tribesmen blow this one up with their nuclear weapons. Such a colonisation would be faster, more efficient and more just if all were invited to participate and share in the consequences. A World Government would mean that the undertaking would not only be successful, but that existing squabbles were not exported among the planets.

We know this will be saying the unsayable, especially among certain classes of society. Yet there comes a point when a society is bulging in crises, bursting against the limits which constrain it. It’s our contention that these limits are artificial and self imposed. There can never be a return to the good times of the past. But with thought and effort, they may come again in the future.

#world government #nation state #pandemic #global warming #migration #inequality

If the Gulf Stream collapses, you won’t need ice in your Gin and Tonic

According to the American writer Gore Vidal, one must choose between two missions in life. Either to Comfort the Afflicted; or to Afflict the Comfortable. Now, generally speaking, the Daily Mail is normally very much on the side of the Comfortable. Hardly a bunch of Islington Green Remoaner Marxist Liberals, you might say. So when they publish something which might in some way be slightly comfort-afflicting, we know it’s been through a pretty fine toothcomb first. And today we present just such a story by their admirable Jonathan Chadwick called The Real Life Day After Tomorrow. Not only does it speculate that the warming currents of the North Atlantic might collapse, plunging us into a new Ice Age. But there is a chance that it might happen rather soon. [1]

Most people know that the reason that Western Europe is tolerably warm is due to the fact that certain ocean currents move vast quantities of heat up from the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico to these otherwise benighted shores. Thanks to global warming and melting ice caps, those currents could switch off as early as next year. We cannot hope to improve on the excellent explanations and top notch, easy-to-understand graphics in Jonathan’s article. But we could beg you to look at some of the comments. and the squeals and howls of outrage from those whose weltenschauung is horribly imperilled by Jonathan’s words. Denial, evasion and getting shouty are common psychological defence mechanisms of people who are often uncertain of their own case. Blaming the messenger can be another; although we are all guilty of that.

Perhaps the latter was on display in the case of climate scientist Michael Mann, who, because of his scientific work, became the subject of unpleasant personal attacks from those who objected to his findings. To us it all seems a bit reminiscent of what happened to Galileo in the 1640s. Fortunately Mann has won damages from some of his adversaries , and this may buy back some space for objective debate in some areas of science. We wait to see. Whatever happens, those who prefer to deny, for whatever reason, should remember. Reality, be it economic, physical or logical, will eventually come round to charge a price. The longer you leave it, the higher that price will be.

[1]https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-13073449/Gulf-Stream-plunging-Europe-deep-freeze.html

[2]https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00396-y?utm_source=Live+Audience&utm_campaign=0f1db6493c-briefing-dy-20240212&utm_medium=email&utm_term=

#jonathan chadwick #climate change #global warming #ice caps #AMOC #climate denial

Attack of the Killer Zombie Virus

Sounds like one of those old 1950s B movie titles, doesn’t it? But according to Robin McKie of the Observer, the threat is all too real.[1] According to Robin:

Humanity is facing a bizarre new pandemic threat, scientists have warned. Ancient viruses frozen in the Arctic permafrost could one day be released by Earth’s warming climate and unleash a major disease outbreak, they say.

No, despite our apparent credentials gained in monitoring the medical and science newsfeeds, we didn’t see this one coming either. We were more concentrating on the day that all that methane locked up in the permafrost spills out, and propels us all back to the Great Permian Extinction.[2]

And before you go, remember this. Firstly even the best antibiotics in the world will be of no use against viruses. Secondly, these viruses are likely to be of unknown types, and it will take time to run up meaningful vaccines against them. And above all, don’t think it won’t happen-remember what they were saying about global warming only twenty years ago?

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/jan/21/arctic-zombie-viruses-in-siberia-could-spark-terrifying-new-pandemic-scientists-warn

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian%E2%80%93Triassic_extinction_event

#permafrost #climate change #global warming #virus #pandemic #vaccine #antibiotic