CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS 101

 

101.  CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS, NOVEMBER 14, 2022

GLIMMERS OF HOPE

UU World.  “Facing the Climate Crisis.”
Science.  Accurately Measuring Emissions.

Timothy Beal.  When Time Is Short: Finding Our Way in the Anthropocene.  

 

UU World (Fall/Winter 2022) Special Number on “Facing the Climate Crisis.”  Seventeen articles expressing UU values.  Editorial by the Exec. Ed. Roger Santodomingo: “The Time is Now.”  Human exceptionalism, the idea that humanity has the right to rule over nature, has brought us to the brink of environmental disaster in the form of climate change. . . .However…our community is committed to taking effective action.  This edition of UU World examines the complexity of the choices we face in addressing the crisis.”  [In Imperalism and War, Walter Hixson traces the toxic influence of “US exceptionalism” throughout its history.  We N. Americans have always been fed, and fed ourselves eagerly, the double-delusion of “the potent patriotic discourse of [North] American exceptionalism.”  One corrective action we can take right now is to stop using the word “America” to refer to North America.--Dick]

 

Measuring actual emissions of oil & gas 
Here is good news, for a change, about global warming and our ability [to measure it in order to] limit it.  This is my summary of an editorial published in the journal Science on 4 November 2022. 
The world has been unable to determine accurately the source of carbon emissions. Now Climate TRACE (Tracking Realtime Atmospheric Carbon Emissions) is releasing its first inventory of the largest known individual sources of the 162 tons of CO2 pollution released into the atm every day.  This is especially important because of the UN report that Earth is far behind its reduction pace for 2030.  For example, Climate TRACE found the actual emissions of oil & gas were about double what was self-reported to the UN in 2020.  Climate Trace will use artificial intelligence to combine across multiple wavelengths, 300 satellites, 11,000 sensors (air, land, and sea), and other data to identify all of the largest point sources and track them over time.  "With no time left to wait as the world burns and drowns, we can now begin to measure missions
with the precision needed to better manage their reduction."   Cheers - Art

Timothy Beal.  When Time Is Short: Finding Our Way in the Anthropocene.   Beacon P, 2022.

When Time Is Short is a meditation for what may be a finite human future that asks how we got here to help us imagine a different relationship to the natural world.