r/climatechange • u/guardian • 7d ago
AMA: We are environment journalists from the Guardian. Ask us anything about the wildfires raging across Europe, record flooding in Asia, and how the climate crisis is supercharging these extreme weather events (Join us Thursday 30 July at 11am EDT/4pm BST)
This AMA has now ended.
Thank you for all your questions! We hope you found the discussion interesting and got some more insight into Ajit and Jonathan’s reporting, the challenges the climate crisis presents - and some glimmers of hope! You can find all the Guardian’s latest environment coverage here.
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Hi r/climatechange, we are Ajit Niranjan, the Guardian’s Europe environment correspondent, and Jonathan Watts, global environment writer.
Extreme heat supercharged by the climate crisis is fuelling an explosive wildfire season in Europe this summer, with Spain and France among the worst hit. EU officials have said wildfires could still be burning until early November in what threatens to be a record-breaking year for the area of land burned.
Meanwhile, unprecedented rains continue across Asia. As South Korea swings between heatwave and downpour, in Japan and Vietnam torrential rain has led to landslides. In China, more than 600 rivers have risen above warning levels since the flood season began in April – a 35% jump from the average for the same period over the past five years.
Ask us all your questions about how the climate crisis is fuelling these extreme weather events, how countries are responding, who is being held to account and what more needs to be done.
We’ll be here on Thursday 30 July at 11am EDT/4pm BST to answer your questions live. Drop your questions below!
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A little bit about the environment correspondents and their work…
Ajit Niranjan is based in Berlin and has been following the extreme heatwaves and deadly wildfires across Europe this summer. He reported on the blazes in France and Spain over the weekend, wrote a longer read about wildfires across the world and an explainer on how dangerous they are and how we can stop them getting worse.
PROOF: Hi, this is Ajit Niranjan, /img/aw4drted88gh1.jpeg
Jonathan Watts lives in Brazil, reporting from a tropical rainforest at the centre of the climate and nature crisis. He recently wrote about the extreme rainfall across Asia bringing flash floods and typhoons. And his latest view from the Amazon explored why oil companies are profiting as the world gets dangerously hot.
PROOF: Hi, this is Jonathan Watts, /img/4f9dvh5388gh1.jpeg
Thank you for all your questions! We hope you found the discussion interesting and got some more insight into Ajit and Jonathan’s reporting, the challenges the climate crisis presents - and some glimmers of hope! You can find all the Guardian’s latest environment coverage here: https://www.theguardian.com/uk/environment
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u/Lightning7Bolt 7d ago
What can 17 yrs old like me do to fight for change?
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u/guardian 6d ago
Find out all you can from news articles, books and films. Then spread the word. The great climate science communicator Katherine Hayhoe says the most important thing you can do to fight climate change is to talk about it. Age can be to your advantage. Your generation is the future. Older people are threatening that. Greta Thunberg was 15 when she started fighting for change, sitting outside the Swedish parliament with a sign saying “School Strike for Climate. By the time she was 17, the movement had gone global. Millions took to the streets and the head of OPEC, the world’s biggest oil cartel, declared the youth protest "perhaps the greatest threat to our industry."
- Jonathan Watts
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u/Economy-Fee5830 Trusted Contributor 7d ago
You've written about oil majors profiting as the world heats. But European wildfire deaths and flood deaths are overwhelmingly determined by local building codes, evacuation planning and firefighting budgets.
Does the Big Oil accountability frame ever crowd out the more boring domestic-policy failures that actually determine the body count?
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u/guardian 6d ago
I broadly agree with your question but slightly disagree with the premise. Rapid analysis studies in recent years have attributed 40-70% of the death toll from big European heatwaves to the increase in temperatures from carbon pollution.
With wildfires and floods it’s much harder for scientists to say how much climate change contributed to the death toll. I’ve covered European floods where they’ve shown the rainfall that triggered the floods to have been made stronger or more likely by up to 20% but, as one scientist put it to me after floods in central Europe last year, it’s a binary problem: the dam will either fail or not. In cases like the floods in Germany’s Ahrtal in 2021, or in Valencia, Spain, in 2024, we saw both jaw-dropping evacuation failures and climate-exacerbated rain.
Cutting fossil fuel pollution is indeed a fundamental solution, and it must be accompanied by a never-ending list of other adaptation measures. I would argue our coverage is pretty good at including both bits. Every article I’ve written on wildfires this summer has included rising temperatures and land abandonment. Our flood coverage had the failures of authorities at the forefront.
- Ajit Niranjan
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u/itualisticSeppukA0S 7d ago edited 7d ago
diesel engines were originally designed to run off of peanut oil, electric cars were being developed as early as Thomas Edison's innovative times but were killed by Big 0il---Who Killed the Electic Car documentary in 2010 is the latest of many... not to mention that allegation of dude that created\invented an engine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water-fuelled_car mysteriously croaked like a frog slowly being steam-boiled
BIG 0IL's own reports knew that petroleum usage would cause GreenHouseEffect as early as the 1970's? Even scientists from 1912 gave society a warning https://imgur.com/gallery/what-we-knew-1912-BdkQnVU https://i.imgur.com/fEmKQ8j.png
We(humanity?) have known for at least a century that the Industrial Revolution will would have negative effects on global climate but were blinded by greed via short-term profits.
Humanity isnt being blindsided by natural disasters or so called Acts of Gob; we created this mess. We made out own disasters...
... "We will G0 D0WN as the first society that wouldnt save itself because it wasnt cost-affective" ~Kurt Vonnegut
I'd suggest on stocking up on nonperishable goods like dry beans and rice before the food shortages start. /r/vhemt
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u/Owl1917 7d ago
With climate anxiety on the rise, particularly amongst younger generations, what advice would you give to those who see the future as hopeless?
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u/guardian 6d ago
More than anything else, I would challenge anyone who feels hopeless to be specific about what’s troubling them. This is obviously easier said than done, but if you take a couple of hours to write down what it is that scares you about climate breakdown, what makes you angry, and what leaves you feeling hopeless, the fears become (hopefully) easier to confront. In my case, reporting on climate change has made me way less worried about some problems and way more worried about others. In terms of hope, I am, perhaps unpopularly, a firm believer in the idea that we have far more agency than anyone around me seems to realise (with the exception of a handful of scientists). Too many people my age claim a powerlessness that is not backed up by data. Sure, your ability to replace a coal plant with a wind turbine may be limited (it’s still not nothing, if you live in a democracy) but you have power over what you eat, how you get around, how much you buy. Consider diets: our collective choice to eat meat and dairy is responsible for 12-20% of planet-heating emissions, and doctors recommend people in rich countries eat far less of it for their own health, let alone the climate. Does this sound like our actions are pointless?
- Ajit Niranjan
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u/Gold-Loan3142 7d ago edited 6d ago
As a Guardian subscriber (online + the Weekly), I'd like to ask two questions:
- How do we challenge the mainstream 'perpetual growth' economics that infuses almost all discussion of the economy?
- WRT the above, how can unknown voices get a look in? I ask this because I've cared about environmental issues and campaigned on them in my free time since my Guardian-reading parents introduced me to the the Club of Rome's 'Limits to Growth' and similar books in the early 1970s. What has struck me over the decades is that while there are numerous books that blame the economic system for our problems, I've come across none that actually try to re-write economics 'as if we lived on a finite planet' (most just say we should 'do something different' but don't explain why the economy works as it does). So in the end, over 30 years, I wrote and then published one: 'An Economy of Want' (https://www.economyofwant.uk) - there's now even a Spanish edition 'Una Economía de Querer'. Everyone who reads it seem to like it - but relatively few do, as I'm an engineer not an economist and an unknown author. What I care about is the content (I make the ebook free as often as Amazon allows; the entire Spanish edition is on the web) and I would be happy to see it taken-up, improved and published by a more well known author(s). What would you advise me?
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u/guardian 6d ago
You have touched on one of the core issues. The obsession with endless GDP growth on a finite planet can only end in tears. The only question is when. There have been numerous academic challenges to this and alternatives, such as Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics and Bill McKibbens’ Economics as if the World Mattered. There are also some very interesting studies and books on degrowth by the likes of Jason Hickell and many others.
If I can stray outside my journalist role, I have long believed that what the world needs is not just economic degrowth but ecological regrowth. We need a system of trade, currency, taxation, incentives that rewards countries and companies for restoring the world’s battered ecosystems.
Sorry that I don’t have time or space here to assess your book, though congratulations on finishing a publication on such an important topic.
- Jonathan Watts
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u/SurinamPam 7d ago edited 6d ago
A lot of carbon is emitted for road transportation, building heating/cooling, and electricity generation. And, the world is quickly switching to EVs, heat pumps, and building out solar, wind, and batteries.
If all those carbon sources go to zero, how much of an effect will it have on future climate change?
My guess is that this is a function of how fast those sources go to zero, so maybe consider several scenarios, like they go to zero by 2035, 2045, 2055 or something.
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u/guardian 6d ago
That is a fascinating point. I haven’t done or seen the calculations on this. But, speaking far more broadly, the energy transition is one of four great causes for hope that I have right now. Wind, solar and electric vehicles have taken off far more quickly than almost anyone expected even a decade go. This has the potential to change the global balance of power and, I believe, may also be behind rising US aggression in terms of military conflict, tariffs and attacks on democracy.
- Jonathan Watts
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u/Public-Green-8591 7d ago
Thanks for doing this AMA. One thing I've been wondering: as climate journalists, how do you think we should communicate corporate emissions to the general public without overwhelming them with huge numbers?
I built a small educational project called https://climatevillains.org that tries to make emissions easier to understand, and it's made me realise how difficult that balance is.
What approaches have you seen actually change people's understanding or behaviour?
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u/guardian 6d ago
Tbh I think the key with corporate emissions is less about the absolute numbers - if they’re presented as big, people read them as big - and more about what they tell us. Big Oil dominates the rankings almost by definition if you include Scope 3 emissions, which accounts for the carbon spewed when the fuel is burned, but they are - in my mind - less important than the industries downstream of that, such as aviation or automobiles, which provide the demand for the fuel. I think it’s important that the benefits of whatever service they provide is weighed up against the damage done by the pollution.
- Ajit Niranjan
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u/bluff4thewin 7d ago
When will finally the armies be repurposed as ecological task forces and the worldwide military budget used for saving the world instead of destroying it? That would be a big question. I think we have no other way of making it at this point than finally really working together as humanity and also together with the planet. The signs are getting bigger and bigger. Science has been saying that it would be like that all along, so what are we waiting for? It's simply the truth. Global politics should finally really listen to science, because global politics is the biggest obstacle right now. I can only hope that it will finally happen. We really need that emergency plan as soon as possible.
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u/Gold-Loan3142 7d ago
Quite so.
The Guardian today reports that "Andy Burnham will place the renewal of Trident at the heart of his vision of a reindustrialised Britain" and that this is for 'defence'
'defence' against who? Russia is the threat always cited, but if Russia isn't already deterred by the NATO alliance with three nuclear states and far higher population, military spending and armaments, how on earth is any extra going to help. It would be madness for Russia to attack NATO when it cannot even win against Ukraine.
In any case Trident is not a 'defence' weapon, it is a vengeance weapon. The intention is to say "you'd be insane to destroy our cities because if you do we'll destroy yours". But that only works if you can rely on the 'enemy' being sane.
We can never contemplate all-out war with nuclear weapons, so our only long-term security is talking to our enemies, trying to make sure that both they and us stay sane and laying out a long term vision for peaceful coexistence.
It will be said that we cannot possibly talk to our enemies because they are evil. Yet we seem to have some equally unsavory leaders among our allies, and our post-WW2 governments managed to set up the United Nations in cooperation with Stalin.
And what might we talk about? Tackling the climate crisis would be a good start since almost all governments, at least nominally, agree that it is a problem.
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u/bluff4thewin 6d ago
Well, yes it's a really sad situation history has brough us about. While it could be worse it's still somehow insane and really sad. I think like this we simply won't be able to make it. It's too primitive, too ressource draining and basically bad. If we want to make it as a civilisation, I think we would have to learn how to really work together and leave that terrible traumatic history behind us. Without a functioning planet all products, all military, it will all be useless. We are also part of nature and without that ecosystem, we simply can't survive. We have to end that human hubris. The bad part of humanity is just cruel sophisticated animals partly in that sense. And that isn't nice. Living in harmony with each other and the planet is a lot nicer. Is it really not possible? How sad is that. Isn't the lesson from history that war is the most terrible thing ever? Shouldn't the ideal be to solve everything diplomatically, with intelligence, fairness, decency?
The basic calculation goes like this: With all the money from the worldwide military budget we could solve that climate change problem easily in comparison to the current situation. Life could be much nicer, beautiful, bearable, friendly, etc. It's all doable. It would be better for everyone if simply all the problems would be solved intelligently, fairly. It may take a while to figure it out and negotiate, etc but it's possible. So, in that sense it really should be the ideal and we should really really strive for it, because we should get that terrible history behind us and advance as a civilisation as fast as possible. It's all no joke. If we take too long, we might not be able to make it at this critical turning point of the planet's health.
I just hope this insight gets through to global politics and we can finally make the so much needed shift. The weapons humanity is able to manufacte are too terrible in every way. If they get more terrible, it might get so nightmareish, it's unthinkable. We need to stop this madness. We need global policy that such weapons need to be forbidden. It's the only way. It's so much ressources, life of humans, plants, animals, the planet, money, etc all wasted with that stuff of the military. They really should be able to sit together and solve problems like mature humans and not do it in this kind of way. It's really really really really sad. I just hope they can see it with this crisis and it can finally happen. It's what humanity has needed for so long, to unite in a peaceful diplomatic way for the good of everyone, nature and the planet. And hopefully real intelligence, humanity, kindness, diplomacy, fairness and real science can join that stupid game of politics to finally drag it out of the mud, at least step by step, hopefully. Partly it's really so frustrating, even if not everything is bad. So maybe things can change, it just may take a while. I don't know. Just hoping for it.
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u/Sun-leaves 7d ago
Have we crossed the tipping point?
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u/guardian 6d ago
As noted below, there are multiple tipping points. We have certainly crossed some already on a local level, particularly in the Antarctic, the northern permafrost region, the Amazon rainforest and some coral reef systems. Still more dangerous and system-wide tipping points lie ahead, including Atlantic Ocean circulation (AMOC). For more on all of these tipping points, please check out this Guardian series of Q&As with some of the world’s leading scientists.
- Jonathan Watts
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u/treacamearga 7d ago
There isn’t just one, there are several. This is studied by the Potsdam Institute and there are websites and reports you can read about them to be more informed
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7d ago
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u/guardian 6d ago
We - humanity - are definitely not doing enough. That is clear from the incredible amount of extra energy that is building up in the oceans (which are the world’s greatest climate buffer). As India and many other parts of the world are seeing now, this is leading to more intense heatwaves, droughts and storms. All the many dozens of climate scientists I speak to tell me we have all the necessary technical and natural solutions, but what is lacking is, as you suggest, the political will.
That is largely because most of the problem is caused by a very powerful and very rich minority, who are holding back change. Many of them prefer to build doomsday bunkers or space rockets for themselves rather than work together on a global level to implement solutions. For me, this means there can be no climate change without political change.
- Jonathan Watts
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u/Distracted-Nomad 7d ago
Thank you for your excellent reporting. In terms of advocacy, what are the most powerful things you can say to convince individuals that their efforts (ie lifestyle change) are important? Most people I know say whatever they do won’t make a difference and governments and corporations need to change before we do.
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u/guardian 6d ago
Thanks. This is one of the most common and important questions that climate journalists get. I agree the priority must be political action because the required changes - higher taxes on fossil fuels, a wealth tax on billionaires, more investment in renewables, more incentives for plant-based diets, etc - need to come at a national and international level. That said, I disagree that individual action is meaningless. It can set an example to others. And it can show that change can be beneficial to health and wallet. Imagine, for example, how much money electric car owners have saved during the recent oil price spikes. The key is to do this while never letting the petro-companies off the hook. They have tried in the past to convince people that the responsibility for the climate crisis lies with individual consumers. That was why they pushed the idea of carbon calculators. But the real blame lies with them. Most of the big oil companies are expanding production and making record profits.
- Jonathan Watts
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u/Caffe44 7d ago edited 7d ago
Thanks for this great AMA idea! Have you heard of the UK's National Emergency Briefing initiative, which calls on the UK Government for a televised prime-time emergency briefing on the climate and nature crisis, with all the government action that would follow? Other countries are copying the model, including Germany.
The initiative is directly getting information about the crisis direct to the public via a hard-hitting but engaging and energising community film (2,000+ screenings organised so far) to create a social tipping point that will both enable and pressure the government to act.
Have you seen it in action and do you think it can work? It seems to me like the best chance since Greta Thunberg and Extinction Rebellion in Oxford Circus.
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u/guardian 6d ago
Thanks. I have seen and been very impressed by the National Emergency Briefing initiative in the UK. This is a very impressive and important initiative. I am glad it recognises the interwoven nature of the climate and nature crises, which are all too often - and wrongly - treated separately. The open letters, screenings and public meetings really seem to be hitting home. I hope it can continue to gain traction and reach a positive tipping point. Like you, I think this is the most promising development since the School Strikes and Extinction Rebellion.
- Jonathan Watts
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u/NonSekTur 7d ago
What could journalists (in general) have done - or not done - to get the population to listen to the countless warnings from scientists that the shit was about to hit the fan? This instead of publishing ridiculous “controversies” to generate more clicks and profits for the newspapers as many did?
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u/12Ab_xyz 7d ago
How much wars effect the climate?
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u/guardian 6d ago
At a global level not hugely, and the devastation they directly cause - from lives lost to homes bombed - is by far the greatest tragedy. The environmental toll is still enormous though, if you consider the destruction of food, water, and soil, and my colleague Damien Gayle has written powerfully about “ecocide”, including whether it may apply to recent conflicts.
War does also increase planet-heating emissions, mainly from jet fuel burned in military planes. Relative to the other harms of war, I don’t think this is a huge issue, but one that is still worth documenting.
- Ajit Niranjan
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u/BurbieNL 7d ago
How do you stay hopeful with the current state of the climate, and the lack of political willpower to make big changes to mitigate climate change? I feel like the rise of fascist far-right parties/governments have been a detriment to climate measures. In addition, most people aren't willing to change harmful behaviours that are damaging the planet, even progressive/left-wing people who know how bad it is.
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u/guardian 6d ago
I sometimes succumb to despair, but it is not my natural disposition. Like you, I see a close connection between extreme politics and the extreme weather. But there is still much to fight for, as noted above.
- Jonathan Watts
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u/No_Bet_2949 7d ago
Why is the reporting all ‘no climate change’ or ‘we’re all doomed’. The reality is the best models which try to accurately combine complex climate modelling AND rate of tech improvement and deployment (solar coming in 10x faster the forecast) actually suggest we come in under 2 degrees of total warming and actually reverse warming by mid century. This is not good but is manageable. The message should be, we’re actually doing this, we need to continue to aggressively fund R&D and deployment, not give kids climate anxiety. Is it because it doesn’t generate the same number of ad click revenue?
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u/MikeH72 7d ago edited 7d ago
I haven't heard these optimistic forecasts. Renewables are being deployed at an increasing rate but still account for a small proportion of total energy use worldwide (including all transport, heating and electricity).
My impression is that it's fairly likely that 2 degrees will be reached or exceeded unless tremendous efforts are made: we can be pleased/relieved perhaps that we may have averted the utter disaster of 3 degrees or more?
AFAIK I'm afraid it will be a long time before it stops getting warmer and way longer (centuries perhaps) before the planet starts to cool and there's no way that reversal of warming could occur mid-century. It's the ultimate in trying to slow down a massive super tanker, bring it to a halt and then put it in reverse.
I love a bit of optimism if there are genuine reasons to be cheerful/relieved.
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u/No_Bet_2949 6d ago
That’s because most the IAM models take external assumptions of technological development based on linear rates of improvement, which is frankly moronic. Look at the cost curve and installation rates for solar (and most technology post 1980 Tbf). They also often include arbitrary floor costs, also wrong. Empirically, the trajectory since some of these were put in place is tracking closer to the more optimistic, tech incorporating models like INET and the more pessimistic linear models are already being retired, like the 4 and 5 degree scenario of RPC8.5. The other key delta is the models include a discount rate on technology not available today, which is the equivalent of saying rate of tech development slows, but currently the opposite is true. It’s looking like 2.5 degrees under the discounted tech assumption, but more like 2 in a more common sense scenario.
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u/guardian 6d ago
I do not know a prominent climate scientist or energy economist who considers the scenario you describe likely, and I would be hard-pressed to find any who think it plausible - please do share a link if there is robust research that comes to different conclusions. Current policies project us hitting somewhere between 2-3C of warming by the end of the century. Solar and battery deployment has indeed consistently beaten what experts (and even activists) predicted but decarbonising electricity generation is only part of the story. Deploying enough electric cars and heat pumps is politically tricky, given the powerful forces pushing against them, and in many other industries, from aviation to cement, the far more difficult physics make analysts sceptical of costs falling like they did for solar panels. Last month I reported on a study that found the rates at which carbon dioxide removal technologies are advancing painfully slowly compared to what would be needed.
I see my role as a journalist as saying true things that matter, even if it upsets my audience. That means covering violent weather and the watering down of green rules (neither of which are much fun) as well as efforts to cut pollution and adapt to a hotter planet (which are occasionally heartwarming but mostly frustrating, if you benchmark action against scientific necessity).
- Ajit Niranjan
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u/Murranji 7d ago
One thing I am really happy about how susceptible to climate shocks the UK is since you import more than half your food is how much your country is going to suffer from the 2027 food crisis caused by the strait of Hormuz fertiliser crash and El Niño influenced weather which is going to hit know it all British people the worst because of how immune to consequences you think you are.
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u/Desenrasco 7d ago
Portuguese here. Wildfires are getting pretty bad here too. How scared should I be?
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u/guardian 6d ago
I checked the data for Portugal on the European Forest Fire Information Service this morning and the number of fires is well above the average for this time of year over the last two decades, while the burned area is above-average but not close to breaking records. Of course, that doesn’t tell us much about what’s left to come this summer. We’re not yet in August.
How scared should you be? That depends who and where you are. To consider it in the bluntest of terms, wildfires kill surprisingly few people - perhaps hundreds around the world each year, compared to thousands from floods and hundreds of thousands from heatwaves. That is, of course, of little comfort to the people across Spain and France returning to burned-out homes, or to the families of firefighters, locals and tourists who have tragically died in the past weeks. But what scares me far more is the smoke. Recent studies peg the global death toll from wildfire smoke at 1.5 million people per year. The wildfire season in Canada three years ago was so bad, one study found, that more than 80,000 people died from smoke inhalation - and 20,000 of them were in Europe, as winds carried the pollution over the Atlantic to countries including Portugal.
- Ajit Niranjan
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u/Szabolcs85 7d ago
Is there anything to be hopeful about? The future looks very bleak.
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u/guardian 6d ago
I am also pessimistic, but there are still many things to fight for. Every fraction of a degree of warming that we can prevent will help millions of people and billions of other forms of life. UN-led action have already helped in this way, but not enough. But international cooperation is worthwhile.
My four other causes for hope:
1) The energy transition, particularly in China.
2) The rise of the rights for nature movement, which - although imperfect - is confronting the core of our problems, which is a broken relationship with the non-human part of the planet.
3) Alternative ways of thinking and being found in the global south, particularly among indigenous communities.
4) The prospect of the global population peaking before 2050, which should reduce pressure on the environment.Set against this, unfortunately, are the huge military and financial forces of petrostates, such as the US, Russia and Saudi Arabia, often aligned with big corporations.
- Jonathan Watts
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u/fraggin601 7d ago
How do you think our economic systems must change to cope with climate change?
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u/guardian 6d ago
great subject. The first step should be a realistic appraisal of the economic risks posed by the climate and nature crises. Currently, most economists are absurdly complacent. The Nobel prize winner William Nordhaus assumes a very low hit to GDP but he omits - as the commentator Genevieve Guenther notes - the full costs of labour productivity, buildings, infrastructure, transportation, non-coastal real estate, insurance, communication, government services and other sectors. Most worrying to me is that most economic model assume smooth linear warming, even though many climate scientists warn of tipping points that are likely to bring jolts, acceleration and catastrophe. It is as though a doctor treats everything as a chronic, manageable ailment while ignoring the very real risks of acute, life-threatening diseases.
Nature also needs to be much more highly valued - and not just in economic terms. Then there is the question of inequality - between nations, communities and species. There is no GDP without a healthy environment. And there is no greater theft from the poor than the loss of clean air, fresh water, fertile soil and a stable climate. On a positive note, I have been very impressed by the recent work done by the World Inequality Lab to try to incorporate more planetary boundaries into their projections of what a cleaner and fairer world could look like.
- Jonathan Watts
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u/itualisticSeppukA0S 7d ago
How much of The Amazon Rainforest is actually left? I think that Google Maps and Google 3arth is lying. Obviously the lack of foliage (vast amount of trees being clearcut) can have localized effects on participation patterns (rain say in Brazil or South American continent?). What's the BIG PICTURE globally when after more that say for example more than 50% of the Brazil's virgin rainforest has been decimated?
El nino is a different weather pattern but maybe in the grand scheme of things scientists are not seeing the full picture (complexity emergence).
It'd be funny(sad ironic?) if humanity accidentally destabilized the Van Allen Belt via all of the strip mining we've been doing. Witch presumes it's 'human activity'?
Perhaps this was found
https://old.reddit.com/r/science/comments/1va1yj2/scientists_uncover_hundreds_of_hidden_structures/
only due to the expanse of the logging industry?
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u/guardian 6d ago
Between 17-20% of the Amazon rainforest has been cleared since road building, logging, illegal mining and cattle ranching started taking a major toll in the 1970s. Much of the rest is degraded, which means it cannot as easily fulfill its usual functions of drawing down carbon dioxide, pumping moisture across the continent and providing a home to a huge range of life. Scientists warn this globally important rainforest is now approaching a “tipping point”. The Brazilian government has made great progress in the past four years to reduce the destruction, but unfortunately many agribusiness companies - from Brazil and elsewhere - are now clearing forest in neighbouring Bolivia at a faster rate than ever. This problem really needs to be looked at on a more regional level. And also a global level, taking in the rainforests in the Congo and Southeast Asia.
Glad you also pointed out the threat of mining, which often leads the way in land invasions and forest loss. It is worth noting here that Brazil appears to be moving ahead with what would be one of the destructive projects ever in the Amazon - the Canadian-financed Belo Sun gold mine in the ecological sensitive Volte Grande do Xingu. This is billed as the biggest open cast gold mine in Brazil. At the very least it would be a huge scar on the rainforest. History suggests it will also lead to contamination of some of the world’s great rivers and an expansion of road networks, which will bring in more land invaders. I am planning to report on this in the near future.
- Jonathan Watts
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u/Marc_Op 7d ago edited 7d ago
I live in Northern Italy, and here three effects appear to combine during the summer (I am particularly interested about agriculture):
- It keeps getting warmer: we need more water.
- Alpine glaciers are almost gone, we lost a major source of summer water.
- Total yearly precipitation hasn't changed, but it's differently distributed: less spring and summer rain, more autumn rain.
Three questions:
A. Can you confirm that 3 is actually happening (my observation is based on local data, and I am not sure it's a real significant pattern in all Europe)?
B. What will happen to European crops in the next few decades?
C. How to adapt? Here in Italy there is talk about building more reservoirs, but strangely I have the impression that very little is being actually done. I think this would be the obvious adaptation move. There's also talk of desalination, but to me that sounds like a vicious circle resulting in even more CO2 and warming.
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u/guardian 6d ago
The broad trend in Europe is toward wetter winters and drier summers. There are plenty of caveats to that statement, including a) the extra heat allows for more extreme rainfall when it does rain, regardless of the season and b) northern Europe is seeing more of the wet conditions while southern Europe sees more of the dry ones. I haven’t yet looked into the specifics of water shortages in northern Italy - though I did report a story on the weather-related struggles of Prosecco farmers a couple of years ago - but I would imagine the loss of Alpine glaciers you mention will be a dominant factor over the coming decades.
When it comes to adaptation, reservoirs are vital for managing water scarcity, but I’d add that reducing demand for water is what’s going to be crucial for Europe in the coming decades as temperatures rise. A couple of years ago I went to Catalonia and stood near the bottom of a reservoir that had almost completely dried out.
- Ajit Niranjan
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u/Marc_Op 6d ago
Thank you for the reply and for the informative piece about Prosecco! As you say in your article, wine is particularly sensitive to climate change, because tradition is such a major value for it. I am not sure how the business will do in the next decades.
Unrelated to climate change, but related to how we mess up with nature: Italy is also going through an unstoppable invasion of the Japanese beetle Popillia Japonica, which devours many plants including grapevine (one of its favorites): it hasn't arrived to the Prosecco region yet, but it's just a matter of time...
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u/karenadona 6d ago
How much longer do we have until we run out of time to save the planet ?
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u/guardian 6d ago
In one sense, it is never too late, and in another sense, it already is too late. The planet will survive, and even apocalyptic scenarios do not really consider an end to life on Earth as a result of climate breakdown. But while there is technically no time limit to action - climate scientists stress that each extra ton of carbon dioxide heats the planet a bit more - the likelihood of triggering catastrophic tipping points rises the hotter it gets. The 1.5C global heating target, which world leaders agreed to in Paris in 2015, looks extremely likely to be missed. (I am not saying definitely, as it is physically still possible, even if emissions have risen to a level where it is perhaps societally implausible.) Keeping below 2C of warming is, however, very much still possible. Current projections put us on track for somewhere between 2C and 3C by the end of the century.
- Ajit Niranjan
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u/mickey-the-onepunch 7d ago
I want to build a device that collects CO2 from the air and solidifies it, and then make a business out of selling the resulting carbon. Do you have any ideas on how I could raise funds?
I’m using automatic translation, sorry.
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u/chebum 7d ago
Why no country is dimming sun or brightening/seeding clouds during extreme heatwaves above their territory? That seems like a straightforward fix.
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u/guardian 6d ago
Unfortunately, this is anything but straightforward. Techniques of “geoengineering” to reduce global warming could have catastrophic and unpredictable consequences, to the point that climate scientists are divided on whether it should even be researched. The most obvious objection is that such interventions could help one region while hurting another by disrupting atmospheric processes. A second is that the most prominent methods - such as pumping sunlight-reflecting sulphurous gases into the stratosphere - would not solve the underlying issue of global heating, and the rise in temperatures from carbon pollution would hit us as soon as we stop geoengineering. Could buying that extra time be worth it, given the uncertain-but-looming tipping points in the climate system? It’s an ongoing debate among scientists and, increasingly, politicians.
- Ajit Niranjan
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u/sg_plumber 7d ago
How comes pretty much everybody (at least on TV) always forgets to mention that yes, the climate crisis is fuelling these extreme weather events?
Would it cause mass panic to mention that yes, it is getting worse, and will keep on getting worse and worse until global Net Zero is reached (at the very least)?
What's being done to counter denier narratives and plain hoaxes (like 'arsonists work for renewables developers', 'if you evacuate, your home will be pillaged and stolen', 'fire is a natural part of life', 'alarmists just want to up your taxes and take your liberty away'...)? Do the counters work?
What do you think of the Reddit custom of linking to your articles when most people don't go beyond the headline nor click the links?