Everything at the Membrane Domain
Part of the study Foliage Spoilage & the Trees’ Canopy Collapse
Thomas Crowther is a Yale Climate & Energy Institute postdoctoral fellow at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies (F&ES) and led a study and census of the world’s trees (2015). The study determined there are 3 trillion trees on Earth; however, the study also estimates we are losing 10 billion trees per year.
by Daniel Brouse for The Human Induced Climate Change Experiment
A 1,930 square mile chunk of ice is getting ready to fall off a glacier in Antarctica. In December 2016, a large crack appeared in part of Larsen C ice shelf.
Global warming is increasing the temperature of the ocean water even more than the temperature of the air; however, Andrew Fleming (sensing manager at the British Antarctic Survey) said the ice was being thawed both by warmer air above and by warmer waters below the ice.
The Larsen B ice shelf has already been severely impacted. “Larsen B shattered like car safety glass into thousands and thousands of pieces,” Fleming said. “It disappeared in the space of about a week.”
“If it doesn’t go in the next few months, I’ll be amazed,” project leader Prof Adrian Luckman said. “There hasn’t been enough cloud-free Landsat images but we’ve managed to combine a pair of Esa Sentinel-1 radar images to notice this extension, and it’s so close to calving that I think it’s inevitable.”
By Daniel Brouse and Sidd Mukherjee for Sidd’s Science Center
I ask:
Is there anything humans do with energy that results in less heat?
For example, furnaces generate heat, refrigerators generate heat, light bulbs generate heat, computers, cars, fans and even air conditioners create more heat.
Is there anything that we do that has a net loss of thermal energy or does the use of energy (period. both fossil fuel and renewable energy) by humans add to global warming?
Sidd replies:
Not just humans. Anytime energy is converted from one form to another and work is extracted by any agency, not just humans, some is lost as heat energy. That’s the second law of thermodynamics.
But to put it in perspective, lets say you burn a pound of coal, and take all the chemical energy out as heat. The amount of heat you directly obtain is several hundred times smaller than the heat trapped by the carbon dioxide generated over the next many thousand years that it remains in the atmosphere… so, don’t burn coal, oil or any fossil carbon.
Thus, for example conversion of AC to DC electricity can be very close to 100% efficient… but if you take out some of the energy and do work with it, you will lose some energy as heat.
The second law of thermodynamics states that the total entropy of an isolated system always increases over time, or remains constant in ideal cases where the system is in a steady state or undergoing a reversible process. The increase in entropy accounts for the irreversibility of natural processes, and the asymmetry between future and past.
The second law has been expressed in many ways. Its first formulation is credited to the French scientist Sadi Carnot in 1824, who showed that there is an upper limit to the efficiency of conversion of heat to work in a heat engine.
In a study published by Geert Jan van Oldenborgh, Marc Macias-Fauria, Andrew King, Peter Uhe, Sjoukje Philip, Sarah Kew, David Karoly, Friederike Otto, Myles Allen, and Heidi Cullen, the scientists found the unusually high temperatures around the North Pole in November–December 2016 were influenced by anthropogenic climate change:
The climate of the North Pole in winter is extreme, with 24 hours of darkness and very cold temperatures that vary from year to year and decade to decade. This year, the North Pole and the surrounding Arctic region are seeing record-high temperatures in November and December and record-low ice extent). Fall usually ushers in the season of sea ice growth, but November saw a brief retreat that was virtually unprecedented in nearly 40 years of satellite records, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. That dip helped November set a record low for sea ice area since 1850 (Walsh et al, 2016). By December, the area around the North Pole is typically 95 percent covered by sea ice. However, this year it is only about 80 percent.
Mid-November saw an early winter “heat wave” with the temperature on November 11 reaching -7 ºC (19 ºF) – that is 15 ºC (27 ºF) above normal for the time of year. The monthly mean November temperature was 13 ºC (23 ºF) above normal on the pole. Temperatures in this region declined slightly after that but remained well above normal. The forecast for the next few days is again more than 15 ºC (27 ºF) above normal at the North Pole itself and 10 ºC (18 ºF) averaged over 80–90 ºC N.
To quantify how rare the event was, we computed the November-December averaged temperature around the North Pole (80–90 ºN) in the ERA-interim reanalysis augmented with the ECMWF analysis and forecast up to December 25 and persistence up to December 31. The temperatures are slightly less extreme than at the pole itself (Fig. 2), but unprecedented in the satellite era from 1979 onwards.
We first note some of the impacts of these high temperatures in the Arctic regions. Next we describe the physical mechanisms that are responsible for sea ice and temperature variability in the North Pole region, which is warming faster than anywhere else in the world. We then analyse the observed temperatures via a related time series encompassing the northern-most meteorological observations on land (70–80 ºN). This allows for a reconstruction of Arctic temperatures back to about 1900, which clearly shows how the current warmth is unprecedented over that period. It also gives a rough estimate of how rare it is in the current climate and how much the probability has changed over the last century.
Finally, we perform a multi-method analysis of North Pole temperatures with two sets of climate models: the CMIP5 multi-model ensemble that was used for the 2013 IPCC AR5 report, and a large ensemble of model runs in the Weather@Home project. Both sets of models give very comparable results, showing that the bulk of the increase is due to anthropogenic emissions. The results are combined in the synthesis and conclusions.
Impacts
Extreme warm events in the Arctic extend into biological and social implications. Unlike the Antarctic, Arctic lands are inhabited and their socio-economic systems are greatly affected by the impacts of extreme and unprecedented sea ice dynamics and temperatures. Recent work by Henri Huntington and colleagues reported on these effects on the timing of marine mammal migrations, their distribution and behaviour and the efficacy of certain hunting methods in the Beaufort Sea. Less than a month ago, Forbes and colleagues reported on the relationship between unseasonal sea ice decline in winter and the enhanced probability of rain-on-snow events in the Yamal Peninsula in north-Western Siberia. While rain on snow does not cause problems in spring, it can be catastrophic for reindeer in the autumn when rain turns to an ice crust as plummeting normal temperatures return. This crust, often several centimetres thick, prevents the reindeer from feeding on fodder beneath the snow throughout the winter months. Two extreme weather events in 2006 and 2013 caused mass starvation among the reindeer herds (one event alone in 2013 resulted in 61,000 reindeer deaths, about 22 percent out of 275,000 reindeer on the Yamal Peninsula), and were linked with sea ice loss in the adjoining Barents and Kara seas. These two examples only illustrate the variety of ways in which climate change in the Arctic directly affects its ecosystems and societies. Many others include effects on the timing of phytoplankton blooms (which are at the base of the food chain in the Arctic ocean) and terrestrial plants, their consequences for animals that depend on these resources, opportunities for invasive southern species to colonise the region, enhanced mobility around the Arctic region for marine mammals such as whales, or reduced and largely modified habitat for animals that directly depend on sea ice such as the polar bear.
Some background
The Arctic is the fastest-warming region on Earth, with the largest temperature increases in winter. In summer, the temperature is constrained by all the ice melting and it never rises very far above zero. However, the extra heat absorbed in summer is released in autumn and winter as the water remains warmer for longer and re-freezing sea ice releases the latent energy of melting.
This “Arctic amplification” of the global warming trend has several causes (see e.g., IPCC WG1 AR5 Box 5.1, Screen & Simmonds, 2010; Bintanja et al, 2011). The best-known is the extra warming due to the change in color (albedo-feedback): when white snow and ice is replaced by dark land and ocean, a much larger fraction of the incoming sunshine is absorbed instead of reflected. This extra heat warms the surface even more. Another positive feedback is less well known and is based on the observation that the warming trend in the Arctic is mainly confined to the lower part of the atmosphere. This is still far below the levels where thermal radiation escapes from the atmosphere on average, which is around 5 km (3 miles) high. This implies that the radiative cooling of the warmer air near the surface is not as efficient as in lower latitudes where the trend at altitude is similar to (mid-latitudes) or higher than (tropics) near the surface. The reduction of radiative cooling due to the vertical structure of the warming trend is called the lapse-rate feedback.
Variability has also increased in the Arctic. On top of the positive feedbacks mentioned above, this is due to two other factors. First, the shape of the Arctic Ocean. Before global warming began in earnest, the basin was filled with ice for most of the year, which implies that except for a few summer months the edge of the ice was relatively short and confined to the Atlantic sector. Now, there are more months in which the ice edge is free of the continents. This allows larger changes from year to year (van der Linden et al, 2014). Another factor is the thickness of the ice. The ice has thinned dramatically, with most of it now single-year ice that is much thinner, and hence flows and melts more quickly (Tschudi et al, 2016). This type of ice changes much more quickly at the whim of the ever-capricious weather, especially combined with the waves and swell that now develop in the ice-free regions (Thomson and Rogers, 2014).
Finally, warm episodes near the pole are usually due to so-called “moist intrusions”: warm and moist air from the mid-latitudes that not only advects heat, but also clouds that block outgoing long-wave radiation and hence trap more heat. There is some evidence that these have become more frequent (Woods and Caballero, 2016).
Discussion and conclusions
We have investigated the rarity of the November-December 2016 average temperature around the North Pole and assessed how much November-December average temperatures have changed over the past century using observations over a wider region. We also attempted to quantify how much high Arctic temperatures have changed due to anthropogenic emissions (greenhouse gases and aerosols) in two climate model ensembles.
The observations and the bias-corrected CMIP5 ensemble point to a return period of about 50 to 200 years in the present climate, i.e., the probability of such an extreme is about 0.5 percent to two percent every year, with a large uncertainty. This is rare, but it should be kept in mind that we are focusing on this particular November–December period precisely because an unusual event has occurred. For a random two-month period it would be between six and 12 times more likely. The prescribed SST design of the HadAM3P simulations precludes estimating an absolute return period.
The observations show that November–December temperatures have risen on the North Pole, modulated by decadal North Atlantic variability. For all phases of this variability a warm event like the one of this year would have been extremely unlikely in the climate of a century ago. The probability was so small it is hard to estimate, but less than 0.1 percent per year. The model analyses show that the event would also have been extremely unlikely in a world without anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols, attributing the cause of the change to human influences. This also holds for the warm extremes caused by the type of circulation of November 2016. If nothing is done to slow climate change, by the time global warming reaches 2 ºC (3.6 ºF) events like this winter would become common at the North Pole, happening every few years.
Australia’s ABC news reports:
Scientists hope to discover how warm water is reaching one of the world’s largest glaciers, causing it to melt rapidly.
Lead author Steve Rintoul said it was the first time scientists had been able to test the hypothesis that warm ocean waters were driving the glacier’s thinning.
“We knew the Totten has been thinning faster than other glaciers in East Antarctica, but nobody has known exactly why until we took these measurements,” he said.
“We found that warmer ocean water is reaching the cavity through this channel at temperatures capable of melting the ice shelf at the point where it meets ground.
Dr Rintoul said it was important to be able to predict the Totten glacier’s future behaviour, because it contained enough sea ice to raise global sea levels by about 3.5 metres.
“So the real importance of the research is that it helps provide some clues about how sea level might change in the future.”
The publication of the research today comes as scientists make their way back to the Totten glacier, where they hope to find more clues about what controls the amount of warm water reaching the glacier.
A team of about 30 scientists, technicians and PhD students left Hobart on December 8 and plan to arrive at the glacier in late December.
Dr. Rintoul said their goal was to learn more about the pathways that bring the warm water up from the deep ocean.
“Understanding the physical processes delivering heat to the ice shelf will help us assess the vulnerability of the East Antarctic ice sheet to future changes in the Southern Ocean,” he said.
“What we have shown is that warm water reaches the glacier. What we need to know is what’s going to happen in the future.
Dr. Tas van Ommen from the Australian Antarctic Division said it would be concerning to see an increase in the Totten glacier’s natural melt rate.
“If its natural melt rate was to increase because of changes in ocean circulation, that would then add to the sea level rise that we see from glaciers already melting in Antarctica, particularly in the West.
“So we are concerned to track that and to be able to predict what might happen in the future.”
United States-Canada Joint Arctic Leaders’ Statement
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
In March, President Obama and Prime Minister Trudeau announced a new partnership to embrace opportunities and confront challenges in the changing Arctic, with Indigenous and Northern partnerships, and responsible, science-based leadership. Over the past year, both countries have engaged a range of partners and stakeholders, including Indigenous peoples and Northern communities, state, provincial and territorial governments, nongovernmental organizations and businesses. Those consulted have expressed a strong desire for real and long-term opportunities to build strong families, communities, and robust economies. Today, President Obama and Prime Minister Trudeau are proud to launch actions ensuring a strong, sustainable and viable Arctic economy and ecosystem, with low-impact shipping, science based management of marine resources, and free from the future risks of offshore oil and gas activity. Together, these actions set the stage for deeper partnerships with other Arctic nations, including through the Arctic Council.
Science-based approach to oil and gas:
In March, the United States and Canada committed that commercial activities will occur only if the highest safety and environmental standards are met, and if they are consistent with national and global climate and environmental goals. Today – due to the important, irreplaceable values of its Arctic waters for Indigenous, Alaska Native and local communities’ subsistence and cultures, wildlife and wildlife habitat, and scientific research; the vulnerability of these ecosystems to an oil spill; and the unique logistical, operational, safety, and scientific challenges and risks of oil extraction and spill response in Arctic waters – the United States is designating the vast majority of U.S. waters in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas as indefinitely off limits to offshore oil and gas leasing, and Canada will designate all Arctic Canadian waters as indefinitely off limits to future offshore Arctic oil and gas licensing, to be reviewed every five years through a climate and marine science-based life-cycle assessment.[i]
Supporting strong Arctic communities:
In March, both countries committed to defining new approaches and exchanging best practices to strengthen the resilience of Arctic communities and continuing to support the well-being of Arctic residents, in particular respecting the rights and territory of Indigenous peoples.
Recently, in direct response to requests from Alaska Native communities, President Obama created the Northern Bering Sea Climate Resilience Area protecting the cultural and subsistence resources of over 80 tribes as well as one of the largest seasonal migrations of marine mammals in the world of bowhead and beluga whales, walrus, ice seals, and sea birds. The United States also launched an interagency Economic Development Assessment Team in the Nome region of Alaska to identify future investment opportunities, with other regions to follow. In addition, the Arctic Funders Collaborative (AFC), a group of 11 U.S., Canadian, and international philanthropic foundations, announced the coordination and mobilization of an estimated $27 million in resources for programs across the Arctic over the next three years.
Today, for its part, Canada is committing to co-develop a new Arctic Policy Framework, with Northerners, Territorial and Provincial governments, and First Nations, Inuit, and Métis People that will replace Canada’s Northern Strategy. The Framework will include priority areas identified by the Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs’ Special Representative, such as education, infrastructure, and economic development. The Framework will include an Inuit-specific component, created in partnership with Inuit, as Inuit Nunangat comprises over a third of Canada’s land mass and over half of Canada’s coast line, and as Inuit modern treaties govern this jurisdictional space. In parallel, Canada is reducing the reliance of Northern communities on diesel, by deploying energy efficiency and renewable power. Canada will also, with Indigenous and Northern partners, explore how to support and protect the future of the Arctic Ocean’s “last ice area” where summer ice remains each year.
Low impact shipping corridors:
In March, the United States and Canada committed to working together to establish consistent policies for ships operating in the region. Today, both countries are launching the first processes ever to identify sustainable shipping lanes throughout their connected Arctic waters, in collaboration with Northern and Indigenous partners. The U.S. Coast Guard is launching a Port Access Route Study (PARS) in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas.[ii] Results from this analysis may be used to establish vessel routing measures including traffic separation schemes, recommended routes, Areas To Be Avoided, or other instruments such as fairways where no structures may be erected. The Canadian Coast Guard and Transport Canada is implementing Northern Marine Transportation Corridors, determining what infrastructure and navigational and emergency response services are needed. Canada is also launching a new program to support training curriculum for Northerners, particularly Indigenous peoples, to join the marine field, as well as programming to support marine infrastructure and safety equipment for communities.
In addition, the U.S. Coast Guard, in consultation with industry, Indigenous communities, and the State of Alaska, has begun a strategy to phase down the use of Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO) in the Arctic. The Canadian Coast Guard is conducting similar outreach and consultations to develop proposals to phase down the use of HFO in 2017. The United States and Canada will each, or jointly, propose a plan for consideration at the International Maritime Organization’s spring 2017 meeting.
Science-based management of Arctic fisheries:
In March, the United States and Canada called for a binding international agreement to prevent the opening of unregulated fisheries in the Central Arctic Ocean and to build on a precautionary, science-based approach to commercial fishing that both countries have put in place in their Arctic waters. Today, the United States commits to supporting and strengthening existing commercial fishing closures in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas, and to conducting scientific research to improve our understanding of the Arctic. Canada commits to working with Northern and Indigenous communities to build world-leading and abundant Arctic fisheries – based on science – that firstly benefit Northern communities. Together, the United States’ and Canada’s actions will create the largest contiguous area of well-regulated fisheries in the world.
Both countries reaffirm their commitment to a legally binding agreement to prevent unregulated commercial fisheries in the Arctic High Seas until an internationally recognized Regional Fishery Management Organization is in place to provide effective management. Both countries are working towards such an agreement in the coming months.
[i] Taking into account the respective obligations of the United States and Canada under international law to protect and preserve the marine environment, these steps also support the goals of various international frameworks and commitments concerning pollution, including those reflected in the 1990 International Convention on Oil Pollution Preparedness, Response, and Cooperation, the 2013 Agreement on Cooperation on Marine Oil Pollution Preparedness and Response in the Arctic, and the U.S.-Canada Joint Marine Pollution Contingency Plan. Furthermore, with respect to areas of the Beaufort Sea where the U.S.-Canada maritime boundary has not yet been agreed, these practical arrangements are without prejudice to either side’s position and demonstrate self-restraint, taking into account the principle of making every effort not to jeopardize or hamper reaching a final maritime boundary agreement.
[ii] In conducting this study, and consistent with existing authorities, the Coast Guard will consider traditional knowledge from local communities, the effects of shipping and vessel pollution on the marine environment, marine mammal migratory pathways and other biologically important areas, subsistence whaling, hunting, and fishing, and the needs of maritime safety and commerce.
The United Nations has initiated the first “worldwide” pollution tax. The International Civil Aviation Organization’s global carbon offsetting system is aimed at slowing the growth of emissions from commercial flights.
Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA)
The role of a global MBM scheme is to complement a broader basket of measures to achieve the global aspirational goal (of carbon-neutral growth from 2020 onward.)
According to the Assembly Resolution, the average level of CO2 emissions from international aviation covered by the scheme between 2019 and 2020 represents the basis for carbon neutral growth from 2020, against which emissions in future years are compared. In any year from 2021 when international aviation CO2 emissions covered by the scheme exceed the average baseline emissions of 2019 and 2020, this difference represents the sector’s offsetting requirements for that year.
The CORSIA is implemented in phases, starting with participation of States on a voluntary basis, followed by participation of all States except the exempted States, as follows:
States that voluntarily decide to participate the CORSIA may join the scheme from the beginning of a given year, and should notify ICAO of their decision to join by June 30 the preceding year.
It is important to note that, regardless of the phased implementation or exemptions under the CORSIA, all States with aircraft operators undertaking international flights are requested to compile and transmit aggregated emissions information of their operators to ICAO, as part of the activities included in the States’ implementation of a monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) system.
The CORSIA calls for international aviation to address and offset its emissions through the reduction of emissions elsewhere (outside of the international aviation sector), involving the concept of “emissions units”. One emissions unit thereby represents one tonne of CO2. Two main types of emissions units exist: “offset credits” from crediting mechanisms and “allowances” from emissions trading schemes.
Offsetting could be through the acquisition and redemption of emissions units, arising from different sources of emissions reductions achieved through mechanisms (e.g. UNFCCC’s Clean Development Mechanism), programmes (e.g. REDD+) or projects (e.g. substituting coal-fired stoves with solar cookers). The buying and selling of eligible emissions units happens through a carbon market. The carbon market is a commodity market with the underlying commodity being emissions units. Like any commodity market, it is driven by the law of supply (eligible emissions units offered from different sources) and demand (eligible emissions units purchased by aircraft operators to offset their international aviation emissions under the CORSIA).
United States of America — The world watches in dismay as Donald Trump appoints Myron Ebell, a professional climate change denier, to head his EPA transition team. During his campaign, Trump said that climate change is a hoax. Slate magazine reports, “Trump had tweeted in 2012 that global warming “was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” He has also has previously called it a ‘hoax.'”
During his campaign, Trump also threaten to pull out of the Paris Climate Pact (which the US has already signed.) The Paris Accord is meant to prevent the world from reaching “the point of no return” — limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius. 2016 is already forecast to be the hottest year on record with the global average temperature 1.75°F above the 20th century average of 57.4°F.
Diplomats from around the world have voiced their concern. “A carbon tariff against the United States is an option for us,” Rodolfo Lacy Tamayo, Mexico’s under secretary for environmental policy and planning, said in a New York Times interview. He added, “We will apply any kind of policy necessary to defend the quality of life for our people, to protect our environment and to protect our industries.”
“I renew my offer to President-elect Trump to come to Fiji and see the effects of climate change,” said the island nation’s prime minister, Frank Bainimarama.
Now, Trump has appointed a professional climate change denier to dismantle the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency). Activists at the United Nations’ Paris talks depicted Myron Ebell, a climate contrarian, as one of seven “climate criminals” wanted for “destroying our future.” Now, Trump has appointed Ebell as head of the EPA transition team.
Municipalities throughout the U.S. are scrambling to take action prior to Trumps’ inauguration. The Baltimore Sun reports:
he Hogan administration’s petition filed this week urging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to crack down on 19 out-of-state, upwind coal-fired power plants that pollute Maryland’s air is certainly a welcome development. Maryland’s environment secretary had more or less promised such action earlier this year when he declined to join a multi-state lawsuit seeking similar enforcement by the federal agency.
The strategy might even prove productive if action is taken in the waning days of the Obama administration, which has expressed concern not only about toxic pollutants like sulfur dioxide that can be particularly harmful to people with asthma or other breathing problems, but carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. Maryland is imperiled by all of the above and needs federal authorities to act given that as much as 70 percent of the state’s air pollution can be traced to upwind sources.
So why does it sound like Maryland is asking for Marquess of Queensbury rules in the face of a street brawl? Most likely because Donald Trump was elected president last week and, in his first act of environmental stewardship named Myron Ebell, a professional climate change denier, to head his EPA transition team. The appointment came as no surprise given how often Mr. Trump attacked EPA’s efforts to protect public health and safety during the campaign, but it surely set the stage for what is coming next.
Here’s another clue: Those offending coal-burning plants are located in Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. What else do they all have in common besides dirty air? They all supported Mr. Trump. How did Maryland do in this regard? Hillary Clinton won 60.5 percent of the vote, one of her best showings in the nation.
The World Wildlife Fund Reports — Global wildlife could plunge to a 67 per cent level of decline in just the fifty-year period ending this decade as a result of human activities, according to WWF’s Living Planet Report 2016. The report shows how people are overpowering the planet for the first time in Earth’s history and highlights the changes needed in the way society is fed and fuelled.
According to the report, global populations of fish, birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles have already declined by 58 per cent between 1970 and 2012, the most recent year with available data. This places the world on a trajectory of a potential two-thirds decline within a span of the half-century ending in 2020.
Fortunately, 2020 is also a year of great promise. In that same year, commitments made under the Paris climate deal will kick in, and the first environmental actions under the globe’s new sustainable development plan are due. If implemented, these measures, along with meeting international biodiversity targets set for 2020, can help achieve the reforms needed in the world’s food and energy systems to protect wildlife across the globe.
“Wildlife is disappearing within our lifetimes at an unprecedented rate,” said Marco Lambertini, Director General of WWF International. “This is not just about the wonderful species we all love; biodiversity forms the foundation of healthy forests, rivers and oceans. Take away species, and these ecosystems will collapse along with the clean air, water, food and climate services that they provide us. We have the tools to fix this problem and we need to start using them now if we are serious about preserving a living planet for our own survival and prosperity.”
The WWF report uses the Living Planet Index, provided by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), to monitor trends in wildlife abundance. This index reports how wildlife populations have changed in size, rather than the specific number of animals that have been lost or gained.
“Human behaviour continues to drive the decline of wildlife populations globally, with particular impact in freshwater habitats. Importantly however, these are declines, they are not yet extinctions – and this should be a wake-up call to marshal efforts to promote the recovery of these populations,” said Professor Ken Norris, Director of Science at ZSL.
Additional evidence of a man-made era
The top threats to species identified in the report are directly linked to human activities, including habitat loss, degradation and overexploitation of wildlife.
The report’s findings provide additional evidence that the planet is entering completely unchartered territory in its history in which humanity is shaping changes on the Earth, including a possible sixth mass extinction. Researchers are already calling this period the Anthropocene. Understanding why we are moving into this new epoch enables us to identify solutions for restoring the ecosystems we depend upon.
According to the report, food production to meet the complex demands of an expanding human population is leading the race in the destruction of habitats and overexploitation of wildlife. At present, agriculture occupies about one-third of the Earth’s total land area and accounts for almost 70 per cent of water use.
The Living Planet Report 2016 outlines solutions to reform the way we produce and consume food to help ensure that the world is well-fed in a sustainable way. The report also focuses on the fundamental changes required in the global energy and finance systems to meet the sustainability needs of future generations.
Pushing the planet to its limits
Living Planet Report 2016 draws on leading research about the scale and impact of human activity on our planet. One such framework, developed by the Stockholm Resilience Centre in collaboration with partners, demonstrates that humanity has surpassed four out of nine Planetary Boundaries – safe thresholds for critical Earth system processes that maintain life on the planet.
In a special foreword in the report, Planetary Boundaries lead researcher Johan Rockström underlines the need for an urgent transition to a world that works within Earth’s safe operating space.
The report also features research from the Global Footprint Network that shows that while we only have one Earth, humanity is currently using the resources of 1.6 planets to provide the goods and services we use each year.
“No matter how you add it up, the math does not look good. The more we continue to exceed Earth’s limits, the more damage we do to our own future,” said Lambertini. “We are at a decisive moment in time when we can seize the solutions to steer our food, energy and finance systems in a more sustainable direction.”
Charting the way forward
The WWF report demonstrates that we need to rethink how we produce, consume, measure success and value the natural environment.
Adequately protecting the environment alongside economic and social development requires an urgent system change by individuals, businesses and governments to move from a short-sighted approach to a visionary approach that values future generations.
In one example, the report shows how smallholder farmers in Kenya work with local authorities and the food industry to manage the natural resources of Lake Naivasha, the country’s second largest freshwater body, a biodiversity hotspot and a significant contributor to its GDP.
The report also illustrates the positive momentum that is building by highlighting recent global agreements on climate change and sustainable development. In particular, the report recognizes the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development as an essential guide to decision-making that can ensure that the environment is valued alongside economic and social interests.
“A strong natural environment is the key to defeating poverty, improving health and developing a just and prosperous future. We have proven that we know what it takes to build a resilient planet for future generations, we just need to act on that knowledge,” Lambertini added.
Living Planet Report 2016: Risk and resilience in a new era is the eleventh edition of WWF’s biennial flagship publication. The report tracks over 14,000 vertebrate populations of over 3,700 species from 1970 to 2012.
A report from the World Bank found: Air pollution has emerged as the deadliest form of pollution and the fourth leading risk factor for premature deaths worldwide. Those deaths cost the global economy about US$225 billion in lost labor income in 2013, a new study finds, pointing toward the economic burden of air pollution.
The Cost of Air Pollution: Strengthening the economic case for action, a joint study of the World Bank and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), seeks to estimate the costs of premature deaths related to air pollution, to strengthen the case for action and facilitate decision making in the context of scarce resources. An estimated 5.5 million lives were lost in 2013 to diseases associated with outdoor and household air pollution, causing human suffering and reducing economic development.
While pollution-related deaths strike mainly young children and the elderly, premature deaths also result in lost labor income for working-age men and women. The report finds that annual labor income losses cost the equivalent of almost 1 percent – 0.83 percent — of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in South Asia. In East Asia and the Pacific, where the population is ageing, labor income losses represent 0.25 percent of GDP, while in Sub-Saharan Africa, where air pollution impairs the earning potential of younger populations, annual labor income losses represent the equivalent of 0.61 percent of GDP.
When looking at fatalities across all age groups through the lens of “welfare losses”, an approach commonly used to evaluate the costs and benefits of environmental regulations in a given country context, the aggregate cost of premature deaths was more than US$5 trillion worldwide in 2013. In East and South Asia, welfare losses related to air pollution were the equivalent of about 7.5 percent of GDP.
“Air pollution is a challenge that threatens basic human welfare, damages natural and physical capital, and constrains economic growth. We hope this study will translate the cost of premature deaths into an economic language that resonates with policy makers so that more resources will be devoted to improving air quality. By supporting healthier cities and investments in cleaner sources of energy, we can reduce dangerous emissions, slow climate change, and most importantly save lives,” said Laura Tuck, Vice President for Sustainable Development at the World Bank.
Deaths related to ambient air pollution have risen in heavily populated, fast-urbanizing regions, while deaths related to cooking and heating homes with solid fuels have remained constant despite development gains and improvements in health services. Diseases attributed to both types of air pollution caused 1 in 10 deaths in 2013, or more than six times the number of deaths caused by malaria.
“This report and the burden of disease associated with air pollution are an urgent call to action,” said Dr. Chris Murray, Director of IHME. “Of all the different risk factors for premature deaths, this is one area, the air we breathe, over which individuals have little control. Policy makers in health and environment agencies, as well as leaders in various industries, are facing growing demands – and expectations – to address this problem.”
About 90 percent of the population in low and middle income countries are exposed to dangerous levels of ambient air pollution. The World Bank works with developing countries and development partners to reduce pollution by supporting monitoring and analysis, regulatory reforms, and investments. In 2016 for example, the Bank committed US$1 billion to help China improve air quality by reducing emissions of specific air pollutants from industrial, transport and rural sources in the province of Hebei, and by increasing energy efficiency and clean energy through innovative financing in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region (also known as Jing-Jin-Ji region) that covers the capital area and neighboring provinces.