While Los Angeles burns, AI fans the flames
Artificial intelligence is a water-guzzling industry hastening future climate crises from California’s own backyard.
By Schuyler Mitchell , Truthout, January 11, 2025
“………………………………………………. Trump’s latest smear campaign is little more than political football. But the renewed attention on California’s water does highlight ongoing tensions over the conservation and management of this finite resource. As the climate crisis worsens, it’s expected to exacerbate heat waves and droughts, bringing water shortages and increasingly devastating fires like those currently scorching southern California. The situation in Los Angeles is already a catastrophe. Climate change-induced water shortages will make imminent disasters even worse.
In the face of this grim reality, it’s worth revisiting one of the major water-guzzling industries that’s hastening future crises from California’s own backyard: artificial intelligence (AI).
Silicon Valley is the epicenter of the global AI boom, and hundreds of Bay Area tech companies are investing in AI development. Meanwhile, in the southern region of the state, real estate developers are rushing to build new data centers to accommodate expanded cloud computing and AI technologies. The Los Angeles Times reported in September that data center construction in Los Angeles County had reached “extraordinary levels,” increasing more than sevenfold in two years.
This technology’s environmental footprint is tremendous. AI requires massive amounts of electrical power to support its activities and millions of gallons of water to cool its data centers. One study predicts that, within the next five years, AI-driven data centers could produce enough air pollution to surpass the emissions of all cars in California.
Data centers on their own are water-intensive; California is home to at least 239. One study shows that a large data center can consume up to 5 million gallons of water per day, or as much as a town of 50,000 people. In The Dalles, Oregon, a local paper found that a Google data center used over a quarter of the city’s water. Artificial intelligence is even more thirsty: Reporting by The Washington Post found that Meta used 22 million liters of water simply training its open source AI model, and UC Riverside researchers have calculated that, in just two years, global AI use could require four to six times as much water as the entire nation of Denmark.
Many U.S. data centers are based in the western portion of the country, including California, where wind and solar power is more plentiful — and where water is already scarce. In 2022, a researcher at Virginia Tech estimated that about one-fifth of data centers in the U.S. draw water from “moderately to highly stressed watersheds.”
According to the Fifth National Climate Assessment, the U.S. government’s leading report on climate change, California is among the top five states suffering economic impacts from climate crisis-induced natural disaster. California already is dealing with the effects of one water-heavy industry; the Central Valley, which feeds the whole country, is one of the world’s most productive agricultural regions, and the Central Valley aquifer ranks as one of the most stressed aquifers in the world. ClimateCheck, a website that uses climate models to predict properties’ natural disaster threat levels, says that California ranks number two in the country for drought risk.
In August 2021, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation declared the first-ever water shortage on the Colorado River, which supplies water to California — including roughly a third of southern California’s urban water supply — as well as six other states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. The Colorado River water allotments have been highly contested for more than a century, but the worsening climate crisis has thrown the fraught agreements into sharp relief. Last year, California, Nevada and Arizona agreed to long-term cuts to their shares of the river’s water supply.
Despite the precarity of the water supply, southern California’s Imperial Valley, which holds the rights to 3.1 million acres of Colorado River water, is actively seeking to recruit data centers to the region.
“Imperial Valley is a relatively untapped opportunity for the data center industry,” states a page on the Imperial Valley Economic Development Corporation’s website. “With the lowest energy rates in the state, abundant and inexpensive Colorado River water resources, low-cost land, fiber connectivity and low risk for natural disasters, the Imperial Valley is assuredly an ideal location.” A company called CalEthos is currently building a 315 acre data center in the Imperial Valley, which it says will be powered by clean energy and an “efficient” cooling system that will use partially recirculated water. In the bordering state of Arizona, Meta’s Mesa data center also draws from the dwindling Colorado River.
The climate crisis is here, but organizers are not succumbing to nihilism. Across the country, community groups have fought back against big tech companies and their data centers, citing the devastating environmental impacts. And there’s evidence that local pushback can work. In the small towns of Peculiar, Missouri, and Chesterton, Indiana, community campaigns have halted companies’ data center plans.
“The data center industry is in growth mode,” Jon Reigel, who was involved in the Chesterton fight, told The Washington Post in October. “And every place they try to put one, there’s probably going to be resistance. The more places they put them the more resistance will spread.” https://truthout.org/articles/while-los-angeles-burns-ai-fans-the-flames/?utm_source=Truthout&utm_campaign=3634e1951f-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2025_01_11_08_34&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bbb541a1db-3634e1951f-650192793
2024 confirmed as first year to pass 1.5C threshold
Scientists warn efforts to limit the long-term temperature rise to 1.5°C will fail as data confirms 2024 was the hottest year in human history
New Scientist, By James Dinneen and Madeleine Cuff, 10 January 2025
Hopes of keeping global warming below 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels have been all but extinguished after new data confirmed 2024 was the first calendar year to see average temperatures breach that critical threshold.
Last year was the hottest ever recorded in human history, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) declared on 10 January, in the latest stark warning that humanity is pushing Earth’s climate into uncharted territory.
The average global temperature for the year exceeded 1.5°C above the pre-industrial baseline for the first time, the agency also confirmed, temporarily breaching the threshold set by the Paris Agreement.
The WMO’s assessment is calculated using the average global temperature across six datasets, with the period of 1850 to 1900 used to provide a pre-industrial baseline. Temperature datasets collected by various agencies and institutions around the world vary slightly, mainly due to differences in how ocean temperatures have been measured and analysed over the decades. Some of those datasets come in just below the 1.5°C mark, but others are well above.
The UK’s Met Office weather service puts 2024’s average temperature at 1.53°C above pre-industrial levels, with a margin of error of 0.08°C. That is 0.07°C above 2023, the previous warmest year on record. Meanwhile, the European Union’s climate change service Copernicus has 2024 temperatures at 1.6°C above pre-industrial levels, 0.12°C above 2023’s record.
Berkeley Earth, a climate research group in California, finds a rise of 1.62°C, the second time in its dataset the rise in global average temperatures has breached 1.5°C, after 2023. Temperature data from NASA puts the rise in temperature a bit lower at 1.47°C above pre-industrial levels, and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration finds a 1.46°C rise above pre-industrial levels. The WMO finds an average rise of 1.55°C across the six datasets, with a margin of error of 0.13°C.
Scientists agree that the surge in temperature was caused mostly by the continuation of human-caused climate change and an El Niño weather pattern, which tends to push up global temperatures. But the scale and persistence of the heat has shocked many experts, who expected temperatures to subside once El Niño ended in May 2024. Instead, they remained at record levels throughout the rest of the year.
The world’s oceans have been most affected, with sea surface temperatures staying at record levels for most of 2024, playing havoc with marine ecosystems. The year also brought no shortage of extreme weather on land, with fierce heatwaves, sharp declines in polar ice, deadly flooding and uncontrollable wildfires. “This was a year when the impacts of climate change are right across the planet,” says David King, former chief scientific adviser to the UK government and founder of the Climate Crisis Advisory Group.
Technically, the Paris Agreement target of limiting warming to below 1.5°C is calculated using a 20-year average, so a single year above the threshold doesn’t signal a formal breach of the target. But given the pace of warming in recent years, many scientists say the long-term Paris goal is now out of reach………………………………………..
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2463480-2024-confirmed-as-first-year-to-breach-1-5c-warming-limit/
TODAY. The California wildfires and the unmentioned threat of nuclear radiation
Australian Independent Media, https://theaimn.net/the-california-wildfires-and-the-unmentioned-threat-of-nuclear-radiation/ 12 January 2025
So far, the corporate media is not mentioning the potential threat of the Los Angeles horror fires to the Santa Susana Field Nuclear Laboratory.
The Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL) is located approximately 18 miles (29 km) northwest of Hollywood and approximately 30 miles (48 km) northwest of Downtown Los Angeles. The Field Lab was the site of a nuclear meltdown in 1959, and its area is radioactively contaminated. Many locals and doctors condemn inadequate cleanup efforts, and link them to high cancer rates which are 60% higher for those people living within a 2 mile radius of the SSFL.
In 2018 the Woolsey Fire, devastating swathes of Ventura and northwestern Los Angeles Counties, started at the SSFL. The fire burned 96,949 acres (39,234 hectares) of land, destroyed 1,643 structures, and caused the evacuation of over 295,000 people.
California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control said sampling by multiple agencies found no off-site radiation or other hazardous material attributable to the fire. But another study, using hundreds of samples collected by volunteers, found radioactive microparticles in ash just outside of the lab boundary and at three sites farther away that researchers say were from the fire. Here was a case of a wildfire that started at a nuclear facility, with the danger of ionising radiation affecting surrounding areas.
The Woolsey fire started in a nuclear laboratory, but what about wildfires that start elsewhere and spread to nuclear facilities?
In Texas in February 2024, the largest wildfire in Texas history came within 3 miles (5 kilometers) of the Pantex Plant, the nation’s primary nuclear weapons facility. A 2000 wildfire burned to within a half mile (0.8 kilometers) of a radioactive waste site. the 40-square-mile Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Also in 2000, a wildfire burned one-third of the 580-square-mile (1,502-square-kilometer) of the plutonium-contaminated Hanford nuclear site in Washington
Across the United States there are 94 operating nuclear power reactors, 54 nuclear power plants operating, 42 permanently shut-down ones, and 31 operating research reactors. Also there are nuclear military facilities, including government-owned sites, military bases, and laboratories.
So far, the corporate media is not mentioning the potential threat to the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, so here’s hoping that SSFL is not going to be impacted by the current wildfires raging in the Los Angeles area, – with the danger of widespread radioactive fallout.
But how long can the authorities and the media pretend that wildfires, that climate change, are not a huge danger to nuclear sites? For how long is the public supposed to believe the fairy tale that nuclear power is the solution to climate change?
The Los Angeles wildfire is a frightening and dramatic example of the new type of fire – an idea that people have not come to grips with. Our former view of wildfires, bushfires, was that they happen in forests. We’re not used to big grassfires. We’re not used to huge fires that travel at a much greater speed than before, that fling embers for great distances, that themselves create greater wind strength.
California has, over the past few years, experiencing drought, and big wildfires, In 2024 a total of 8,024 wildfires burned a cumulative 1,050,012 acres (424,925 ha). While many structures were destroyed, the current fire is a new development- with the shocking revelation that now, not only grassy areas, but cities can be wiped out.
For Australia -what a warning! It could all happen here. Much of Australia’s southeast coast has similarities with coastal California.
Meanwhile, Australia’s Opposition leader, Peter Dutton, is opening his electoral campaign, with the Liberal Coalition’s plan for a nuclear Australia. And the Labor government in concert with the Opposition, is all for the AUKUS nuclear submarine project, with its nuclear problems of terrorism risks, and waste disposal. Neither political party seems aware of Australia’s great opportunity to be the almost completely nuclear-free continent, avoiding the dangers that global heating brings to nuclear sites.
U.S. politicians want transparency about the radiation risks of the fire afflicted Santa Susana nuclear site.
Public Risks from the Woolsey Fire and the Santa Susana Field Laboratory: A Letter to DTSC https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2018/11/20/18819268.php, by Bradley Allen Nov 20th, 2018
CANDU reactors release WASTE HEAT as well as RADIOACTIVITY
Inside a CANDU reactor there are three cooling circuits of water.
The “primary coolant” goes in a loop through the core of the reactor and it is filled with heavy water.
The “secondary coolant” goes in a loop through the “steam generator” (boiler) and it is made of ordinary “light” water.
The “tertiary coolant” is taken from the environment and returned to the environment at a hotter temperature Because it is used to “condense” the hot steam back into liquid water (all of it in the secondary loop).
Only 1/3 of the nuclear energy is turned into electrical energy. The other 2/3 is rejected back into the environment as “hot water” from the condenser. So 600 megawatts of electricity at Point Lepreau can only be achieved by dumping 1200 megawatts of heat into the environment.
However this has nothing to do with the use of heavy water.
The heavy water is all on the “nuclear side” of the generating station, not on the “conventional side” (where the Electricity is produced by using steam to turn the blades of a turbine to generate electricitiy.)
Beside the primary cooling loop being made of heavy water, the entire core of the reactor sits in a huge vessel called the “calandra” which is also filled with heavy water — this large inventory of heavy water is called the “moderator” and it is not used to cool the fuel, but simply to slow down (“moderate”) the speed of the neutrons
That are flying around inside the reactor core, splitting uranium atoms and releasing nuclear energy.
Heavy water molecules are a bit heavier than ordinary water molecules (H2O) because the hydrogen atoms (H) are twice as heavy as normal. These “heavy hydrogen” atoms are called DEUTERIUM (D). So heavy water is D2O instead of H2O. Deuterium is very hard to collect and so it is very expensive, but it is not radioactive. At Least, not to start with.
However, inside a CANDU reactor, some of those heavy hydrogen atoms D are transformed into radioactive Tritium atoms T. Tritium is a radioactive form of hydrogen. Each tritium atom T is three times heavier than a Normal hydrogen atom H, and these T atoms are UNSTABLE or RADIOACTIVE. That means they will all eventually “disintegrate” (explode) giving off harmful beta radiation.
Year after year, the concentration of tritium builds up higher and higher in the heavy water, and so in that sense the heavy water has become “radioactive”. It would be more correct to say that the heavy water has become radioactively contaminated by the build-up of tritium. Inevitable, some of that tritium gets out into the environment.
Tritium is released into the environment in the form of radioactive water molecules — as radioactive steam (Into the air) or radioactive liquid water (into the terrestrial environment.) Tritium is by far the biggest radioactive release from CANDU reactors into the environment, amounting to about 150-300 TRILLION becquerels per year from each operating CANDU reactor.
A becquerel denotes one radioactive disintegration every second, or 60 disintegrations each minute, 3600 disintegrations each hour, etc.) These “radioactive releases” are entirely separate from the “thermal (hot water) releases” discussed above.
Point Lepreau releases about 300 trillion becquerels of tritium annually. It is the worst tritium emitter in Canada.
LA wildfire damages set to cost record $135bn
The Los Angeles wildfires are on track to be among the costliest in US
history, with losses already expected to exceed $135bn (£109.7bn). In a
preliminary estimate, private forecaster Accuweather said it expected
losses of between $135bn-$150bn as the blazes rip through an area that is
home to some of the most expensive property in the US.
The insurance industry is also bracing for a major hit, with analysts from firms such as
Morningstar and JP Morgan forecasting insured losses of more than $8bn.
Fire authorities say more than 5,300 structures have been destroyed by the
Palisades blaze, while more than 5,000 structures have been destroyed by
the Eaton Fire.
BBC 9th Jan 2025, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c07g73p4805o
World’s climate fight needs fundamental reform, UN expert says: ‘Some states are not acting in good faith’
Nina Lakhani, climate justice reporter, Guardian 7th Jan 2025
The international effort to avert climate catastrophe has become mired by misinformation and bad faith actors, and must be fundamentally reformed, according to a leading UN climate expert.
Elisa Morgera, the UN special rapporteur on climate change, said the annual UN climate summits and the consensus-based, state-driven process is dominated by powerful forces pushing false narratives and by tech fixes that divert attention from real, equitable solutions for the countries least responsible and most affected.
“The current climate regime was built in a way, maybe unconsciously, that locked in an ineffective approach that is blind to the disproportionate harms of climate change – and increasingly climate solutions – and the disproportionate benefits that the current situation is accruing to very few states and very few individuals,” said Morgera, in an exclusive interview with the Guardian.
“We can observe that some states are not acting in good faith in very clear ways, which is the basis of any international regime. There is widespread disregard for the rule of international law, and also a very clear pushback on the science, and shrinking of civil spaces at all levels. Basically, the truth is out of the conversation. That is the problem – there is no space at Cop for the truth,” said Morgera.
“Fundamental reform is possible, if there is a willingness by the states and the secretariat, but it’s hard to see that at the moment.”
Special rapporteurs are independent human rights experts appointed by the UN to investigate, report on and advise on specific themes or countries.
The annual UN climate summit, known as the conference of the parties, or Cop, is where states who are signed up to the principal climate treaty, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), come together to make consensus-based decisions on climate action. The 2015 Paris agreement, negotiated at Cop21, requires all states to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to help curtail global heating.
But Cop has limited scope for Indigenous experts or ordinary people with lived experience and evidence of climate effects and culturally driven local solutions to participate in the negotiations in any meaningful way – which Morgera argues is among the major weaknesses that could be fixed.
She said: “The dominating assumption in the current process assumes that mass behavioral change is the solution, that this is as much a consumer issue as a production issue – which is a misrepresentation of the causes and the solutions. We’re still not looking at deep, systemic inequalities as the root causes, while also entrenching inequities and worsening negative human rights impacts of climate change – and climate solutions.”
Morgera, a professor of global environmental law at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, said: “This is not a blanket condemnation of the whole regime, but if the experiences and evidence of what climate change is doing around the world and how it is affecting people in differentiated ways is not made central to the decision-making, then it’s really hard to see how this process can meaningfully contribute.”
Open sessions should be the norm at Cop – and Indigenous people, UN agencies and others from civil society with different knowledge systems and evidence should be able to make textual suggestions for states to consider in real time, Morgera says. The UNFCCC could also ensure total transparency over corporate interests including the thousands of fossil-fuel, big ag and plastics lobbyists who participate in the annual climate summits, she argues.
After almost three decades, the UN climate summits have failed to come up with a meaningful, fair agreement or plan to transition away from oil, gas and coal – despite overwhelming scientific evidence that this must be done to avoid climate catastrophe. As fossil-fuel expansion continues apace, hopes of keeping global heating to below 1.5C above pre-industrialization levels have been all but crushed…………………………………………………………………………………………………………. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2025/jan/07/climate-change-reform-elisa-morgera
Climate crisis ‘wreaking havoc’ on Earth’s water cycle, report finds
Global heating is supercharging storms, floods and droughts, affecting entire ecosystems and billions of people
The climate crisis is “wreaking havoc” on the planet’s water cycle,
with ferocious floods and crippling droughts affecting billions of people,
a report has found.
Water is people’s most vital natural resource but
global heating is changing the way water moves around the Earth. The
analysis of water disasters in 2024, which was the hottest year on record,
found they had killed at least 8,700 people, driven 40 million from their
homes and caused economic damage of more than $550bn (£445bn).
Rising temperatures, caused by continued burning of fossil fuels, disrupt the
water cycle in multiple ways. Warmer air can hold more water vapour,
leading to more intense downpours. Warmer seas provide more energy to
hurricanes and typhoons, supercharging their destructive power. Global
heating can also increase drought by causing more evaporation from soil, as
well as shifting rainfall patterns.
Guardian 6th Jan 2025
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/06/climate-crisis-wreaking-havoc-on-earths-water-cycle-report-finds
State of the Cryosphere Report 2024
Lost Ice, Global Damage
In the State of the Cryosphere 2024 – Lost Ice, Global Damage report, over 50 leading cryosphere scientists warn of vastly higher impacts and costs to the global economy given accelerating losses in the world’s snow and ice regions. Current climate commitments, leading the world to well over 2°C of warming, would bring disastrous and irreversible consequences for billions of people from global ice loss.
Based on the most recent cryosphere science updates from 2024, the authors underscore that the costs of loss and damage will be even more extreme, with many regions experiencing sea-level rise or water resource loss well beyond adaptation limits in this century if our current level of emissions continues – leading towards a rise of 3°C or more. Mitigation will also become more costly due to feedbacks from thawing permafrost emissions and loss of sea ice.
For the first time, the report notes a growing scientific consensus that melting Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, among other factors, may be slowing important ocean currents at both poles, with potentially dire consequences for a much colder northern Europe and greater sea-level rise along the U.S. East Coast.
Reviewed and supported by over 50 leading cryosphere scientists, this is the latest report in the State of the Cryosphere series, which takes the pulse of the cryosphere on an annual basis. The cryosphere is the name given to Earth’s snow and ice regions and ranges from ice sheets, glaciers, snow and permafrost to sea ice and the polar oceans – which are acidifying far more rapidly than warmer waters. The report describes how a combination of melting polar ice sheets, vanishing glaciers, and thawing permafrost will have rapid, irreversible, and disastrous impacts worldwide.
Energy efficiency, the forgotten tool for dealing with climate change
How to keep warm when budgets are squeezed.
Sub-zero temperatures are hitting the UK just as gas and electricity prices have risen for millions of households. Energy bills are about 50% higher than pre-Covid levels,
leaving many struggling to cover the cost alongside other financial
demands.
So what can you do to stay warm while keeping costs down? Before
having an argument between family or flatmates about the heating, try
touring the property to work out how to save energy. That may include
turning off radiators in unused rooms, switching lights off when they are
not needed, and not leaving electrical appliances on standby. Curtains
should be open during the day, then drawn at dusk. Manage your draughts by
putting a black bag with scrunched up paper up an unused chimney, or try
limiting other draughts around the home. You can easily make your own
draught excluders. Cold, hard floors can be covered by a rug if you have
one. Layer up with clothes, safely use a hot water bottle, and make sure
you have warm nightwear.
BBC 3rd Jan 2025
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd6084l4zx6o
TODAY. The polar playground for a suicidal species?
https://theaimn.net/the-polar-playground-for-a-suicidal-species/ 7 January 25
Where to begin on this mind-boggling story about epic changes on a very small planet?
Well, let’s begin on the fun part. The Australian Antarctic Program encourages some pretty innocuous recreational activities, plus of course, encouragement for tourists to come, and to learn about the polar world. So that’s OK, I suppose. But lately, in the news, there is growing concern that tourists, Australians in particular, are taking such a playful attitude to Antarctica, that they are risking their personal safety.
Interesting that the video above puts the blame on TikTok for encouraging the fun and danger. But tourism itself is good for increasing education about Antarctica. As long as individuals personally behave safely, that’s fine, isn’t it?
But what about planetary safety?
What Australians, and most of the world, learn about Antarctica, is that it’s pretty, and has penguins, Oh, and the ice is melting a bit, too. And that’s about it. The media does not trouble our complacent little minds with information about the thermohaline ocean circulation, the atmospheric circulation patterns, the carbon-sequestration of krill, the polar vortex…. Much too hard for us, in this cricket-tennis season.
Right now, Northern Europe and parts of the USA are experiencing extreme cold weather. No doubt some people would say that this disproves global heating, climate change. Alas, these extremes, emanating from the Arctic, by the polar vortex, are exacerbated by global heating. The polar vortex is a complex system, difficult to grasp, for the average news reader, so it is part of the whole poorly known, global climate system.
Antarctica is at the other end of the world – not connected to all this? Well, not if you ignore the global thermohaline circulation, among other things like sea level rise.
Global thermohaline circulation
Professor Elisabeth Leane, Professor of Antarctic Studies at the University of Tasmania says – What happens in Antarctica doesn’t stay in Antarctica. Its future will shape the future of the planet
Which brings me to the question of safety in relation to Antarctica – planetary, not just personal.
And here’s what the University of Tasmania says about it – Antarctica’s tipping points threaten global climate stability.
The map above is from the University of Tasmania’s report by international climate scientists . It identifies the various cascading tipping points and their interactions and pressures on the ecosystem.
For those who care about the climate change issue, and about Australia and the Antarctic, I would urge them to watch, and persist with, this brilliant report by climate researcher Paul Beckwith – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WccDhnM8R8
Beckwith explains the potential tipping points identified by the study and their interrelationships , and adds the issue of sea ice loss. Critical issues are ice sheets, ocean acidification, ocean circulation, species redistribution, invasive species, permafrost melting, local pollution, chemical impacts, social impacts, local pollution and the Antarctic Treaty System. He goes on to explain with excellent graphics, the global thermohaline circulation, and then, in-depth, the records on sea ice, and then on to his detailed study on the tiny krill or light shrimp, and their global importance. Finally, Beckwith outlines the politics, the various national claims in the Antarctic Treaty System. The scientists’ conclusion – the urgent need for action on climate. Heavy stuff. Fascinating stuff. He finishes with a reminder of the unique role of that amazing critter the krill.
If you want a more concise discussion of the University of Tasmania’s December remarkable workshop of international marine scientists – go to Radio Ecoshock – World-changing Tipping Points – In Antarctica !
The “mainstream media” rarely covers climate change in any depth. For decades, the public has been informed very superficially on this life and death matter for our survival. The dedicated scientists produce their research results, but the media seem to find these too difficult, or too “political” to bother to report on them properly. The December 2024 “emergency summit” of international polar scientists in Tasmania barely got a mention in the Australian or international press.
You have to go to alternative media, to get any real insight into what is happening to the climate of our planet home. For decades now, Paul Beckwith has being producing his highly informative and wonderfully illustrated videos, on Youtube. Meanwhile Alex Smith has been doing the same sort of thing on radio and podcast, and print, – on Radio Ecoshock, which is heard in Australia on Community Radio 3CR.
In 2025, it is ever more urgent for people to wade through the morass of “social” media, and corporate media, and “alternative” media, to find the facts on climate change. Paul Beckwith and Radio Ecoshock are two examples of a rare and endangered human species – journalists who do their homework on climate change.
‘A snapshot of climate devastation’: Study claims 2024’s biggest climate disasters cost $200bn.
Ten costliest climate disasters of 2024 each caused more than $4bn in
damage, Christian Aid study finds. The 10 most costly climate disasters of
2024 collectively caused more than $200bn in damages, according to annual
analysis published today by Christian Aid. The charity’s annual assessment
of the 10 most expensive extreme weather events of the past 12 months
estimates every one of the biggest individual disasters this year caused
damages to the tune of more than $4bn each, with no part of the world
spared from such extreme weather events.
Moreover, given most estimates
totted by Christian Aid are based only on insured losses, the true
financial costs are likely to be even higher, while the human costs are
often uncounted for, the charity said. The report suggests the USA bore the
brunt of climate disaster costs in 2024, with October’s Hurricane Milton
the single biggest one-off event at $60bn in damage, while Hurricane Helene
– which struck the US, Cuba and Mexico in September – placed second with
$55bn damages.
Business Green 30th Dec 2024 https://www.businessgreen.com/news/4391020/snapshot-climate-devastation-study-claims-2024s-biggest-climate-disasters-cost-usd200bn
Skiing in France is slowly dying.
Skiing in France is slowly dying and many resorts are expected to close
down in a little over 20 years, industry experts have warned. Climate
change, ageing ski lifts and rising costs are driving smaller, mid-altitude
resorts out of business. Five shut down this year and 186 have gone out of
business since the 1950s, mostly in inexpensive ski areas with relatively
few runs that were popular with French families but never attracted large
numbers of foreign holidaymakers.
Times 29th Dec 2024 https://www.thetimes.com/world/europe/article/france-affordable-ski-slopes-shut-why-nqkb3qrk7
Scientists should break the ice
once the ice sheet slides into the ocean, there is no putting it back, even if all carbon emissions ended that day. The ice-sheet holds enough water to raise sea levels by 58 metres. Even if only half of it breaks off, it will be just a waiting game over just a few years for the ice to melt and for us to watch every coastal city on earth to be inundated. In our lifetime.
once the ice sheet slides into the ocean, there is no putting it back, even if all carbon emissions ended that day. The ice-sheet holds enough water to raise sea levels by 58 metres. Even if only half of it breaks off, it will be just a waiting game over just a few years for the ice to melt and for us to watch every coastal city on earth to be inundated. In our lifetime.
Crispin Hull, December 29, 2024
The 2024 award for the biggest disjoin between the importance of a story and the coverage it got must surely go to the science briefing on Antarctica and Sea-Level Rise published by the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership and the ARC Australian Centre for Excellence in Antarctic Science.
It came out in September. The ABC had some coverage, but it seemed to miss some essential points.
Here is what the new science tells us and how it is different from the older science.
The older science tells us that the amount of sea ice in Antarctica is shrinking, but not as badly as in the Arctic. Sea ice expands and contracts quite quickly according to air and sea temperature. So, a gradual reduction in sea ice will mean a gradual and comparatively small rise in sea levels.
This science should be moderately alarming, but the misinformationists in the fossil fuel industry can bat away public fears by saying not much is happening here and it will not happen in your lifetime, so carry on as usual.
This is standard stuff from fossil misinformationists: climate change is not happening, but if it is happening it is part of natural geologic forces and has nothing to do with human-generated carbon, and even if it is caused by human-generated carbon we can develop technologies to capture the carbon and safely store it away.
In short, they base their facts on their desired conclusion that they can continue to make profits from the emission of carbon until ecosystems and economies collapse. When it is too late.
Coming back to Antarctica, earlier science suggested that sea-ice contraction could be reversed if temperatures came down a bit. As it happens sea-ice is an important reflector of solar rays (and heat). Without the sea-ice you have dark ocean which absorbs the rays and increases the heat of the ocean. Nonetheless, it is still a probably reversible process.
Enter the new research. This is about the eastern Antarctic icesheet. Hitherto, this has given climate scientists much less cause for concern. This is because the eastern ice sheet has built up over land. It is anchored.
Unlike sea-ice it is not vulnerable to warmer water melting it.
Picture the land mass and a big thick ice sheet over it. The sea nibbles at the edge and even if the sea is a bit warmer it does not melt much ice. This is not like sea-ice where the warmer water is all around it melting it quickly. So, hitherto scientists have taken some climate solace in the fact that so much ice is safely tied up in the eastern Antarctic ice-sheet (more than 60 per cent of the world’s fresh water) and so will give us more time to slow and reverse the warming of the planet.
Enter the new research. Remove the image of a lump of land mass. Rather picture that the land mass has been forced down by the weight of the ice – heavier at the middle of the land mass and lighter at the edge.
The new science tells us that much of the eastern Antarctic ice-sheet is grounded below sea level. So, one the warmer sea waters get under it, the whole sheet becomes unstable and can slide into the ocean. And even if temperatures are made to fall, the tipping point would have been reached – the warmer sea would have run under the massive ice-sheet, undermining it and making its slide into the ocean inevitable.
And once the ice sheet slides into the ocean, there is no putting it back, even if all carbon emissions ended that day. The ice-sheet holds enough water to raise sea levels by 58 metres. Even if only half of it breaks off, it will be just a waiting game over just a few years for the ice to melt and for us to watch every coastal city on earth to be inundated. In our lifetime.
Once the ice sheet hits the ocean, it is the end of civilisation as we know it.
The ice cannot be put back.
The greater the potential damage the more you should do about it, even if you think the risk is small. This is why people go to a lot of effort to make their houses less exposed to bushfires and cyclones.
It may be that some billionaires might imagine they could set up doomsday retreats to avoid death, injury, and discomfort. They are dreaming. In those circumstances money means nothing and the profit-driven selfishness that drives unnecessarily extending the use of fossil fuel will be brushed aside by the maniac selfishness of those on a desperate if doomed survival mission.
Scientists must change stop their subdued, cautious approach to reporting climate change. It is understandable because scientists do not want to cause panic or unnecessary alarm. But the approach has just given the fossil industry endless free kicks. It is time for alarm and measured panic.
Scientists should stop being scared of publishing scary material in a scary way. It is time to tell people the reality of the biggest security, economic, and existential threat to humans on earth………………………. more http://www.crispinhull.com.au/2024/12/29/scientists-should-break-the-ice/?utm_source=mailpoet&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=crispin-hull-column
‘We need to be prepared’: China adapts to era of extreme flooding
“The Chinese leadership tends to see the long game,” Li said. “To demonstrate their far-sight and to prevent further risks, more should be done to prepare for the impacts of climate change systematically.”
While some residents take to building houses in trees, officials recognise need for national response to climate disasters
Amy Hawkins , Guardian 24th Dec 2024, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/24/we-need-to-be-prepared-china-adapts-to-era-of-extreme-flooding
Every summer, Dongting Hu, China’s second-largest freshwater lake, swells in size as flood water from the Yangtze River flows into its borders. Dams and dikes are erected around the lake’s edges to protect against flooding. But this year, not for the first time, they were overwhelmed.
For three days in early July, more than 800 rescue workers in Hunan province scrambled to block the breaches. One rupture alone took 100,000 cubic metres of rock to seal, according to Zhang Yingchun, a Hunan official. At least 7,000 people had to be evacuated. It was one of a series of disasters to hit China as the country grappled with a summer of extreme weather. By August, there had been 25 large floods, the biggest number since records began in 1998, reported state media.
Xi Jinping, China’s president, “urged all-out rescue and relief work” to safeguard the people affected by the flooding in Hunan, state media reported.
One of those people was Ren Benxin, an archaeologist who lives on a small, forested island in the upper tributaries of Dongting Hu. He calls his idyllic home Soultopia. As well as carrying out archaeological research, he provides accommodation for travellers and looks after the herd of stray cats and dogs that he has adopted over the years.
On 5 July, his home was flooded. “First, I rescued the animals. Then, I rescued the supplies,” he said. “It was the first time in 10 years that I’d experienced something like this.”
The wooden huts in Ren’s corner of the islet were nearly completely submerged in muddy water. Chickens used the remnants of destroyed buildings as rafts to avoid drowning. Ren traversed the island in a small plastic dinghy. One of his dogs, Eason, fell ill after drinking dirty flood water, and died a few days later.
“Two years ago, we had a severe drought, and this year it’s been floods. I think we need to be prepared for anything,” Ren said.
Experiences like Ren’s are becoming more common in China, as
global heating makes extreme weather events more likely, as well as undermining communities’ defences against those disasters.
Dongting Hu exemplifies these challenges. It was once China’s largest freshwater lake. But decades of agricultural development meant that huge swathes of its land were reclaimed for farming, reducing the lake’s storage capacity. Both droughts and floods are becoming more serious and severe.
At least six Chinese provinces experienced major flooding in 2024. As well as the floods in Hunan, heavy rainfall in Guangdong, China’s most populous province, forced more than 110,000 people to relocate. After years of treating weather disasters as isolated incidents that require a local response, Chinese officials are becoming increasingly aware of the need to adapt to extreme weather events on a national scale.
“The harsh reality is here: the lack of climate action will cost China and present a social security threat,” said Li Shuo, director of the China Climate Hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute.
At the Cop29 UN climate crisis conference in November, China published an action plan for climate adaptation, vowing to establish a technical platform to monitor and forecast extreme weather events and to share its knowledge of improving early warning mechanisms.
It marked a shift the country which has long acknowledged the science of the climate crisis, but has focused its environmental cleanup efforts on issues such as air pollution – rather than severe but relatively rare floods and droughts.
“The Chinese leadership tends to see the long game,” Li said. “To demonstrate their far-sight and to prevent further risks, more should be done to prepare for the impacts of climate change systematically.”
For flooding victims like Ren, an official recognition of – and compensation for – the damage wrought by the climate crisis cannot come soon enough. The repair work cost him more than 70,000 yuan (£7,600), although the authorities did send some relief workers to help.
For now, Ren is developing his own ways to adapt to climate breakdown. He shuns electrical appliances after his were destroyed in the flood, and uses wood burners for cooking and heating. He plans to build a new home suspended in trees, so as to be safe from floods.
“I think extreme weather is more frequent now. So I have to be prepared for anything. If I like the place, I’ll stay.”
Additional research by Chi-hui Lin and Jason Tzu Kuan Lu
1 This Month
of the week– Nuclear Reactor Information Task Force
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
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