Category: Environment

Take a look at some of the lakes in California that have been swallowed up by the ‘megadrought,’ hitting record low levels

Take a look at some of the lakes in California that have been swallowed up by the ‘megadrought,’ hitting record low levels

Grace Kay                        
California drought
Associated Press
  • California has been hit by a “megadrought” that has dried up key reservoirs in the state.
  • Entire lakes have shrunk exponentially, leaving yachts and docks beached on dry land.
  • Nearly 95% of the state is experiencing “severe drought” and is susceptible to wild fires.

California is experiencing its worst drought in over four years and climate change experts warn it could just be the tip of the (melting) iceberg.

On Monday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a report that found global temperatures will continue to increase by at least 1.5 degrees Celsius between now and 2040. For every half-degree of warming, the frequency and intensity of heat waves and droughts also increases.

California has already seen a significant impact from climate change, which has pushed temperatures an average of about 2 degrees hotter to date – drying out soil and melting Sierra snow rivers, which causes less water to soak into the ground, as well as flow through rivers and reservoirs.

A man walks through the dried-up bed of a reservoir in Sanyuan county, Shaanxi province July 30, 2014. REUTERS/Stringer
A man walks through the dried-up bed of a reservoir in Sanyuan Thomson Reuters

 

Over 37 million people have already been impacted by the “megadrought” and nearly 95% of the state has been classified as experiencing “severe drought,” which has put the land in significant danger of wildfires, according to the National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS).

Last year, California land was consumed by over 8,200 wildfires – a number double the state’s previous record. This year, scorching weather has made the state even more susceptible to breakout wildfires than in 2020. Last week, a California town was consumed in only 30 minutes by the Dixie wildfire, which has become the state’s largest wildfire in recorded history.

dixie fire greenville
Homes and cars destroyed by the Dixie Fire line central Greenville in Plumas County, California. Noah Berger/AP Photo

 

In June, Jay Lund, co-director of the Center for Watershed Sciences at UC-Davis told the Associated Press the water levels of California’s over 1,500 reservoirs were 50% lower than they should be at that time of year.

In April, scorching weather turned the San Gabriel Reservoir lake bed to dust. The reservoir is not expected to see rain fall until the end of the year.

The drought turned the San Gabriel reservoir lake bed to dust
The drought turned the San Gabriel reservoir lake bed to dust Getty

In June, the drought dried up a lake so much that it potentially exposed a decades old mystery, allowing officials to find a plane that had crashed in 1965.

A composite image showing Folsom Lake, California, at drought levels in 2017, and a sonar image of a plane underwater there.
Folsom Lake, California, under drought conditions in 2017 (L), and the sonar image of a plane there taken by Seafloor Systems (R) Robert Galbraith/Reuters/CBS13

 

On Monday, California shut down a major hydroelectric power plant at Lake Oroville for the first time since the plant went into operation in 1967 when the major reservoir hit 25% capacity – its lowest level on record. The decision puts extra strain on the electrical grid during the hottest part of the summer.

In June, about 130 houseboats had to be hauled out of the lake as its water levels hit 38% capacity. Water elevations at Lake Oroville are forecast to reach as low as 620 feet above sea level by the end of October, according to the California Department of Water Resources.

House boats pulled out of Lake Orovill
Getty

It’s going to be a rough summer for boat owners in the state.

Pictures from the Associated Press show massive lakes have run dry, leaving boats and docks completely beached

Boats at Fulsom Lake
Associated Press

Experts say the drought could devastate local wildlife populations, as well as California’s tourism industry.

California drought
Associated Press

In April, Governor Gavin Newsom held a press conference in the dried up waterbed of Lake Mendocino. Where he stood there should have been about 40 feet of water.

“This is without precedent,” Newsom said. “Oftentimes we overstate the word historic, but this is indeed an historic moment.”

California drought
Associated Press

The California Department of Water Resources reduced farmers and growers to 5% of their expected water allocation in March. Last week, the State Water Resources Control Board voted to further restrict the amount of water that farmers can draw from rivers and reservoirs – cutting it altogether for some farmers.

When the authorities cut off water supplies, farmers find themselves forced to rely on wells, dug deep into the ground at costs of thousands of dollars. Many farmers say they have been forced to leave their fields mostly barren as even their wells have begun to dry up.

CA drought
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Heffernan: Biden’s ‘build back better’ just beat Trump all over again

Heffernan: Biden’s ‘build back better’ just beat Trump all over again

Virginia Heffernan                           
  • WASHINGTON, DC - AUGUST 10: President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the Senate approving H.R. 3684 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, in the East Room of the White House on Tuesday, Aug. 10, 2021 in Washington, DC. The Senate has approved a $1 trillion bill to rebuild aging roads and bridges, with $8.1 billion targeted to projects in the West. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)President Biden said Senate approval of his infrastructure bill “proved that democracy can still work.” (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)

It’s hard to find an element of daily life that doesn’t lend itself to politicization. There are the obvious ones: media, guns, lattes. But there’s more. Convertibles are evidently a Republican ride. Vegetables, in general, are Democratic.

But infrastructure knows no party. What ideology favors a broken bridge over one in good repair?

This is why Donald Trump ran on infrastructure in 2016, promising to invest $1 trillion and revive manufacturing jobs in the Rust Belt. It was also why his staff tried mightily to steer him toward the crowd-pleaser of “infrastructure week” whenever his antics turned too unstructured and too crowd-displeasing.

All to no avail for the former president. Nothing panned out.

During Trump’s term, federal investment in roads and bridges stagnated. Roads, ports and airports never got fixed. Any hope that Trump’s autocratic proclivities could be channeled into mega-projects to astonish his base fizzled. He couldn’t even add more than 80 miles to his promised big, beautiful wall.

At the same time, national consensus about the urgency of an infrastructure upgrade has never wavered.

Finally, in November, 28% of white working-class men — the very demographic that put infrastructure high on their priority list — voted Democratic, up from 23% in 2020. These voters helped deliver Biden’s key victories in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

So far, President Biden hasn’t forgotten them. And no one in any state has forgotten the stomach-sinking truths about America’s infrastructure.

Forty-three percent of public roadways are in poor or mediocre condition. A water main breaks every two minutes. More than one-third of public schools use portable buildings, including trailers, because the regular buildings are too crowded.

An AP/NORC poll in July showed that 59% of Americans, of both parties, supported the infrastructure bill’s key aspects.

All of this may be why Biden has been able to get more harmony on this part of his “Build Back Better” agenda than Washington has seen in a long, long time. On Tuesday, the Senate passed the 2,700-page Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, 69 to 30, with 19 Senate Republicans voting in favor of it, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

“The president deserves a lot of credit,” said McConnell of the bipartisan miracle. “If you’re going to find an area of potential agreement, I can’t think of a better one than infrastructure, which is desperately needed.”

The bill still must pass the House, which will no doubt ask for changes, before it’s signed into law. But this is big. And it’s sure to be galling to ex-President Trump, whose party decisively defied his command to vote against the bill and bust Biden’s agenda.

In addition to McConnell, other Republicans in the party leadership — South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and Iowa Sen. Charles E. Grassley — voted for the bill. Evidently, the Monarch of Mar-a-Lago holds less sway over the party than he once did.

And the bill, which its proponents say requires no tax hike and is mostly paid for with unspent coronavirus relief money, is a thing of beauty.

According to Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, it could create some 660,000 jobs by 2025, partly because it includes funding for job training and provisions for more women to get into construction and trucking.

In the bill’s current form, the big money goes to marquee items, especially roads and bridges. Appalachian and Alaskan highways will get a special boost, evidence (perhaps) of the contributions to the bill by Sens. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).

But the package also funds Puerto Rico’s highways, projects to relieve congestion in cities, and academic research on transportation.

Railroads will also get substantial federal investment, especially Biden’s beloved Northeast Corridor, the well-worn route from Boston to D.C. Among other things, the bill provides for more refreshments on Amtrak routes.

(If that refreshment clause makes it all the way into law, I’m lobbying for this earmark: more delicious Wee Brie, which used to class up Amtrak’s plastic-wrapped cheese plates.)

There’s funding to fortify the power grid against hacks and attacks, help protect communities against drought, flooding, wildfire and poisonous lead water pipes. Electric vehicle charging stations and electric school buses will — if this thing passes intact — proliferate.

Yes, some of this is “green” and some of this is “blue-collar,” and those color concepts can always trip partisan wires. But the explosion didn’t happen this time; it got muffled by days, weeks and months of what various media called “grueling,” “painstaking,” “fierce” debate and compromise.

And of course one person styled it as test of loyalty — to himself.

“This [bill] will be a victory for the Biden Administration and Democrats, and will be heavily used in the 2022 election,” Trump shouted two weeks ago. “It is a loser for the USA, a terrible deal, and makes the Republicans look weak, foolish, and dumb.”

He threatened any in his party who might support the bill, saying “lots of primaries will be coming your way!” But this time, 19 shrugged.

As for the Democrats, the progressive wing has its own objections to the bill and its compromises, but no one defected on Tuesday in the Senate.

It seems that one of the ways to repair political bridges is to repair literal bridges.

Criminal Justice Prof Set Blazes Across NorCal as Dixie Fire Raged: Cops

Criminal Justice Prof Set Blazes Across NorCal as Dixie Fire Raged: Cops

Blake Montgomery                          
Sonoma State University/Getty
Sonoma State University/Getty

 

A criminal justice professor allegedly went on an arson spree in Northern California along the edges of the gargantuan Dixie Fire in late July.

Gary Maynard, age 47, set a series of fires in Lassen National Forest and Shasta Trinity National Forest, an area in rural Northern California near where the Dixie Fire, the second-largest in state history, still burns, federal prosecutors allege. California Forestry Department agents arrested him Saturday. He is charged with intentionally setting fire to public land and is being held without bail in the Sacramento County Main Jail.

“There are simply no conditions that could be fashioned that could ensure the safety of the public with respect to this defendant,” a federal prosecutor told the presiding judge Tuesday, according to the Sacramento Bee.

Police described Maynard’s temperament as highly flammable.

He has denied the allegations against him. According to court filings, he screamed at police in the Lassen County Jail, “I’m going to kill you, f—king pig! I told those f—kers I didn’t start any of those fires!”

Maynard appears to have taught at Sonoma State and Santa Clara Universities, according to faculty pages at both colleges, which list a Dr. Gary Maynard as a lecturer in criminology. His research covers “criminal justice, social science research methods, cults and deviant behavior.” Maynard’s Sonoma State faculty page describes him as having three master’s degrees and a Ph.D. in sociology.

A spokesperson for Sonoma State told the Bee was a part-time lecturer in the Criminal Justice Department filling in for a faculty member on leave.

“He was employed with Sonoma State University in Fall 2020, but did not have an appointment for Spring 2021. He taught two seminars in Criminology and Criminal Justice Studies in Fall 2020,” she said.

Forest Service agents began looking into him on July 20, when an agent discovered him on Mount Shasta beneath his Kia Soul, the wheels of which were stuck in a ditch. The investigator had come to the area after mountain bikers reported a burgeoning fire. When the agent asked Maynard to come out from under the car and identify himself, the professor refused, only murmuring words the agent could not hear.

The agent eventually coaxed Maynard out from under the car and asked him about the fire, to which the professor said he did not know anything about any fires. Maynard asked for assistance towing his vehicle, and when the agent said he could not help, Maynard became “uncooperative and agitated” and crawled back underneath. A witness said they later saw Maynard brandishing a large knife.

Forest Service investigators said they found tracks similar to Maynard’s Kia near a fire that began overnight at a different location on Mount Shasta.

In the course of their investigation of Maynard, Forest Service investigators placed a tracker on the Kia. The tracker allegedly showed them that the academic traveled to the areas within Lassen National Forest where both the Ranch and Conard fires sparked Saturday night. Forest Service agents arrested Maynard later that day.

Court filings describe the professor’s behavior in blunt terms: “It appeared that Maynard was in the midst of an arson-setting spree.”

Maynard even allegedly attempted to trap firefighters between the fires he was setting and the boundaries of the Dixie Fire.

“He entered the evacuation zone and began setting fires behind the first responders fighting the Dixie Fire,” court filings read. “In addition to the danger of enlarging the Dixie fire and threatening more lives and property, this increased the danger to the first responders.”

Severe drought devastates Washington state’s wheat crop

Severe drought devastates Washington state’s wheat crop

Nicholas K. Geranios                   

 

“This is definitely the worst crop year we have had since we started farming 35 years ago,” said Green, whose family is the sixth generation on the same farming land just south of the city of Spokane.

She estimated her farm’s wheat crop this year at half of normal, and of poor quality.

Green grows soft white winter wheat, a variety that is prized in Asian countries because it is excellent for making pastries, cakes, cookies and noodles.

At least Green will have some wheat to sell. Some Washington wheat farms produced almost none because of the drought.

“We’re seeing complete crop failure in some areas,” said Michelle Hennings, executive director of the Washington Association of Wheat Growers in the small community of Ritzville, in the heart of the state’s wheat growing region.

Only about 10 percent of Washington’s wheat crop comes from farms with irrigation. The rest of the farms rely on rain, which has been rare in what is shaping up as one of the hottest summers in the state’s history.

The current estimate for the crop is 117 million bushels, down from last year’s 165 million, and there is a good chance the crop will be smaller than 117 million, said Glen Squires, director of the Washington Grain Commission, which represents farmers. A bushel is about 60 pounds (27 kilograms).

Oregon and Idaho also produce soft white winter wheat, and their crops have also been hurt by drought, Squires said.

The National Weather Service in Spokane said the state’s wheat region has received only about half its normal rain this year, and that the zone is in what the agency calls an “exceptional drought,” the worst category.

“The lack of significant spring and early summer precipitation has led to record dryness across much of the Inland Northwest,” the agency said. “The record breaking heat wave in late June made conditions even worse as multiple stations recorded their hottest temperature on record.”

About 90% of Washington’s soft white winter wheat is exported from Portland, Oregon, to countries like the Philippines, South Korea, China and Japan, Squires said.

The wheat is fetching about $9 a bushel, which is higher than last year, but that is only for farmers who have wheat to sell, Squires said.

Washington has about 3,500 wheat farmers, who last year exported $663 million worth of wheat. With yields expected at 40% to 60% of normal, revenue will drop significantly, Squires said.

Many of the state’s farmers have crop insurance that covers up to 80% of losses, but some do not, Squires said.

Officials believe it’s inevitable that some wheat farmers will be bankrupted by the drought because “there is always a thinning” of them following severe droughts, Squires said.

Green’s farm has crop insurance which will help pay bills so the operation can survive another year, she said.

“Years like this are the reason we have crop insurance,” Green said. “But usually if you get crop insurance, you are not getting any profits.”

The state’s wheat farmers face another problem: Next year’s crop must be planted in September, but there is no moisture in the ground to help the seeds take hold.

“We need a lot of rain,” Squires said. “But nothing says a change in the weather is coming.”

After the 1977 drought, scientists started creating wheat varieties that survived better with little water, Squires said.

But farmers using those varieties will still likely have to wait beyond the September planting season to sow their seeds to plant if the region doesn’t get a good soaking soon. And delaying planting might mean that the wheat grows too short in the fall to survive the winter.

During the winter and amid the region’s snowfall, the planted wheat stops growing and goes into a kind of hibernation. If the wheat isn’t tall or fully developed enough, it can result in a phenomenon called winter kill, Squires said.

He said there is only one solution: “We need moisture.”

Sicily may have set Europe’s all-time heat record as temperatures climb to nearly 120 degrees

Sicily may have set Europe’s all-time heat record as temperatures climb to nearly 120 degrees

Andrew Freedman                          

 

A weather station in Sicily may have set an all-time high temperature record for all of Europe on Wednesday, when the temperature climbed to a scorching 48.8°C (119.8°F) amid a regional heat wave that has shown few signs of relenting.

The big picture: The intense heat wave continues to roast the Mediterranean and northern Africa. The hot and dry weather has played a large role in creating the conditions conducive for explosive and devastating wildfires in Turkey and Greece.

Details: Numerous monthly and national temperature records have fallen during the heat wave, including in Greece, Turkey and Tunisia, but if verified through an examination of the weather instruments, the Sicily observation would be the most noteworthy. The previous continental heat record was 48°C (118.4°F), set in Greece in 1977.

  • For the record to be considered, a committee from the World Meteorological Organization would need to investigate the instrumentation and circumstances of the data, including whether similar temperatures were observed nearby.

Context: As detailed in the IPCC climate report released Monday, human emissions of greenhouse gases are dramatically escalating the risk and severity of extreme heat events across the globe.

  • This summer has featured unprecedented heat in the Pacific Northwest of the U.S., as well as in Europe. In the U.S. on Wednesday, about 170 million are under heat advisories or excessive heat warnings from the Northwest to East Coast.

The intrigue: There are some questions about the validity of the temperature reading, however. Randy Cerveny, the World Meteorological Organization’s rapporteur for weather records, told the Associated Press the reading is “suspicious, so we’re not going to make any immediate determination.”

“It doesn’t sound terribly plausible,” Cerveny said. “But we’re not going to dismiss it.”

What’s next: The hottest temperatures associated with this particular heat dome are expected to shift to Spain and Portugal in coming days, raising wildfire concerns in both nations.

In photos: 7 countries where wildfires are raging right now

In photos: 7 countries where wildfires are raging right now

Ivana Saric                            

Wildfires raging around the world this week have forced thousands of people to evacuate as flames raze homes and burn across hundreds of thousands of acres of land.

Why it matters: Record heat waves propelled by human-caused climate change have triggered many of the fires burning across the U.S. West, Canada, Russia, Greece, Turkey, Algeria and Italy. A new climate report from the UN’s IPCC concludes that human influence on the climate system “is now an established fact.”

Greece

A volunteers holds a water hose near a burning blaze as he tries to extinguish a fire in the village of Glatsona on Evia (Euboea) island, on Aug. 9. The IPCC report concluded human activities are making extreme weather and climate events more common and severe — including droughts, heat waves, and wildfires. Photo: Angelos Tzortzinis/AFP via Getty Images

What’s happening: Dozens of wildfires broke out in Greece last week after the country suffered its worst heat wave in decades.

  • Firefighters are facing extremely dry conditions. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis called the situation a “nightmarish summer.”
U.S. West

A home and garage destroyed by the Dixie Fire sits on the roadside on Aug. 9 near Greenville, California. Photo: Maranie R. Staab/Getty Images

What’s happening: 108 large fires or complexes are burning in 15 U.S. western states. Many of these states are in a climate-related drought.

  • The largest burning in the U.S. is California’s Dixie Fire — the second-biggest wildfire in the state’s history. Thousands of residents have been evacuated as the blaze has razed nearly 500,000 acres.
Algeria

A house burns during a wildfire in Tizi Ouzou, one of the most populous cities in Algeria’s Kabylie region, on Aug. 10. Photo: Ryad Kramdi/AFP via Getty Images

What’s happening: Wildfires in Algeria’s north have killed 42 people, including 25 soldiers who helped evacuate residents.

  • Dozens of fires broke out in the remote Kabyle region and elsewhere on Monday.
Russia

Extinguishing works continue for the wildfire in the village of Kuel in Yakutia, Sakha, Russia on Aug. 8. Photo: Ivan Nikiforov/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

What’s happening: Intense wildfires burning across Siberia’s Sakha Republic have been active for months.

Canada

Wildfire smoke shrouds Vancouver, Canada, Aug. 1. Photo: Liang Sen/Xinhua via Getty Images

What’s happening: Firefighters have been battling dozens of massive wildfires in British Columbia since early last month following a deadly heat wave.

  • The Canadian province surpassed its 10-year wildfire average by 87% as thousands remained under evacuation notices on Tuesday, CBC notes.
Turkey

Burned facilities after a wildfire raged in Milas, Mugla province, Turkey, on Aug. 9. Photo: Xinhua via Getty Images

What’s happening: More than 100 blazes broke out in Turkey at the start of the month, forcing thousands of people to evacuate.

  • At least eight people have died as the fires ripped through tourist resorts this weel, per the BBC.
Italy

A wildfire in Sicily’s Etna regional park has triggered a large deployment of both ground and air forces to combat the blaze that’s fueled by the wind on Aug. 5. Photo: Salvatore Allegra/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

What’s happening: Wildfires have been raging across southern Italy since last month, with many regions under evacuation orders.

  • The islands of Sicily and Sardinia have been among the hardest hit.

Nearly 200 million in U.S. under heat advisories, warnings as two heat domes form

Nearly 200 million in U.S. under heat advisories, warnings as two heat domes form

Andrew Freedman                          

 

Nearly 200 million Americans are under heat advisories or excessive heat warnings as dual “heat domes” affect the Pacific Northwest, Central states and East Coast.

 

Why it matters: Extreme heat can kill, and it can also greatly aggravate wildfire conditions, making it even harder for thousands of firefighters to contain California’s Dixie Fire, the state’s second-largest on record.

  • Although it is summer, it’s unusual to see so much of the Lower 48 states experiencing extreme heat simultaneously.

The big picture: An area of upper level high pressure, also known as a heat dome, is parked over the Pacific Northwest, just off the coast of Washington State. The air circulation around this high is bringing winds off land areas land areas in British Columbia, rather than the typical cooling ocean breezes that this region is more known for.

  • The Northwest is a region that has already seen a record-shattering heat wave that set all-time temperature milestones in late June into early July.
  • High temperatures in Portland, Ore., are forecast to reach 98°F Wednesday, and 100°F on Thursday and Friday before cooling down for the weekend. The typical high temperature in Portland at this time of year is 83°F.
  • Red flag warnings are up for wildfire zones in northern California and parts of Oregon, and excessive heat warnings stretch from extreme northern California into Washington State. A state of emergency due to the heat wave is in effect in Oregon.
  • The heat is also worsening fire conditions in British Columbia, where blazes started during the June heat wave.
  • Heat advisories also extend from Michigan to Texas, with high humidity making for especially dangerous conditions near the urban heat islands of Kansas City and St. Louis.

Threat level: Heat advisories also stretch from North Carolina to Maine, which are under the influence of a “Bermuda High,” so named for its tendency to be located near Bermuda or between Bermuda and the East Coast at this time of year.

  • Currently, the high pressure area is located over the Southeastern U.S. and the southwesterly flow of air up the East Coast is bringing the heat and humidity.
  • Excessive heat warnings, which are a more severe type of alert, are in effect for New York City and Philadelphia, where heat indices will reach or even exceed 105°F on Wednesday and Thursday, with the hottest conditions expected Thursday.
  • “Extreme heat and humidity will significantly increase the potential for heat related illnesses, particularly for those working or participating in outdoor activities,” the National Weather Service said.
  • Washington, D.C. could hit 100°F on Thursday, with a heat index higher than that.

Context: Climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels for energy is causing a significant rise in the intensity and probability of extreme heat events, a landmark U.N. sponsored scientific panel in a report released Monday concluded.

  • It warned of even more “unprecedented” heat events, like the one in the Pacific Northwest in June, to come as global warming continues.

What’s next: The heat in the Pacific Northwest should abate during the next several days, while conditions gradually moderate in the East as well. However, an overall pattern of above average temperatures in the West, in particular, is likely going to continue, in large part due to the severe drought in place in the region.

From the looks of things, willful ignorance is going to be the death of us | Opinion

From the looks of things, willful ignorance is going to be the death of us | Opinion

Leonard Pitts Jr.                           

 

Dr. King didn’t know the half of it.

Those words, after all, are from 1963. Back then, the idea of U.S. citizens and lawmakers attacking their own democracy would have been unthinkable, flouting precautions in a deadly pandemic unimaginable, ignoring a threat to our very planet inconceivable. Of course, back then, information came through a few reliable conduits: Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, the local paper.

There was no social media. The production and distribution of information had not yet become the province of any and everybody.

Things have changed. The unthinkable, the unimaginable and the inconceivable are hard upon us. We face not one, but three simultaneous existential emergencies, and while each is distinct, it’s time we understood that, ultimately, they are not different threats at all, but rather different manifestations of the same threat. Meaning that the insurrection crisis, the COVID crisis and the climate-change crisis are really, at bottom, just facets of a misinformation crisis.

If you consider how belief in risibly false information ginned up by social media — e.g., Donald Trump won, vaccines magnetize skin, cold snaps disprove global warming — has impeded if not paralyzed our response to these and other issues, the truth of it becomes evident. Cronkite, Huntley and Brinkley are long dead, the local paper just a shadow of itself. Social media purport to fill the void and as a direct result, misinformation has reached critical levels.

It’s not that no one saw this coming. Warnings go back at least two decades, including in this very space. But the threat seemed so theoretical. Who knew that it would have such real and profound effects? Who knew it would cleave this country — this planet — like an axe, splitting the informed off so decisively from the proudly misinformed, the adherents to crackpot theories and screwball beliefs that would have been laughed off the public stage in 1963 but that, in 2021, find strength in numbers and validation online? And that now emerge as a clear and present danger.

Just this week, for instance, a United Nations panel issued a report warning that climate change has brought us to the point of catastrophe: “code red for humanity.” It’s a truth underscored by our own eyes, by the hundred-year events that now happen every year: devastating floods, blistering heat, raging fires, rampaging storms. The damage, we are told, is irreversible. We can only mitigate it.

You’d think such a dire prognosis would leave us united on the need for immediate action, but Fox “News” saw little to worry about, bringing on climate denier Marc Morano to assure viewers that the U.N. just wants to take their cars. “You’re being conned,” he said, “if you’re falling for this U.N. report.”

And so it goes.

The need to teach our children well — media literacy and critical thinking, in particular — has never felt more urgent. Indeed, it is not too much to call it a matter of survival. After all, the insurrection crisis threatens our country, the COVID crisis threatens our health and the climate crisis threatens the only planet we’ve got. But the misinformation crisis either caused or exacerbated them all. So the obvious epitaph if we do not survive these challenges would be ignominious, but fair:

Too stupid to live.

Chile’s record-breaking drought makes climate change ‘very easy’ to see

Chile’s record-breaking drought makes climate change ‘very easy’ to see

Esteban Medel                            

 

A cow is seen on a land that used to be filled with water, at the Aculeo Lagoon in Paine

 

SANTIAGO (Reuters) – A punishing, decade-long drought in Chile has gone from bad to worse due to a scorching July, a month which typically brings midwinter weather showering the capital Santiago in rain and snow.

But a lack of precipitation this year has left the towering and typically snowcapped Andes above the city mostly bare, reservoir levels low and farm fields parched. The scenes, government officials say, are clear evidence of global warming.

On Tuesday, a central Santiago weather station had recorded just 78 mm (3 inches) of rainfall so far this year compared to last year’s 180 mm and an average amount of 252 mm, according to Chile’s Meteorological Service.

Science Minister Andres Couve told Reuters on Tuesday that the steady decline in water reserves due to climate change was now a “national priority.”

He added the government was addressing the crisis by investing in water conservation and storage, creating a post for a subsecretary of water and establishing a scientist working group on water management, as well as a climate change observatory.

“We already have overwhelming evidence and it is climatic evidence,” he said. “We are seeing a very significant decrease in rainfall and that is generating water shortages.”

On Monday, United Nations climate scientists warned that extreme heat waves, which not long ago struck once every 50 years, are now to be expected once per decade.

Droughts and downpours are also becoming more frequent, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report said, and humans are “unequivocally” to blame through greenhouse gas emissions.

Couve said Chile, a long thin nation with the world’s driest deserts at its north, glaciers, forests and wetlands throughout and the Antarctic at its south, had bountiful proof of climate change in action.

“The scientific evidence is there but also the weather events are happening with a frequency and intensity that makes it very easy for people to see,” he said.

‘DAY ZERO’

Some scientists and politicians in Chile are warning of growing, and potentially irreversible, water shortages in the central region whose Mediterranean climate has made it home to vineyards and farms, as well as a third of its population in Santiago, the country’s economic engine.

Two rivers that provide Santiago with water – the Mapocho and the Maipo – are drier than they were in 2019, the driest year in Chile’s history, Public Works Minister Alfredo Moreno said, prompting regulators to clamp down on water use and seek alternative sources.

Chile’s utilities companies have invested heavily in new infrastructure to avoid the arrival of “Day Zero,” – the day the taps run dry, a threat which prompted major water restrictions in Cape Town, South Africa, and Chennai, India, in recent years.

That day however “arrived almost a decade ago for nearly 400 thousand people who inhabit rural areas of Chile and today receive water in tanker trucks,” said Raul Cordero, University of Santiago climatologist and leader of its Antarctic Investigation Group.

Cordero said the situation faced by rural communities in central Chile is likely to spread and worsen over time.

“It is unlikely the precipitation we once had in the central region in the 1980s and 1990s (will) return, or that we recover that climate,” he said.

Chile must build more reservoirs and desalination plants, which are increasingly relied on by its critical mining sector, he added.

“Our only advantage is we now know how climate change will hit us hardest, so we know what we need to do to face the consequences,” he said.

(Reporting by Reuters TV, writing by Dave Sherwood and Aislinn Laing; Editing by Aurora Ellis)

Africa’s first digital map of its land reveals a surprising fact about its trees

Quartz – Africa

Nice Surprise: Africa’s first digital map of its land reveals a surprising fact about its trees

By Seth Onyango,  Bird contributor                     August 10, 2021

 

Gabon's tropical rainforest is pictured. Payments to Gabon to preserve its rain forests raise interesting debates about replicability and scalability of such initiatives.
New FAO digital land use study reveals that in Africa there are about 7 billion trees not counting major woodlands like the Congo rainforest.
From Our Obsession – The climate economy. Every industry can be part of the solution — or part of the ongoing problem.

 

As Africa registered a significant first, becoming the first continent in the world to complete its digital land-use data, new revelations emerged about its trees outside of key forests in Africa. There are more trees in Africa than initially thought, with the latest study showing there are about 7 billion trees on the continent, not counting the continent’s major woodlands like the Congo rainforest. This is according to a recent study by the Food and Agriculture Organisation.

The open data initiative that covered the period between 2018 and 2020, disclosed more forests and arable lands than were previously detected.

FAO said the findings reveal huge opportunities for the management of the environment, agriculture, and land use in Africa, and increase countries’ ability to track changes and conduct analyses for informed sustainable production, restoration interventions, and climate action.

Consequently, countries can detect where deforestation is happening, where settlement land is encroaching on cropland or grassland and where the wetland is being lost.

Africa is the first continent to complete a digital land use study of this type

The African Union Commission (AUC) revealed that the continent is the first to complete the collection of accurate, comprehensive, and harmonized digital land use and land-use change data under the Africa Open DEAL initiative. DEAL stands for Data for the Environment, Agriculture, and Land Initiative.

“Africa Open DEAL initiative has made Africa the first continent to complete the collection of accurate, comprehensive, and harmonized digital land use and land-use change data,” FAO and the AUC said at the virtual launch of the initiative July 13, 2021.

The collection of digital land-use data is crucial in agricultural policymaking.

“This collaboration has…assured that we can still turn the tide, that we can still restore degraded land for agricultural use, through models such as agroforestry, that we can still halt desertification, that we can still fight climate change, and above all that we can still restore hope for humanity despite the odds,” said Josefa Sacko, the African Union Commissioner for Agriculture, Rural Development, Blue Economy, and Sustainable Environment.

Moreover, land-cover data is used as basic information for sustainable management of natural resources; it is increasingly needed for the assessment of impacts of economic development on the environment.

According to Down To Earth, Collect Earth, free and open-source software developed by FAO, was used to collect data through Google Earth.

It is part of the set of tools called Open Foris and was developed in 2017 in collaboration with Google Earth, Bing Maps, and Google Earth Engine.

The data was analyzed to highlight land-use change over the past two decades and the potential for restoration at the national level for every country in the African continent.

“This initiative showed that science and innovation could provide real solutions and that collaboration and pooling experience led to the best results,” Qu Dongyu, FAO director-general, said in his statement.

The initiative further revealed that 350 million hectares of cropland are cultivated in Africa. This is a 25% jump over the cropland in the continent. FAO estimates show, in 2018, 279 million hectares of cropland were cultivated in the continent.

This story was republished with the permission of bird, a story agency under Africa No Filter.