Glossop Parish Church

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A church community in Glossop spent 2022 turning their churchyard into a wildlife sanctuary, cleaning up the surrounding town, and partnering with global environmental initiatives.

Read more at https://t.co/ufFEolZl2K.

— The Church of England (@churchofengland) January 9, 2023

Splitting water using electrolysis is relatively straightforward, and is already done in some hydrogen-generating facilities with access to a conventional water supply. The process, which takes place in an electrolyser, electrically separates hydrogen from oxygen and allows the hydrogen to be siphoned off. But with seawater this is more complicated because salt and other impurities can effectively destroy the electrolyser.

One option is to desalinate and purify seawater before processing it — but in some settings that can add cost. Another option is to treat the electrolyser components chemically to avoid corrosion, but that is viewed as impractical.

Now Heping Xie at Shenzhen University and Zongping Shao at Nanjing Tech University have come up with a workaround. They kept the electrolyser separate from the seawater with a waterproof, breathable membrane. A bit like a sieve, the membrane keeps anything other than pure water vapour from entering the electrolyser. As the water vapour is drawn in and converted to hydrogen, more is pulled in from the seawater to take its place. It is, they reported recently in the journal Nature, a self-sustaining system.

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Chinese researchers claim to have produced hydrogen by splitting seawater without the need to desalinate or purify it first, according to a report in Chemistry World magazine https://t.co/g4Q7HdGBex

— Financial Times (@FinancialTimes) December 14, 2022

Most U.S. adults – including a solid majority of Christians and large numbers of people who identify with other religious traditions – consider the Earth sacred and believe God gave humans a duty to care for it, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.

But the survey also finds that highly religious Americans (those who say they pray each day, regularly attend religious services and consider religion very important in their lives) are far less likely than other U.S. adults to express concern about warming temperatures around the globe.

The survey reveals several reasons why religious Americans tend to be less concerned about climate change. First and foremost is politics: The main driver of U.S. public opinion about the climate is political party, not religion. Highly religious Americans are more inclined than others to identify with or lean toward the Republican Party, and Republicans tend to be much less likely than Democrats to believe that human activity (such as burning fossil fuels) is warming the Earth or to consider climate change a serious problem.

Religious Americans who express little or no concern about climate change also give a variety of other explanations for their views, including that there are much bigger problems in the world today, that God is in control of the climate, and that they do not believe the climate actually is changing. In addition, many religious Americans voice concerns about the potential consequences of environmental regulations, such as a loss of individual freedoms, fewer jobs or higher energy prices.

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Most adults (including Christians) consider the Earth sacred and believe God gave humans a duty to care for it. But our new survey also finds that highly religious Americans are less likely to express concern about warming temperatures around the globe. https://t.co/3zazVaEwYl

— Pew Research Center (@pewresearch) November 17, 2022

Solar panels could be installed on the roof of York Minster for the first time in a bid to tackle rising energy bills.

The cathedral’s gas and electricity costs are expected to triple next year, a Minster spokesperson said.

Plans to install 199 solar panels on the roof of the South Quire Aisle have been submitted to York Council.

Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell said the Minster was “committed to taking a lead on addressing the climate emergency.”

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York Minster plan for solar panels as energy bills triple https://t.co/aZYphcKpO7

— BBC Science News (@BBCScienceNews) November 18, 2022

A European-style winter energy crunch is looming over New England in the north-east US, even as American natural gas producers export record volumes and a wave of fuel heads across the Atlantic.

Utility bosses in the region have called for emergency assistance from Washington to pre-empt a crisis, while lashing out at a century-old law that has cut New England off from some of America’s prolific shale output and left it more dependent on expensive imports.

On Friday, a vessel laden with liquefied natural gas will land in Massachusetts — but the federal law preventing foreign vessels sailing between US ports means the gas will come from Trinidad, not the US export plants along the Gulf of Mexico that are shipping record amounts of fuel abroad.

“You would think that charity would begin at home . . . that American fuel would go to American ports,” Joe Nolan, chief executive of Eversource Energy, one of New England’s biggest utilities, said in an interview. “We’re going to have to compete just like everybody else — in the global market.”

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"On Friday, a vessel laden with liquefied natural gas will land in Massachusetts — but the federal law preventing foreign vessels sailing between US ports means the gas will come from Trinidad, not the US export plants along the Gulf of Mexico" https://t.co/iXi4h25wrY

— Jim Russell (@ProducerCities) November 18, 2022

In the remaining days of the COP27 climate summit in Egypt, nearly 200 nations are rushing to seek deals that keep climate goals alive.

If they fall short, it will likely disappoint but not surprise much of the world’s population that is already unhappy with efforts to safeguard the environment.

In 66 out of 123 countries that Gallup surveyed in 2021 and 2022, less than half of people report being satisfied with their country’s efforts to preserve the environment.

This list includes many, but not all, of the world’s cumulative top emitters of carbon dioxide, which is linked to global warming. For example, while less than half of adults in one of the biggest emitters — the U.S. — are satisfied with their country’s efforts to preserve the environment, strong majorities in other big emitters such as China (89%) and India (78%) are satisfied.

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48% of Americans who are satisfied with the country's efforts to preserve the environment in 2022 is more characteristic of the relatively lower satisfaction levels since the U.S. first agreed to join the Paris Agreement in 2015. https://t.co/C1Rapv1Ke6 pic.twitter.com/OrbT7IgPYL

— GallupNews (@GallupNews) November 17, 2022

The Mississippi River — the immense, quiet highway that courses down the middle of America, moving critical food, wood, coal and steel supplies to global markets — is shrinking from drought, forcing traffic to a crawl at the worst possible time.

With water levels at record lows, barges have run aground, causing traffic jams as boats wait for the US Army Corps of Engineers to dredge a path through the shallows. The problem has been building for months. Summer brought meager rain to much of the Plains and Midwest. Now it’s harvest time, when farmers bring in their grains and other crops, send them to market, and lay down fertilizer before the winter snows. The shriveled Mississippi has forced them to seek alternatives, all of them more expensive, like moving soybeans by rail to the Gulf Coast or shipping everything through distant West Coast ports. That will inevitably increase pressure on global food prices at a time when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has already sent them soaring.

The river is “low, been low and not getting filled anytime soon – so a bad situation getting worse,” said Jeremy Jack, who just harvested his crops on 11,500 acres of land in the Mississippi Delta. “We don’t have any soybean storage. Beans are in places where they shouldn’t be and losing quality.”

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The Mississippi is shrinking from drought – increasing pressure on global food prices at a time when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has already tightened supply.

Read The Big Take https://t.co/W5rbORTIjk

— Bloomberg CityLab (@CityLab) November 10, 2022

Government plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions aren’t enough to avoid catastrophic global warming, with the planet on track to heat up between 2.1 and 2.9 degrees Celsius by the end of the century compared to pre-industrial times, according to a new report from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Despite some progress in the last year, governments need to do more by 2030 to ensure that the global temperature increase is below 2C and ideally closer to 1.5C — the goal set in the Paris Agreement reached in 2015. The UNFCCC reached its conclusions by analyzing all national climate plans, also known as nationally-determined contributions or NDCs, submitted since 2015.

“The good news — projections show emissions won’t be increasing after 2030,” UN climate change executive secretary Simon Stiell told reporters on Wednesday. “The bad news – they’re still not demonstrating the rapid downward trend scientists say is necessary this decade.”

Climate scientists estimate that human-caused greenhouse gas emissions need to halve by the end of this decade, and to be eliminated by mid-century in order to keep warming below 2C by 2100. While the consequences of planetary heating above that threshold are deemed to be catastrophic, today’s warming of 1.1C above pre-industrial times has already resulted in irreversible changes, according to the latest report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

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Government plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions are not enough to avert catastrophic global warming, according to a UN report https://t.co/v4jraOHa97

— Bloomberg (@business) October 26, 2022

The vast majority of plastic that people put into recycling bins is headed to landfills, or worse, according to a report from Greenpeace on the state of plastic recycling in the U.S.

The report cites separate data published this May which revealed that the amount of plastic actually turned into new things has fallen to new lows of around 5%. That number is expected to drop further as more plastic is produced.

Greenpeace found that no plastic — not even soda bottles, one of the most prolific items thrown into recycling bins — meets the threshold to be called “recyclable” according to standards set by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation New Plastic Economy Initiative. Plastic must have a recycling rate of 30% to reach that standard; no plastic has ever been recycled and reused close to that rate.

“More plastic is being produced, and an even smaller percentage of it is being recycled,” says Lisa Ramsden, senior plastic campaigner for Greenpeace USA. “The crisis just gets worse and worse, and without drastic change will continue to worsen as the industry plans to triple plastic production by 2050.”

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You probably think plastic you throw into recycling bins will be… recycled.

The reality, however, is the vast majority heads to the landfill — only around 5% of plastic is actually being repurposed, according to a Greenpeace report.

Here’s whyhttps://t.co/C7QsxonLJP

— NPR (@NPR) October 25, 2022

The Church of England Pensions Board has joined five other pension funds to bring legal action against Volkswagen AG (VW), after it refused repeated attempts to reveal crucial information on its corporate climate-lobbying activities.

The funds, four Swedish and one Danish in addition to the C of E board, are all part of the Institutional Investment Group on Climate Change (IIGCC) and the Climate Action’s 100+ initiative. These have asked the company repeatedly to clarify its lobbying position. VW discloses trade association memberships, but does not disclose how the goals of these associations align with its own climate goals.

The boards wanted to table an agenda item at VW’s AGM, seeking publication of a report setting out how the company’s lobbying of policy-makers matched its stated ambition to support the Paris Agreement goals by becoming a net-zero company. VW refused to table the item.

The investors say that they tried over several years to get information before tabling the amendment. The case, supported by the legal charity ClientEarth, will test whether VW has the right to refuse the agenda item.

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C of E Pensions Board joins fight to force VW to open its books on climate lobbying https://t.co/F1UtlH7M2M

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) October 24, 2022

Look through them all.

#water #news #waternews Photos: Mississippi River continues to sink to record lows as it passes through New Orleans https://t.co/W1rGNWNnmq via @nolanews

— World Water News (@WorldWater_News) October 24, 2022

New mothers and the elderly are among the first to take advantage of a warm spaces scheme to help people struggling to afford to heat their own homes.

Cafes, churches and libraries across Bristol are opening their doors as energy prices rise this winter.

The city council asked businesses and public buildings to join the scheme in the summer.

As well as warmth, many of the spaces are offering services like financial advice and homework support.

A cafe in the Wellspring Settlement community centre in Barton Hill is taking part in the initiative twice a week and is also providing food.

People are only asked to pay what they can afford, with the rest subsidised by the council.

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Bristol warm places scheme welcomes first residents – a lot of hard work has gone into establishing warm spaces across the city. For information on cost of living support ⁦@BristolCouncil⁩ has put in place please go to https://t.co/ZF99TzZ9F6 https://t.co/7C6jRf6nZI

— Cllr Asher Craig (@CllrAsherCraig) October 12, 2022

The Energy Costs Grant will be distributed to dioceses to enable them to help Parochial Church Councils (PCCs) cover the increased cost of heating and lighting church buildings this winter.

Dioceses will also be able to use some of their fund allocation to make additional targeted hardship payments for clergy and other employed ministers to cover household bills, in particular energy costs.

The new funding comes after £3 million was made available earlier this year by the Church of England for dioceses to distribute to clergy and lay ministers facing particular hardship because of the cost of living crisis.

The Energy Costs Grant is accompanied by information aimed at helping churches to become more energy efficient and reduce their carbon footprint.

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The Church of England is to provide £15 million for dioceses to help churches struggling to pay energy costs.

Learn more about the Energy Costs Grant at https://t.co/xw1ACR3Lbk.

— The Church of England (@churchofengland) October 12, 2022

The economic damage from the shutdown of Russian gas flows is piling up fast in Europe and risks eventually eclipsing the impact of the global financial crisis.

With a continent-wide recession now seemingly inevitable, a harsh winter is coming for chemical producers, steel plants and car manufacturers starved of essential raw materials who’ve joined households in sounding the alarm over rocketing energy bills. The suspected sabotage of Germany’s main pipeline for gas from Russia underlined that Europe will have to survive without any significant Russian flows.

Building on a model of the European energy market and economy, the Bloomberg Economics base case is now a 1% drop in gross domestic product, with the downturn starting in the fourth quarter. If the coming months turn especially icy and the 27 members of the European Union fail to efficiently share scarce fuel supplies, the contraction could be as much as 5%.

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The suspected sabotage of Germany’s main pipeline for gas from Russia underlined fears that Europe will have to survive without any significant Russian flows https://t.co/RZ8OCF0fdV

— Bloomberg (@business) September 27, 2022

The problem is not a lack of water per se. Climate change may make some places drier and others wetter. It is the uneven distribution of freshwater—of which fast-growing places like India are woefully short—that provide the conditions for a crisis. This is made worse by waste, pollution and the near-universal underpricing of water. Some governments, notably China’s, have created pharaonic projects to transport water to where it is needed. Others, such as Mr López Obrador’s, peddle the quixotic idea of moving demand to where the water is. The best outcome in the long term, on paper at least, is the simplest: that less of the stuff is used, and more of what is used is treated better. It is something the private sector is just starting to grapple with.

Industries directly affected by water shortages have got a head start. Global mining firms are using desalination plants in Chile. Beer and soft-drinks companies, existentially reliant on clean water, have targets for improving efficiency (Heineken says it uses 2.5 litres of water to make a litre of beer in Mexico, about half the global industry average). In collaboration with the wri, Cargill, an agro-industrial behemoth, recently extended the monitoring of water use from its own operations to the farmers who supply its crops. Fashion retailers, whose suppliers are often heavy users of water and dyes in dry areas, are considering similar moves, to avoid angry flare-ups by local residents who worry about being second in line to the taps.

This calls for careful stewardship.

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As a heavily subsidised raw material, water is so cheap that many ceos overlook it. A report this year by Planet Tracker and cdp, two ngos, said that about a third of listed banks do not assess water risks in their portfolios. https://t.co/9wIpsGUZVJ

— Guillaume LOURIAIS (@glouriais) August 18, 2022

For the second year in a row, Arizona and Nevada will face cuts in the amount of water they can draw from the Colorado River as the West endures more drought, federal officials announced Tuesday.

Though the cuts will not result in any immediate new restrictions — like banning lawn watering or car washing — they signal that unpopular decisions about how to reduce consumption are on the horizon, including whether to prioritize growing cities or agricultural areas. Mexico will also face cuts.

But those reductions represent just a fraction of the potential pain to come for the 40 million Americans in seven states that rely on the river. Because the states failed to meet a federal deadline to figure out how to cut their water use by at least 15%, they could see even deeper cuts that the government has said are needed to prevent reservoirs from falling so low they cannot be pumped.

“The states collectively have not identified and adopted specific actions of sufficient magnitude that would stabilize the system,” Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Touton said.

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For years, cities and farms have diverted more water from the river than flows through it, depleting its reservoirs and raising questions about how it will be divided as water becomes more scarce.https://t.co/5ULwcyIsVK

— Stars and Stripes (@starsandstripes) August 17, 2022

A quarter of the US land area, home to more than 100mn people, will be subjected to temperatures of more than 125F (52C) in three decades, including states with rapid population growth such as Texas, a report forecasts.

The “extreme heat belt”, in which heat indices exceed such temperatures, will expand from 50 counties in 2023 to more than 1,000 by 2053, according to a new report from First Street Foundation, a New York-based non-profit climate risk research group.

The findings point to an increasingly severe impact on US population centres and property markets as the planet is warmed by greenhouse gas emissions. Temperatures have risen 1.1C globally since preindustrial times.

Heatwaves have baked much of the US this summer, with record temperatures in Texas and near-record figures from the Pacific Northwest to the north-east last month, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

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"A quarter of the US land area, home to more than 100mn people, will be subjected to temperatures of more than 125F (52C) in three decades" https://t.co/LYf7c6ImCg

— ryan cooper (@ryanlcooper) August 15, 2022

The rapid warming of the Arctic, a definitive sign of climate change, is occurring even faster than previously described, researchers in Finland said Thursday.

Over the past four decades the region has been heating up four times faster than the global average, not the two to three times that has commonly been reported. And some parts of the region, notably the Barents Sea north of Norway and Russia, are warming up to seven times faster, they said.

One result of rapid Arctic warming is faster melting of the Greenland ice sheet, which adds to sea-level rise. But the impacts extend far beyond the Arctic, reaching down to influence weather like extreme rainfall and heat waves in North America and elsewhere. By altering the temperature difference between the North Pole and the Equator, the warming Arctic appears to have affected storm tracks and wind speed in North America.

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Breaking News: The warming of the Arctic, a definitive sign of climate change, is happening far more rapidly than previously described, researchers said — in one area, seven times faster than the global average. https://t.co/jJe5DggaX7

— The New York Times (@nytimes) August 11, 2022

I don’t think many Americans appreciate just how tense and tenuous, how very touch and go the energy situation in Europe is right now.

For months, as news of the Ukraine war receded a bit, it was possible to follow the energy story unfolding across the Atlantic and still assume an uncomfortable but familiar-enough winter in Europe, characterized primarily by high prices.

In recent weeks, the prospects have begun to look darker. In early August the European Union approved a request that member states reduce gas consumption by 15 percent — quite a large request and one that several initially balked at. In Spain, facing record-breaking heat wave after record-breaking heat wave at the height of the country’s tourist season, the government announced restrictions on commercial air-conditioning, which may not be set below 27 degrees Celsius, or about 80 degrees Fahrenheit. In France, an Associated Press article said, “urban guerrillas” are taking to the streets, shutting off storefront lights to reduce energy consumption. In the Netherlands a campaign called Flip the Switch is asking residents to limit showers to five minutes and to drop air-conditioning and clothes dryers entirely. Belgium has reversed plans to retire nuclear power plants, and Germany, having ruled out the possibility of such a turnabout in June, is now considering it as well.

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“I think there’s been a gradual and growing recognition that we are headed into the worst global energy crisis at least since the 1970s and perhaps longer than that.”—⁦@JasonBordoff. https://t.co/gSipgPuVru

— David Wallace-Wells (@dwallacewells) August 10, 2022

Germany’s Rhine river will become impassable for barges carrying coal, oil and gas later this week, in a devastating blow to factories upriver.

Levels at Kaub, a key point along the waterway west of Frankfurt, are predicted to fall to below 40cm on Friday, according to the German Federal Waterways and Shipping Administration.

At that chokepoint, the river becomes effectively impassable for many barges, which use the Rhine to move a range of goods including coal, oil and gas.

Water levels will then fall further to 37cm on Saturday, officials warned.

The river runs from Switzerland through France and Germany to the Netherlands, where it joins the North Sea.

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The Rhine is close to running dry in a German energy nightmare.

Rhine water levels at Kaub will soon make it impassable for barges carrying coal and gas imports#Thread https://t.co/zxifmOBgJB pic.twitter.com/Oa0cSNcDMu

— Telegraph World News (@TelegraphWorld) August 10, 2022

The Loire Valley is known as “the Garden of France”. But the garden is withering.

France’s worst drought since records began has turned lush vegetation into arid fields of brown crops, shrivelling under what is now the fourth heatwave of the year.

In Vincent Favreau’s vegetable farm, where he produces food for a hundred families in the area, the parched earth has stunted the growth of the cabbages. His potato plants are burnt out, producing just half the crop of a normal year.

“Either the vegetables will die of thirst, or they won’t develop enough during this crucial period of growth,” he said, sifting through the dry soil, which he hasn’t been able to water since restrictions came in two weeks ago.

“With this heat and wind, we can’t compensate for what the sun is evaporating. I’ve never seen something like this in my twenty-two years here. If it doesn’t rain within two months, it’ll be a disaster.”

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"It's very sad to see," she said. "We never imagined the river would be as dry as this. It's a huge surprise – and a wake-up call for us all to take decisions so this doesn't become even worse." https://t.co/MqXhkcBlnb

— Jasper Teulings (@Patagorda) August 9, 2022

The Western US is an empire built on snow. And that snow is vanishing.

Since most of the region gets little rain in the summer, even in good years, its bustling cities and bountiful farms all hinge on fall and winter snow settling in the mountains before slowly melting into rivers and reservoirs. That snowmelt, often traveling hundreds of miles from mountain top to tap, sustains the booming desert communities of Las Vegas, Phoenix and Salt Lake City — even coastal Los Angeles and San Francisco. A civilization of more than 76 million people, home to Silicon Valley and Hollywood alike, relies on snow.

“The snow in the mountains is this incredible gift that created California,” said Spencer Glendon, founder of climate outreach initiative Probable Futures and former director of investment research at Wellington Management. “Nobody would build all of that stuff in a climate that was on the brink of being a desert.”

Dangerously high temperatures in the Pacific Northwest and California’s deadly McKinney Fire flung the Western states’ changing climate back into the national spotlight this past week, and it only gets tougher from here. With the Southwest gripped by its worst drought in 1,200 years, there’s less precipitation of any kind these days across the region, especially the crucial frozen variety with its multi-month staying power. Rain, as desperately as it’s needed, isn’t quite the same: Unless it goes into a lake or reservoir, it won’t be available for weeks or months in the future, the way snowmelt can be. What little winter precipitation does arrive now often lands as rain and runs off, long gone by summer. The West’s mountain snowpacks have shrunk, on average, 23% between 1955 and 2022. By the end of the 21st century, California could lose as much as 79% of its peak snowpack by water volume.

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The Western US, which gets little rain in the summer, relies on its fall and winter snow for survival. But that precipitation is dwindling, and the economic fallout could be dire https://t.co/xRG3XP7D3d
The End of Snow Threatens to Upend 76 Million American Lives

— Svein Tveitdal (@tveitdal) August 4, 2022

There are two reasons to put solar panels on the roofs of Calvin University.

One, renewable energy can provide power for the private Christian campus in Grand Rapids, Michigan, without adding to the atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, chlorofluorocarbons, and nitrous oxide that are driving climate change.

Two, it will save the school some money.

At Calvin, the environmental reason is primary. The budgetary help is a bonus.

“I think taking care of the planet is a prerequisite to being a Christian,” Tim Fennema, vice president for administration and finance, told CT. “And as a Christian university, it’s something we want to do.”

Calvin is on a mission to be carbon neutral by 2057. The school got a little closer last month when it announced a partnership with the Indiana-based Sun FundED to come up with a plan to install solar arrays on university buildings, offsetting the high-carbon energy sources Calvin currently uses to heat, cool, and power the campus.

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More evangelical colleges and universities are trying to reduce carbon emissions by moving away from fossil fuels https://t.co/YaE3A0X5uh

— Daniel Silliman (@danielsilliman) August 3, 2022

Bishops travelled from Canterbury to London on Wednesday for the launch of a new environmental initiative, the Anglican Communion Forest.

A tree was planted in the garden of Lambeth Palace, in the first act of what, it is hoped, will become a global movement of reforestation and habitat renewal.

Bishops are being encouraged to launch initiatives in their dioceses which help to preserve and regenerate the ecosystem; this need not necessarily be tree-planting, the Bishop of Norwich, the Rt Revd Graham Usher, said, at a press conference on Wednesday morning, but could include restoring grasslands, or taking action to prevent the destruction of the rainforest.

The Archbishop of Canterbury said that there was “no doubt about the urgency, severity, and scale of the climate emergency”, and that it was “most especially an emergency for the world’s poorest and most vulnerable”.

“We are not just doing symbolic actions,” he insisted. He said that the structure of the Anglican Communion made it possible to “reach to the very heart, the very ground level of what is happening”.

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LATEST. Bishops travelled from Canterbury to London on Wednesday for the launch of a new environmental initiative, the Anglican Communion Foresthttps://t.co/4IX0XIypcN

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) August 3, 2022

A debate has been sparked after Spain’s government moved to prevent offices, shops and other venues from setting air conditioning below 27°C in the summer.

It is part of plans to cut the country’s energy consumption and limit dependency on Russian gas.

The decree, published on Tuesday morning, will also stop heating from being raised above 19°C during the winter.

The rules will be mandatory in all public and commercial buildings, including bars, cinemas, theatres, airports and train stations.

It is extended as a recommendation to Spanish households.

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A debate has been sparked after Spain's government moved to prevent offices, shops and other venues from setting air conditioning below 27°C in the summer.https://t.co/VVwziUL5kD

— euronews (@euronews) August 3, 2022

Leaders of African countries are likely to use the next UN climate summit in November to push for massive new investment in fossil fuels in Africa, according to documents seen by the Guardian.

New exploration for gas, and the exploitation of Africa’s vast reserves of oil, would make it close to impossible for the world to limit global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

However, soaring gas prices have made the prospect of African supplies even more attractive, and developed countries, including EU members, have indicated they would support such developments in the current gas shortage.

The Guardian has seen a technical document prepared by the African Union, comprising most of Africa’s states, for the “second extraordinary session of the specialised technical committee on transport, transcontinental and interregional infrastructure and energy committee”, a meeting of energy ministers that took place by video conference from 14 to 16 June.

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African nations expected to make case for big rise in fossil fuel output https://t.co/HI6sAU72I1

— The Guardian (@guardian) August 1, 2022

Kenya’s Wildlife and Tourism ministry says that climate change is now a bigger threat to elephant conservation than poaching.

Read and watch it all.

Climate change killing elephants, says Kenya https://t.co/ncUhsuRzxb

— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) July 28, 2022

The Democratic Republic of Congo, home to one of the largest old-growth rainforests on earth, is auctioning off vast amounts of land in a push to become “the new destination for oil investments,” part of a global shift as the world retreats on fighting climate change in a scramble for fossil fuels.

The oil and gas blocks, which will be auctioned in late July, extend into Virunga National Park, the world’s most important gorilla sanctuary, as well as tropical peatlands that store vast amounts of carbon, keeping it out of the atmosphere and from contributing to global warming.

“If oil exploitation takes place in these areas, we must expect a global climate catastrophe, and we will all just have to watch helplessly,” said Irene Wabiwa, who oversees the Congo Basin forest campaign for Greenpeace in Kinshasa.

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A term I learned reporting this story: climate colonialism.
Western countries that built their prosperity on fossil fuels that emit planet-warming fumes demanding Africa forgo reserves of oil/gas/coal to protect everyone else. w/@ruthmaclean https://t.co/7spghRsO85

— Dionne Searcey (@dionnesearcey) July 25, 2022

Sariah Masterson had big plans this summer for a camping vacation at Natural Bridges National Monument in Utah. But the five-hour road trip seemed like a budget-buster once the price of gasoline hit $5 a gallon last month. Masterson and her family opted for a backyard campout at their home in Provo instead.

“I used that money to buy a couple of extra cots and we camped in the back with our kids,” she says. “The youngest is two. He woke up in the middle of the night and then we all went back inside.”

The high price of gasoline and other goods is interrupting the dreams of a lot of Americans this summer.

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It’s summertime. But the cost of living is anything but easy. Record gas prices likely pushed inflation to a four decade high last month. – https://t.co/YesOyKSOaj

— scott horsley (@HorsleyScott) July 13, 2022

On an April day in 1905, the scientist J.S. Haldane descended hundreds of feet into a Cornish tin mine to find out if he could cook himself to death.

Amateur researchers had long known that humans have an extraordinary ability to withstand dry heat. One 18th century experimenter found he could tolerate temperatures up to 115 degrees Celsius (240 Fahrenheit), hot enough to cook steaks. But the moist, saturated air in the Dolcoath mine, dug through hot rock deep below the water table, seemed to change things. Though the temperature never climbed above 31.5C, Haldane’s body temperature and pulse rose with each minute, hitting feverish levels before he ascended after three hours. “It becomes impracticable for ordinary persons to stay for long periods” when the humid temperature rises above 31C, he wrote.

That finding hasn’t significantly changed over the years since — but our atmosphere has. As the climate warms, conditions once experienced only in saunas and deep mineshafts are rapidly becoming the open-air reality for hundreds of millions of people, who have no escape to air conditioning or cooler climes. After a few hours with humid heat above 35C — a measure known as the wet-bulb temperature — even healthy people with unlimited shade and water will die of heatstroke. For those carrying out physical labor, the threshold is closer to Haldane’s 31C, or even lower.

Brajabandhu Sahu knows the physical signs all too well. A street vendor selling foods like dosa, idli and uttapam on the corner of two busy roads in Bhubaneswar, the capital of the eastern Indian state of Odisha, he’s surrounded at times by what feels like a wall of fire from which he cannot escape. When the day is at its hottest, his head spins, his heart races, his skin blisters and the waves of nausea are constant. The moisture-laden winds that blow in from the Bay of Bengal put citizens in this region at particular risk.

Read it all.

Conditions once experienced only in saunas are rapidly becoming reality for millions.

After a few hours with humid heat above 35°C, a measure known as the wet-bulb temperature, healthy people with unlimited shade and water will die of heatstroke https://t.co/OY9awmDj5y

— Bloomberg Opinion (@opinion) July 8, 2022