News Roundup
‘Ricardo Galvão, the director of Brazil’s National Space and Research Institute (INPE), said he was terminated on Friday after defending satellite data that showed deforestation was 88% higher in June compared to a year ago.’
Source:Â Scientist who called out Bolsonaro on Amazon deforestation is fired | CNN
‘Extreme weather events, cuts to worker productivity and other effects of climate change could cause major global economic losses unless greenhouse gas emissions are significantly curtailed in the next few decades, according to a new working paper published Monday. The paper is the latest in a string of reports from the United Nations and global financial institutions and others showing that climate change constitutes a looming financial risk.’
‘…Twenty-four U.S. cities and counties have instituted climate emergencies in less than two years, including in New York City and Santa Cruz, California. Some 900 jurisdictions across the world have also declared them. The swell coincides with a growing frustration in some places over a Trump administration climate agenda that is seen at best as inadequate and at worst as nonexistent.’
Source:Â The Making of an Emergency | US News & World Report
‘…The average global temperature last month was 1.71 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th-century average, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced Thursday. It follows the hottest June ever recorded, marking one of the hottest summers in recent history.’
Source:Â July was the hottest month ever recorded on Earth | CBS NEWS
‘The climate crisis is damaging the ability of the land to sustain humanity, with cascading risks becoming increasingly severe as global temperatures rise, according to a landmark UN report compiled by some of the world’s top scientists.’
Source:Â Climate crisis reducing land’s ability to sustain humanity, says IPCC | The Guardian
‘Efforts to curb greenhouse gas-emissions and the impacts of global warming will fall significantly short without drastic changes in global land use, agriculture and human diets, leading researchers warn in a high-level report commissioned by the United Nations.’
Source:Â Eat less meat: UN climate change report calls for change to human diet | Nature
‘Recent unseasonably warm temperatures, brought to Greenland by a heat wave that smashed records across Europe a week before, have accelerated the melting of the ice sheet that covers 82 percent of the country, releasing water at record rates. On Thursday alone, an estimated 12.5 billion tons of meltwater flowed into the ocean, which would be the highest single-day total since 1950, according to Ted Scambos, a senior researcher at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, quoted in The Washington Post. Snow and ice melt every summer in Greenland, and this heat wave was an anomalous event, but climatologists warn that overall warming trends intensify such events, and make them more likely in years to come. The Associated Press cites a June 2019 study that concluded “melting ice in Greenland alone will add between 5 and 33 centimeters (2 to 13 inches) to rising global sea levels by the year 2100.‒
‘(TOKYO) — Hiroshima marked the 74rd anniversary of the atomic bombing of the city with its mayor renewing calls for eliminating such weapons and demanding Japan’s government do more.’
Source:Â Hiroshima Marks the 74th Anniversary of the Atomic Bombing | Time
‘When some of the world’s top scientists conclude an international summit in Geneva next week, they are expected to call for a major shift to vegetarian diets around the world in order to keep the warming of the globe under 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.’
‘The massive heat dome that shattered all-time temperature records across much of Europe last week has settled in over Greenland, driving temperatures across the vast region to as much as 30 degrees Fahrenheit above normal. In July, Greenland’s ice sheet lost 197 billion tons of ice, the equivalent of around 80 million Olympic swimming pools. This comes as the World Meteorological Organization said Thursday that July was the warmest month in recorded human history. It followed the hottest June on record, as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels climbed to a record high of 415 parts per million earlier this year.’