Category: Environment

What did Earth look like 3.2 billion years ago? New evidence suggests the planet was covered by a vast ocean and had no continents at all. Continents appeared later, as plate tectonics thrust enormous, rocky land masses upward to breach the sea surfaces, scientists recently reported.

They found clues about this ancient waterworld preserved in a chunk of ancient seafloor, now located in the outback of northwestern Australia.

Around 4.5 billion years ago, high-speed collisions between dust and space rocks formed the beginnings of our planet: a bubbling, molten sphere of magma that was thousands of miles deep. Earth cooled as it spun; eventually, after 1,000 to 1 million years, the cooling magma formed the first mineral crystals in Earth’s crust.

Meanwhile, Earth’s first water may have been carried here by ice-rich comets from outside our solar system, or it may have arrived in dust from the cloud of particles that birthed the sun and its orbiting planets, around the time of Earth’s formation.

When Earth was a hot magma ocean, water vapor and gasses escaped into the atmosphere. “It then rained out from the atmosphere as conditions got cool enough,” said lead study author Benjamin Johnson, an assistant professor in the Department of Geological and Atmospheric Sciences at Iowa State University.

“We can’t really say what the source of the water is from our work, but we do suggest that whatever the source, it was present when the magma ocean was still around,” Johnson told Live Science in an email.

In the new study, Johnson and co-author Boswell Wing, an associate professor of geological sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder, turned to Panorama’s unique landscape in the Australian outback. Its rocky scenery preserves a hydrothermal system dating to 3.2 billion years ago, “and records the entire ocean crust from the surface down to the heat engine that drove circulation,” Johnson said.

Preserved in that craggy seafloor were different versions, or isotopes, of oxygen; over time, the relationship between these isotopes can help scientists decode shifts in ancient ocean temperature and global climate.

However, the scientists uncovered something unexpected through their analysis of more than 100 sediment samples. They found that 3.2 billion years ago, oceans held more oxygen-18 than oxygen-16 (the latter is more common in the modern ocean). Their computer models showed that on a global scale, continental land masses leach oxygen-18 from the oceans. In the absence of continents, the oceans would carry more oxygen-18. And the ratio between these two oxygen isotopes hinted that at the time, there were no continents at all, the study found.

“This value is different than the modern ocean in a way that can be explained most easily by a lack of emergent continental crust,” Johnson said in the email.

Other researchers have previously proposed the idea that Earth was once ocean covered, Johnson said. However, there’s less agreement about how much of that crust was visible above sea level. This new discovery “provides actual geochemical constraints on the presence of land above sea level,” he explained.

The prospect of an ancient waterworld Earth also offers a new perspective on another intriguing question: where the planet’s earliest forms of life appeared and how they evolved, the researchers wrote in the study.

“There are two major camps for the origin of life: hydrothermal vents and ponds on land,” Johnson said. “If our work is accurate, it means the number of environments on land for life to emerge and evolve was really small or absent until sometime after 3.2 billion years ago.”

The findings were published online today (March 2) in the journal Nature Geoscience.

Editor’s note: The headline of this article was updated on March 3 to correct the age of a continent-free Earth; while the evidence in this study dates to more than 3 billion years ago, Earth at that time was only 1.5 billion years old, not 3 billion years old.

A recent study covering 13 towns across four countries — India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan — in the Hindu Kush Himalayan region shows the Himalayan towns are facing increased water insecurity in the wake of inadequate urban planning coupled with a rapidly changing climate.

The study — the first-of-its-kind on the Hindu Kush Himalayan — shows that the interlinkages of water availability, water supply systems, rapid urbanization, and consequent increase in water demand (both daily and seasonal) are leading to increasing water insecurity in towns.

This water insecurity is attributed to poor water governance, lack of urban planning, poor tourism management during peak season, and climate-related risks and challenges.

The study, published in the journal ‘Water Policy’, also shows that communities are coping through short-term strategies such as groundwater extraction, which is proving to be unsustainable.

The authors are Anjal Prakash and David Molden.

While Prakash is the Research Director and Adjunct Associate Professor with the Bharti Institute of Public Policy of the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad, Molden is the Director General with the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), an intergovernmental organization based in Kathmandu in Nepal.

There is a lack of long-term strategies for water sustainability in urban centres, and this requires the special attention of planners and local governments, says the study.

Urbanization has pulled people from rural areas in the Hindu Kush Himalayan region into nearby urban centres.

Although only three per cent of the total Hindu Kush Himalayan population lives in larger cities and eight per cent in smaller towns, projections show that more than 50 per cent of the population will be living in cities by 2050.

This will naturally place tremendous stress on water availability.

The study shows that the water demand-supply gap in eight of the surveyed towns is 20 to 70 per cent.

There is a high dependence on springs (ranging between 50 and 100 per cent) for water supply in three-fourths of the urban areas.

Under current trends, the demand-supply gap may double by 2050. A holistic water management approach that includes springshed management and planned adaptation is, therefore, paramount for securing safe water supply in the urban Himalaya.

Along with springshed management, other options could be explored in the wake of rising water demand and use.

From the case studies of the Himalayan towns, it is evident that increasing urbanization and climate change are two critical stressors that are adversely affecting the biophysical environment of the urban Himalaya.

With development plans and policies focusing more on rural areas, issues surrounding urban environments have been sidelined.

Across the region, the encroachment and degradation of natural water bodies (springs, ponds, lakes, canals, and rivers) and the growing disappearance of traditional water systems (stone spouts, wells, and local water tanks) are evident, says the study.

The degradation and reclamation of water bodies affect wetland ecosystems and reduce retention capacities that prevent flooding.

Consequently, urban drainage and flood management systems are being impaired.

An iceberg about twice the size of the District of Columbia broke off Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica sometime between Saturday and Sunday, satellite data shows, confirming yet another in a series of increasingly frequent calving events in this rapidly warming region.

The Pine Island Glacier is one of the fastest-retreating glaciers in Antarctica, and along with the Thwaites Glacier nearby, it’s a subject of close scientific monitoring to determine whether these glaciers are in a phase of runaway melting, potentially freeing up vast inland areas of ice to flow to the sea and raising sea levels.

According to NASA, the region surrounding the Thwaites and Pine Island glaciers contains enough “highly vulnerable ice” to raise global sea levels by about four feet.

The new iceberg from Pine Island did not last long as a single chunk of ice, instead breaking off into smaller pieces that will gradually head out to sea. But this behavior is consistent with recent studies of this glacier. The calving event resulted from two cracks that were first spotted last year using satellites.

While this calving did not give rise to a record-large iceberg, as occurred with the Larsen C ice shelf in 2016, scientists are nonetheless concerned that such events are becoming increasingly common as the glacier flows into the sea via a floating ice shelf. If the shelf destabilizes sufficiently, the glacier — like Thwaites nearby — could begin a rapid and potentially unstoppable cycle of ice loss, since the land upon which the ice rests dips downward as one heads inland.

This could allow relatively mild ocean waters to penetrate well inland, melting more ice and speeding its movement into the sea.

According to the European Space Agency (ESA), Pine Island Glacier’s ice velocity has accelerated to exceed 33 feet per day. The faster movement of ice causes the ice shelf to stretch and crack, which can cause additional ice loss. In fact, more ice appears to have broken off the ice shelf during the Sunday through Monday time frame, according to satellite imagery. Large calving events used to take place at Pine Island Glacier every four to six years, but they’re now a nearly annual occurrence.

Calving events have occurred in 1992, 1995, 2001, 2007, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2017, 2018 and now in early 2020. The 2018 iceberg was larger than this one, at about the size of Chicago.

In addition, the large cracks in the ice shelf are forming in places that scientists hadn’t seen before, such as the middle of the ice shelf.

“There have been six previous calvings from the Pine Island Glacier since 2000, and the time intervals between them have been getting smaller,” said Adrian Luckman, a geographer at Swansea University who closely follows this glacier, via email.

“These events themselves are part of the normal behavior of large glaciers with floating sections, so, whilst spectacular, this event is not significant in its own right. However, we know that, like Thwaites, the glacier has been thinning, and its shear margins have been getting weaker, all as a result of warmer ocean waters eroding the ice,” Luckman said.

A project led by NGO Mahila Housing Sewa Trust to organise and empower women in low-income households to increase their resilience to impacts of climate change will get a UN award next month.

It is one of the 15 recipients of the 2019 United Nations Global Climate Action Awards that help shine a light on some of the most practical examples of what people across the globe are doing to combat climate change.

The award will be given at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP25), hosted by the Chilean government in Madrid in Spain, on December 10. The COP25 is being held from December 2-12.

The Mahila Housing Sewa Trust’s initiatives have so far helped 25,000 low-income families across seven cities in India, Bangladesh and Nepal.

The project is centred around an integrated model wherein women take the lead through collective action and technology incubation to devise locally relevant, pro poor, gender-sensitive and climate-resilient solutions.

For example, women were trained to be energy auditors who encourage households to switch to more efficient products, forming a women-led distribution network of green energy and building products.

Other solutions include using sprinkler taps to reduce the flow of water, harvesting rainwater, and other behavioural changes leading to more than 60 per cent of households reporting to have increase in water quantity and more than 32 per cent having sufficient water during summers.

Through projects like these, the Mahila Housing Sewa Trust is empowering women to take action against four major climate risks: heat waves, flooding and inundation, water scarcity, and water-vector-borne diseases, says the United Nations Climate Change.

It says the Mahila Housing Sewa Trust has helped organise 114 community action groups, which have reached out to 27,227 women in 107 slums.

Of the women they’ve worked with, 8,165 women were recorded to demonstrate an increase in “knowledge seeking behavior”.

Over 1,500 women have been trained as climate-saathis, who are responsible for communicating the issue of climate change with their community in their local language. Through this communications exercise, the proportion of participants who viewed climate change as an act of god reduced from 26 to nine per cent.

With world leaders gathering in Madrid next week for their annual bargaining session over how to avert a climate catastrophe, the latest assessment issued by the United Nations said Tuesday that greenhouse gas emissions are still rising dangerously.

“The summary findings are bleak,” said the annual assessment, which is produced by the United Nations Environment Program and is formally known as the Emissions Gap Report. Countries have failed to halt the rise of greenhouse gas emissions despite repeated warnings from scientists, with China and the United States, the two biggest polluters, further increasing their emissions last year. The result, the authors added, is that “deeper and faster cuts are now required.”

As if to underscore the gap between reality and diplomacy, the international climate negotiations, scheduled to begin next week, are not even designed to ramp up pledges by world leaders to cut their countries’ emissions. That deadline is still a year away.

Rather, this year’s meetings are intended to hammer out the last remaining rules on how to implement the 2015 Paris climate accord, in which every country pledged to rein in greenhouse gases, with each setting its own targets and timetables.

“Madrid is an opportunity to get on course to get the speed and trajectory right,” said Rachel Kyte, a former United Nations climate diplomat who is now dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts University. “What the Emissions Gap Report does is take away any remaining plausible deniability that the current trajectory is not good enough.”

The world’s 20 richest countries, responsible for more than three-fourths of worldwide emissions, must take the biggest, swiftest steps to move away from fossil fuels, the report emphasized. The richest country of all, the United States, however, has formally begun to pull out of the Paris accord.

Global greenhouse gas emissions have grown by 1.5 percent every year over the last decade, according to the annual assessment. The opposite must happen if the world is to avoid the worst effects of climate change, including more intense droughts, stronger storms and widespread hunger by midcentury. To stay within relatively safe limits, emissions must decline sharply, by 7.6 percent every year, between 2020 and 2030, the report warned.

Separately, the World Meteorological Organization reported on Monday that emissions of three major greenhouse gases — carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide — have all swelled in the atmosphere since the mid-18th century.

“We are sleepwalking toward a climate catastrophe and need to wake up and take urgent action,” said Alden Meyer, director of policy and strategy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, on a phone call with reporters Tuesday after the publication of the report.

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Even if every country fulfills its current pledges under the Paris Agreement — and many, including the United States, Brazil and Australia, are currently not on track to do so — the Emissions Gap Report found average temperatures are on track to rise by 3.2 degrees Celsius from the baseline average temperature at the start of the industrial age.

According to scientific models, that kind of temperature rise sharply increases the likelihood of extreme weather events, the accelerated melting of glaciers and swelling seas — all endangering the lives of billions of people.

The Paris Agreement resolved to hold the increase in global temperatures well below 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit; last year, a United Nations-backed panel of scientists said the safer limit was to keep it to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

There are many ways to reduce emissions: quitting the combustion of fossil fuels, especially coal, the world’s dirtiest fossil fuel; switching to renewable energy like solar and wind power; moving away from gas- and diesel-guzzling cars; and halting deforestation.

In fact, many countries are headed in the wrong direction. A separate analysis made public this month looked at how much coal, oil and natural gas the world’s nations have said they expect to produce and sell through 2030. If all those fossil fuels were ultimately extracted and burned, the report found, countries would collectively miss their climate pledges, as well as the global 2 degree Celsius target, by an even larger margin than previously thought.

A number of countries around the world, including Canada and Norway, have made plans to reduce emissions at home while expanding fossil-fuel production for sale abroad, that report noted.

“At a global level, it doesn’t add up,” said Michael Lazarus, a lead author of the report and director of the Stockholm Environment Institute’s United States Center. To date, he noted, discussions on whether and how to curb the production of fossil fuels have been almost entirely absent from international climate talks.

The International Energy Agency recently singled out the proliferation of sport utility vehicles, noting that the surge of S.U.V.s, which consume more gasoline than conventional cars, could wipe out much of the oil savings from a nascent electric-car boom.

“For 10 years, the Emissions Gap Report has been sounding the alarm — and for 10 years, the world has only increased its emissions,” the United Nations Secretary General, António Guterres, said in a statement. “There has never been a more important time to listen to the science. Failure to heed these warnings and take drastic action to reverse emissions means we will continue to witness deadly and catastrophic heat waves, storms and pollution.”

The pressure on world leaders to pivot away from fossil fuels and rebuild the engine of the global economy comes at a time when the appetite for international cooperation is extremely low, nationalist sentiments are on the rise, and several world leaders have deep ties to the industries that are the biggest sources of planet-warming emissions.

If there’s any good news in the report, it’s that the current trajectory is not as dire as it was before countries around the world started taking steps to cut their emissions. The 2015 Emissions Gap Report said that, without any climate policies at all, the world was likely to face around 4 degrees Celsius of warming.

Coal use is declining sharply, especially in the United States and Western Europe, according to an analysis by Carbon Brief. Renewable energy is expanding fast, though not nearly as fast as necessary. City and state governments around the world, including in the United States, are rolling out stricter rules on tailpipe pollution from cars.

Young people are protesting by the millions in rich and poor countries alike. Even in the United States, with its persistent denialist movement, how to deal with climate change is a resonant issue in the presidential campaign.

Sea level along the Indian coast has risen by 8.5 cm in the last five decades, India’s Union Minister Babul Supriyo said in the Rajya Sabha. The rising sea levels can exacerbate the coastal inundation along the low lying areas during extreme events such as tsunami, storm surge, coastal flooding and coastal erosion, he added.

Responding to a question on whether several cities will be submerged as temperatures are rising due to global warming, the Minister of State for environment said that the rate of increase of sea level due to climate change cannot be attributed with certainty.

“On an average, the sea level along the Indian coast is considered to be rising at about 1.70 mm/year meaning thereby that during the past 50 years, the sea level along the Indian coasts has risen by 8.5 cm,” he said in the upper house of Parliament.

“Further, satellite altimetry and model simulations showed that the North Indian Ocean (NIO) also exhibits decadal variability. During the last decade (2003-2013) it experienced sea level rise at a rate of 6.1 mm/year,” he said in a written response.

The Minister further said that the rising sea levels can exacerbate the coastal inundation along the low lying areas during extreme events such as tsunami, storm surge, coastal flooding and coastal erosion.

“However, the coastal areas that might get inundated due to the rising sea level need to be evaluated based on their elevation above mean sea level. Since no long term data on land subsidence or emergence are available for these locations, the rate of increase of sea level due to climate change cannot be attributed with certainty,” he said.

“For example, the higher rate of sea level increase at Diamond Harbour is also due to the larger land subsidence happening there. The same may apply to Kandla, Haldia and Port Blair as well,” Mr. Supriyo told the Rajya Sabha.

Recently, a report of the UN’s Inter Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had warned that global sea levels are set to rise by at least 1m by 2100 if carbon emissions go unchecked, submerging hundreds of cities, including Mumbai and Kolkata, and in some cases entire countries.

Human-caused climate change is on track to make the Arctic Ocean functionally ice-free for part of each year starting sometime between 2044 and 2067, according to a study. Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in the U.S. noted that as long as humans have been on Earth, the planet has had a large cap of sea ice at the Arctic Circle that expands each winter and contracts each summer.

Satellite observations show that since 1979, the amount of sea ice in the Arctic in September — the month when there is the least sea ice, before water starts freezing again — has declined by 13% per decade, the researchers said.

Scientists have been attempting to predict the future of Arctic sea ice for several decades, relying on an array of global climate models that simulate how the climate system will react to all of the carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere.

However, the models’ predictions have disagreed widely, according to the study published in the journal Nature Climate Change. Among the current generation of models, some show ice-free Septembers as early as 2026, while others suggest the phenomenon will begin as late as 2132.

The study’s lead author, Chad Thackeray, an assistant researcher at UCLA, said one reason predictions about sea ice loss diverge so much is that they differ in how they consider a process called sea ice albedo feedback.

The process occurs when a patch of sea ice completely melts, uncovering a seawater surface that is darker and absorbs more sunlight than ice would have.

That change in the surface’s reflectivity of sunlight, or albedo, causes greater local warming, which in turn leads to further ice melt, the researchers said.

The cycle exacerbates warming — one reason the Arctic is heating up twice as fast as the rest of the globe, they said. Thackeray and co-author Alex Hall, a UCLA professor, noted that sea ice albedo feedback not only happens over long periods of time due to climate change, but also happens every summer when sea ice melts for the season.

Satellite observations over the past few decades have tracked that seasonal melt and resulting albedo feedback, they said.

Thackeray and Hall assessed 23 models’ depiction of seasonal ice melt between 1980 and 2015 and compared them with the satellite observations. They retained the six models that best captured the actual historical results and discarded the ones that had proven to be off base, enabling them to narrow the range of predictions for ice-free Septembers in the Arctic.

“Arctic sea ice is a key component of the earth system because of its highly reflective nature, which keeps the global climate relatively cool,” Thackeray said. There are other environmental and economic implications to ice loss as well, the researchers said.

Sea ice is critical to the Arctic ecosystem, and to the fishing industry and indigenous peoples who depend on that ecosystem, they said. The researchers explained that as Arctic ice is lost, more waters are used for commercial shipping and oil and gas exploration, which presents economic opportunity for some nations. However, they noted, this also contributes to further greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.

Before climate change thawed the winters of New Jersey, this lake hosted boisterous wintertime carnivals. As many as 15,000 skaters took part, and automobile owners would drive onto the thick ice. Thousands watched as local hockey clubs battled one another and the Skate Sailing Association of America held competitions, including one in 1926 that featured 21 iceboats on blades that sailed over a three-mile course.

In those days before widespread refrigeration, workers flocked here to harvest ice. They would carve blocks as much as two feet thick, float them to giant ice houses, sprinkle them with sawdust and load them onto rail cars bound for ice boxes in New York City and beyond.

New Jersey’s average temperatures have risen nearly 2 degrees Celsius since 1895 — double the average for the Lower 48 states. “These winters do not exist anymore,” says Marty Kane, a lawyer and head of the Lake Hopatcong Foundation.

That’s because a century of climbing temperatures has changed the character of the Garden State. The massive ice industry and skate sailing association are but black-and-white photographs at the local museum. And even the hardy souls who still try to take part in ice fishing contests here have had to cancel 11 of the past dozen competitions for fear of straying onto perilously thin ice and tumbling into the frigid water.

New Jersey may seem an unlikely place to measure climate change, but it is one of the fastest-warming states in the nation. Its average temperature has climbed by close to 2 degrees Celsius since 1895 — double the average for the Lower 48 states.

Over the past two decades, the 2 degrees Celsius number has emerged as a critical threshold for global warming. In the 2015 Paris accord, international leaders agreed that the world should act urgently to keep the Earth’s average temperature increases “well below” 2 degrees Celsius by the year 2100 to avoid a host of catastrophic changes.

The potential consequences are daunting. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns that if Earth heats up by an average of 2 degrees Celsius, virtually all the world’s coral reefs will die; retreating ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica could unleash massive sea level rise; and summertime Arctic sea ice, a shield against further warming, would begin to disappear.

A Washington Post analysis of more than a century of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration temperature data across the Lower 48 states and 3,107 counties has found that major areas are nearing or have already crossed the 2-degree Celsius mark.

— Today, more than 1 in 10 Americans — 34 million people — are living in rapidly heating regions, including New York City and Los Angeles. Seventy-one counties have already hit the 2-degree Celsius mark.

— Alaska is the fastest-warming state in the country, but Rhode Island is the first state in the Lower 48 whose average temperature rise has eclipsed 2 degrees Celsius. Other parts of the Northeast — New Jersey, Connecticut, Maine and Massachusetts — trail close behind.

— While many people associate global warming with summer’s melting glaciers, forest fires and disastrous flooding, it is higher winter temperatures that have made New Jersey and nearby Rhode Island the fastest warming of the Lower 48 states.

The average New Jersey temperature from December through February now exceeds 0 degrees Celsius, the temperature at which water freezes. That threshold, reached over the past three decades, has meant lakes don’t freeze as often, snow melts more quickly, and insects and pests don’t die as they once did in the harsher cold.

The freezing point “is the most critical threshold among all temperatures,” said David A. Robinson, New Jersey state climatologist and professor at Rutgers University’s department of geography.

The uneven rise in temperatures across the United States matches what is happening around the world. Rhode Island is the first state in the Lower 48 whose average temperature rise has eclipsed 2 degrees Celsius.

In the past century, the Earth has warmed 1 degree Celsius. But that’s just an average. Some parts of the globe — including the mountains of Romania and the steppes of Mongolia — have registered increases twice as large. It has taken decades or in some cases a century. But for huge swaths of the planet, climate change is a present-tense reality, not one looming ominously in the distant future.

To find the world’s 2C hot spots, its fastest-warming places, The Post analyzed temperature databases, including those kept by NASA and NOAA; peer-reviewed scientific studies; and reports by local climatologists. The global data sets draw upon thousands of land-based weather stations and other measurements, such as ocean buoys armed with sensors and ship logs dating as far back as 1850.

In any one geographic location, 2 degrees Celsius may not represent global cataclysmic change, but it can threaten ecosystems, change landscapes and upend livelihoods and cultures.

In Lake Hopatcong, thinning ice let loose waves of aquatic weeds that ordinarily die in the cold. This year, a new blow: Following one of the warmest springs of the past century, harmful bacteria known as blue-green algae bloomed in the lake just as the tourist season was taking off in June. New Jersey’s largest lake was shut down after the state’s environmental agency warned against swimming or fishing “for weeks, if not longer.”

The nation’s hot spots will get worse, absent a global plan to slash emissions of the greenhouse gases fueling climate change. By the time the impacts are fully recognized, the change may be irreversible.

Daniel Pauly, an influential marine scientist at the University of British Columbia, says the 2-degree Celsius hot spots are early warning sirens of a climate shift. “Basically,” he said, “these hot spots are chunks of the future in the present.”

America’s hot spots

Nationwide, trends are clear. Starting in the late 1800s, U.S. temperatures began to rise and continued slowly up through the 1930s. The nation then cooled slightly for several decades. But starting around 1970, temperatures rose steeply.

At the county level, the data reveals isolated 2-degree Celsius clusters: high-altitude deserts in Oregon; stretches of the western Rocky Mountains that feed the Colorado River; a clutch of counties along the northeastern shore of Lake Michigan — home to the famed Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore near Traverse City.

Along the Canadian border, a string of counties from eastern Montana to Minnesota are quickly heating up. The topography of warming varies. It is intense at some high elevations, such as in Utah and Colorado, and along some highly populated coasts: Temperatures have risen by 2C in Los Angeles and three neighboring counties. New York City is also warming rapidly, and so are the very different areas around it, such as the beach resorts in the Hamptons and leafy Westchester County.

The smaller the area, the more difficult it is to pinpoint the cause of warming. Urban heat effects, changing air pollution levels, ocean currents, events like the Dust Bowl, and natural climate wobbles such as El Niño could all be playing some role, experts say.

The one U.S. region that has not warmed since 1895: the South, where data in some cases even shows a modest cooling. The only part of the United States that has not warmed significantly since the late 1800s is the South, especially Mississippi and Alabama, where data in some cases shows modest cooling. Scientists have attributed this “warming hole” to atmospheric cycles driven by the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, along with particles of soot from smokestacks and tailpipes, which have damaging health effects but can block some of the sun’s intensity. Those types of pollutants were curtailed by environmental policies, while carbon dioxide remained unregulated for decades. Since the 1960s, however, the region’s temperatures have been increasing along with the rest of the country’s.

The Northeast is warming especially fast.

Anthony Broccoli, a climate scientist at Rutgers, defines an unusually warm or cold month as ranking among the five most extreme in the record going back to the late 1800s. In the case of New Jersey, he says, “since 2000, we’ve had 39 months that were unusually warm and zero that were unusually cold.”

Scientists do not completely understand the Northeast hot spot. But fading winters and very warm water offshore are the most likely culprits, experts say. That’s because climate change is a cycle that feeds on itself.

Warmer winters mean less ice and snow cover. Normally, ice and snow reflect solar radiation back into space, keeping the planet relatively cool. But as the ice and snow retreat, the ground absorbs the solar radiation and warms.

NOAA data shows that in every Northeast state except Pennsylvania, the temperatures of the winter months of December through February have risen by 2 degrees Celsius since 1895-1896. And U.S. Geological Survey data shows that ice breaks up in New England lakes nine to 16 days earlier than in the 19th century.

This doesn’t mean the states can’t have extreme winters anymore. Polar vortex events, in which frigid Arctic air descends into the heart of the country, can still bring biting cold. But the overall trend remains the same and is set to continue. One recent study found that by the time the entire globe crosses 2 degrees Celsius, the Northeast can expect to have risen by about 3 degrees Celsius, with winter temperatures higher still.

In Rhode Island, Narragansett Bay has warmed as much as 1.6 degrees Celsius in the past 50 years, and for want of cooler water, the state’s lobster catch has plummeted 75 percent in the past two decades. Along the shoreline, the hotter and higher sea is shuffling the lineup of oceanfront homes.

“Living the Change” was the theme of the 32nd annual Interfaith Brunch on February 18, 2019 at the elegant Seasons banquet hall in Township of Washington, Bergen County, New Jersey. It was attended by over 260 participants and elected officials from Bergen County and the State of New Jersey.

Sponsored by Interfaith Brotherhood/Sisterhood Committee of Bergen County, a coalition of nine faith traditions, and hosted this year by the Hindu community, this year’s event focused on interfaith initiatives for climate action and environmental sustainability, according to a press release.

Each of the 9 participating faith communities, Baha’i, Hindu, Jain, Jewish, Muslim, Protestant, Roman Catholic, Sikh and Unitarian Universalist, set up tables with displays from their religious teachings on respecting and protecting the environment.

Gopal Patel, director of Bhumi Project at Oxford Center for Hindu Studies and Greenfaith, in his keynote speech emphasized the dire consequences of climate change and the need to restore balance and harmony between earth and nature.

He mentioned the two questions asked by the Hindu seeker, which are “Who am I?” and “What is the purpose of human life?” Rooted in his Vedic spiritual teachings, he translated the mantra from Rigveda explaining that God is all pervading and humans should be reverent, grateful and compassionate towards earth by living a life of spiritual purity and awareness.

A leading figure in international faith based environmental movement, Patel offered practical solutions to reduce carbon footprint by making climate friendly lifestyle changes and urged the participants to reduce meat and dairy consumption and eat a healthy plant-based diet. He encouraged travelling by mass transit and reducing air travel. He also encouraged the installation of solar panels to lower the energy consumption.

‘One of the questions he asked was, what contributes most to the climate change? a) The food we eat b) The way we travel c) The energy we use. How does it impact our lives? Where and how can we make a difference? It is our moral responsibility to reconnect with earth. Be in Harmony and in balance with Mother Earth,’ the press release said.

The program included round table discussions on climate change during the lavish and delicious vegetarian brunch. The summary of these discussions was presented as the memorandum on climate action by the Interfaith Committee.

Also included in the program were unity prayers on the environment by representatives of the nine faith communities, the enthralling Hindu prayer dance and joyful music by the interfaith youth choir.

The 2011 Census says that 1.79 crore of rural and 1.41 crore of urban population is affected with high arsenic level in West Bengal. Around 1,800 million people would be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity by the year 2025, when two-thirds of the world population could be under stress, an expert said here on Tuesday.

In India, which is one of the major countries hit by the menace of arsenic contamination of groundwater, the government projects have suffered due to lack of people’s involvement, West Bengal government’s Arsenic Task Force Chairman K.J. Nath said at a workshop organised by the Sulabh International Social Service Organisation (SISSO).

“During 1970s and 80s, a large number of people in the Ganga-Brahmaputra plains (West Bengal, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Assam) were affected by arsenic contaminated groundwater. It is acute in Bangladesh and China. The government programmes providing arsenic free water involves operational problem as people are not involved in it,” said Nath, former Director of All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health.

He pointed out that in the 1930s and 40s, surface water was the primary source of drinking water. But due to epidemic of diarrhoea and cholera, the government shifted to deep tubewells and that brought the problem of arsenic.

Permissible amount of arsenic in drinking water is 0.05 mg/l in India as per Bureau of Indian Standards.

The 2011 Census says that 1.79 crore of rural and 1.41 crore of urban population is affected with high arsenic level in West Bengal.

Turning to the global scenario, Nath said the way water defies political boundaries and classification, the crisis is also beyond the scope of any individual country or sector and cannot be dealt with in isolation.

“By 2025, 1800 million people will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity and two-thirds of the world population could be under stress condition,” he said.

SISSO, working to improve sanitation in the country, has taken up pilot projects in five places of West Bengal for providing treated surface water at a nominal price.

“Through our pilot projects in Madhusudankati (North 24 Parganas), Paschim Midnapur, Harisdaspur (Bongaon), we have been able to assist local NGOs and self-help groups to provide safe water by treating surface water,” SISSO Founder Bindeshwar Pathak said.

The plant in Madhusudankati provides almost 8,000 litres of water per day at Rs 1 per litre.
Pathak mentioned that there are similar projects where the plant is run by community people in Bihar and Delhi.

“We are also planning to set up a new plant in Madhusudankati and another one in Bengal that will treat groundwater and make it arsenic free. With a new technology from Denmark, there will be no problem of dealing with the disposal of the collected arsenic,” Pathak said.

State Panchayat and Rural Development, and Public Health Engineering Minister Subrata Mukherjee called for spreading more awareness.

“Around 83 blocks in West Bengal and some places in Kolkata have high arsenic level in ground water. We are working hard to provide safe water but the main issue is awareness. It is not just about arsenic but also about saving our depleting water resources,” Mukherjee said.

Several young Indian Americans made it to the list of the President’s Environmental Youth Award, awarded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. A total of 17 winning projects from 10 regions were announced, including at least six Indian American or South Asian Americans among the group.

In Region 2, Samuel, a second grader from New Jersey, is teaching his school and community about the importance of composting through his project, “Worm Tower, Earth Power.” Samuel created a composite or worm bin with the help of his second grade teacher and sponsor, as well as his parents.

He shared the information he learned throughout the community, with his fellow classmates, with other classes in the school, and with the Bergenfield Garden Club. He will continue this composting project and ultimately distribute all the worms used in his bin to the Garden Club so that these worms can continue to have a positive effect on the environment.

For his “Electronic Recycling Initiative,” Jay M., a senior from Indiana, was a winner in the EPA’s Region 5. Jay partnered with the e-recycling organization TechRecyclers to ensure responsible handling and data destruction of materials collected during multiple community electronics drives. He advertised through local news, online publications, social media, and flyers.

The electronic drives took place between 2015-2017 involving 15-to-20 volunteers per event and diverted over 30,000 pounds from landfills.

Because of his efforts electronics recycling drives are now conducted annually. In addition to the drives, he undertook an e-waste education initiative for third and fourth grade students. He noticed detrimental effects that heavy metals in broken electronics can have on both people and the environment.

Realizing the extent of these effects, he began a research project to test the protective effects of a green algae, Chlorella vulgaris, on zebrafish exposed to multiple concentrations of methylmercury (a poisonous form of mercury in electronics).

His research received an award at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. In addition, he has been a Distinguished Finalist for the Prudential Spirit of Community Awards, and has written lesson plans for Kids are Scientists Too, a non-profit organization, the EPA said.

Asvini T., with her “Save the Place Where We Are Living and Save the Planet” project, and Madhalasa I., with her “Saving the Hands that Feed Us” project, were named winners in the EPA Region 6.

As a grade schooler in Texas, Asvini implemented a city-wide battery recycling initiative diverting over 25,000 batteries (weighing more than a ton) away from landfills. Asvini did her research and conducted a series of presentations about the dangers of the chemicals found in batteries.

She made a clear connection between those dangers and associated human health risks, as well as damage done to the natural environment. Soon after, she had her school, the library, and city officials involved, placing battery collection bins in her school’s classrooms, in the local library, recreation centers, and elsewhere.

Parts of Fiji’s main island are on course to disappear because of rising sea levels, according to the country’s archbishop, who warns it is now “a matter of survival” to help people affected by climate change.

Describing an ecological crisis threatening to engulf Viti Levu, Fiji’s largest island, Archbishop Peter Loy Chong of Suva, described widespread environmental destruction – with trees cut down and rivers polluted.

Speaking in an interview with Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need, he said: “We can see it with our own eyes – the ocean levels are increasing each year, so the island [of Viti Levu] is disappearing.”

Regarding the island’s population, estimated at 600,000, he highlighted the need for action to relocate people away from the rising sea waters.

“It is about our homes. Many of them will be underwater in 50 years’ time.”

Referring to the rising tides, he said: “It’s not just a random event. On the contrary, in the coming years, people living in 34 coastal villages in Fiji face upheavals that will force them to relocate their homes, due to the rise in sea level.”

The archbishop added: “Pacific Islanders are suffering from the impacts of climate change. Climate change is a matter of survival.”

Archbishop Chong went on to highlight the impact of damage done to the environment.

He said: “Our islands are being devastated, our rivers polluted, our trees cut down. The result is that the fish are disappearing from our shores.”

The archbishop said that, in response to the ecological crisis, his priorities were “a question of respect for God and his creation and alleviating the pain of those who suffer”.

Highlighting the impact of climate change, he said: “How am I going to tell my people that they have to learn to live with this?”

He added: “My people are weeping. Who will dry their tears?”

Archbishop Chong explained that authorities have scheduled entire village populations to be moved from along the coast to areas inland, including hills and mountain regions.

He said: “Fiji’s government has identified these villages as susceptible to the effects of the changes in the next five to 10 years.

“One village in the province of Bua has already been relocated to Yadua and there are plans to move the village of Tavea soon.”

The archbishop’s comments come after the third anniversary of Pope Francis’ encyclical, Laudato Si, which addresses climate change issues and calls for an “ecological conversion”.

The archbishop was speaking after attending a conference in Rome related to the anniversary of the encyclical.

Archbishop Chong said: “Ecological conversion doesn’t happen in isolation. The conversion also has to be something internal in the heart of each individual.”

He added: “Creation is a gift but at the same time [it is] a responsibility that God has given us to take care of.”

Aid to the Church in Need is supporting the Church’s work in Fiji, including support for the Nazareth Prayer Centre in Suva Archdiocese.

Actress-activist Dia Mirza, the UN Environment Goodwill Ambassador for India, flew to San Francisco earlier this week to participate in an all-women panel discussion on the environment at the Steve Jobs Theatre.

Mirza brainstormed on stage with three distinguished women — Vien Troung (CEO of Green For All Organization), Alexandra Cousteau (globally recognised for her work on water-related issues) and Lisa Jackson (Apple’s Vice President of Environment, Policy and Social Initiative).

Mirza said: “Thankfully, my world is expanding and I am getting to do, meet and be a part of incredible change. On Friday (April 27), I was in San Francisco participating in an all-women panel environmental discussion at the Steve Jobs Theatre. It was an immensely rewarding experience.”

Back home, Dia Mirza who was formerly a beauty pageant winner is distressed by Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb’s comments on beauty queens.

“What can one say of a man who claims Internet existed in ancient India? He seems to have a resource of information that the rest of us are not privy to,” she sighed.

Deb had reportedly said in Agartala that international beauty contests were a farce as the results were all predetermined. He also said he failed to understand the “process of judgement” of the crowning of the Miss World contest in 1997, in which Diana Hayden was crowned. Earlier, Deb was widely trolled for saying that Internet existed during Mahabharata era.

Environmental activist Pramilla Malick plans to run again for the state Senate seat held by John Bonacic, the Mount Hope Republican and 20-year incumbent she challenged in 2016.

Malick, a Minisink resident, has helped lead opposition to the nearly completed Competitive Power Ventures plant in Wawayanda, a project that took center stage in the recent, high-profile corruption trial for a former top aide to Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Malick has spoken at rallies outside the federal courthouse in Manhattan during the case, in which former aide Joe Percoco was accused of taking bribes to help CPV.

Malick, a Democrat from Minisink, earned her way onto the ticket in 2016 through a write-in primary in 2016 but was defeated by more than 20 points by Republican incumbent John Bonacic. Malick said people are “rightfully disgusted” with the way government is being run, according to reports.

“We are dealing with some really heavy issues – some life and death issues; this is going to be a pretty serious, high stakes race, I believe. We are fighting for the survival of our county at this point,” she said in multiple reports.

The candidate, according to her campaign website, www.pramilla.com, said she is campaigning with a platform of issues including the environment, ethics, education, energy and employment.

After failing in the 2016 election, Malick did not completely fall into obscurity. In the summer of 2017, she was among a group of protesters who were arrested and faced jail time when protesting a natural gas power plant being built in Wawayanda. She was released after spending four days behind bars.

A mother of four, Malick has spent much of her career working with technology companies helping people gain skills and industry certifications required for meaningful careers in the IT industry, her campaign page said.

Environmental activist Pramilla Malick plans to run again for the state Senate seat held by John Bonacic, the Mount Hope Republican and 20-year incumbent she challenged in 2016.

Malick, a Minisink resident, has helped lead opposition to the nearly completed Competitive Power Ventures plant in Wawayanda, a project that took center stage in the recent, high-profile corruption trial for a former top aide to Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Malick has spoken at rallies outside the federal courthouse in Manhattan during the case, in which former aide Joe Percoco was accused of taking bribes to help CPV.

India had the highest share of welfare costs (or a loss of income from labour), of about $220 billion (about ₹1.4 trillion), in South and South-East Asia — of a combined total of $380 billion from mortality due to air pollution, according to a report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

The global mortality costs from outdoor air pollution are projected to rise to about $25 trillion by 2060 in the absence of more stringent measures. At regional and national scale, China’s welfare costs from mortality were the highest at nearly $1 trillion followed by the Organisation for Economic Corporation and Development (OECD) countries with a combined total of $730 billion, the report added quoting a 2016 projection by the OECD.

Although certain forms of pollution have been reduced as “technologies and management strategies have advanced,” approximately 19 million premature deaths are estimated to occur annually as a result of the way societies use natural resources and impact the environment to support production and consumption, it notes.

 “If consumption and production patterns continue as they are, the linear economic model of ‘take-make-dispose’ will seriously burden an already-polluted planet, affecting current and future generations,” the report’s foreword concludes.

To curb pollution in various forms, the UNEP called for strong high-level political commitment and engagement of the local government, civil society and other stakeholders. “Pollution is a universal challenge [but] the good news is that we already know what we need to do to prevent and reduce it,” UNEP Executive Director Erik Solheim said in a statement, stressing that “now the responsibility is on governments, businesses, cities and local authorities, civil society and individuals around the world to commit to act to beat pollution in all its forms.”

To achieve high level political commitment in key economic sectors, there is a need to go beyond the environmental ministries and include other relevant ministries such as finance, agriculture, industry, urban, transport, energy and health.

There is also a need to engage the local government, civil society organisations, business leaders, industries, trade unions and citizens at large. Reporting on the progress that comes from acting on pollution – whether through voluntary measures or formal laws – is a crucial step in this transition.

The report, ‘Towards a pollution-free planet’, was launched during the first Conference of Parties for the Minamata Convention, which addresses mercury issues, and ahead of the annual U.N. Environment Assembly, to be held in early December.

Aryan and Om Mulgaokar, now living in Ridgewood, N.J., are among the national winners of the 2017 PEYAs announced in Washington, D.C.. Established in 1971, the awards program recognizes young people for their outstanding efforts to protect the nation’s air, water, land and ecology. Nebraska-based 6th grader Aryan Mulgaokar and his brother, kindergartener Om, have been awarded for their project, “REVIVE Go Green — Reuse and Recycling of Pencils.”

Every year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency gives special recognition and a presidential plaque to the President’s Environmental Youth Award regional winners. This year, among the many winners whose outstanding environmental projects have been recognized, there are at least four Indian American students.

The national award is presented each year to K-12 students who demonstrate the initiative, creativity, and problem-solving skills needed to address environmental problems and find sustainable solutions.

After realizing how many of their partially used pencils were left over each year, the Indian American brothers decided to implement a project to promote environmental awareness and a habit of reusing and recycling school supplies, like pencils. The students named their project “REVIVE Go Green” to reflect the completion of the life cycle of a pencil, when composted pencils can be used to grow or revive new trees.

Though the brothers won the PEYA regional award for EPA Region 7, they recently moved to New Jersey, where they plan on expanding the project to their new school district.

“Today, we are pleased to honor these impressive young leaders, who demonstrate the impact that a few individuals can make to protect our environment,” said EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. “These students are empowering their peers, educating their communities, and demonstrating the STEM skills needed for this country to thrive in the global economy.”

The brothers are being recognized for their recycling project at Aldrich Elementary in the Millard School District in Omaha. The project focused on recycling used pencils, partnering with the school, classmates, and a local landscaping nursery, Mulhall’s Nursery, to collect discarded and broken pencils and either sharpen them for reuse or recycle them (as shavings) for use in the nursery’s compost.

Aryan stated, “What caught my attention was that two boxes of pencils appeared on the school supply list every year. I realized that so many pencils get thrown out in the trash every year at homes nationwide and trees are cut down for them. I knew I could find a solution to this problem.”

The brothers encouraged their elementary and middle-school classmates to volunteer their time to collect damaged pencils. At the end of the school year, more than 4,000 pencils were returned to the school stockroom for reuse during the next school term, a cost savings of approximately $850. The brothers also started a student group and engaged many throughout the two schools to participate and learn more about how to recycle.

Thirteen-year-old Shreya Ramachandran, of Fremont, Calif., will receive the honor for her study of grey water use in water conservation. Having seen firsthand the effects of drought in California and in India, high-schooler Ramachandran formed “The Grey Water Project” to encourage people to conserve and reuse water. Over three years of research into water conservation, the Indian American student has particularly focused on the possibility of reusing grey water, which is lightly used water, especially from laundry.

Arya Bairat, an Indian American student from Connecticut, is also part of a group of 9th graders who have won the regional award for EPA Region 1 with their project, “Synthesis of Low Cost, Biodegradable Masks/Bags Using Novel Material Combinations: A Sustainability Project.”

The PEYA program promotes awareness of our nation’s natural resources and encourages positive community involvement. It celebrates student leadership in service projects to protect the environment and build a livable, sustainable global community. Fourteen projects are being recognized this year, from 12 states (Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Florida, Michigan, Texas, Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, California, and Washington).

Additional projects include a wide variety of activities that range from developing a biodegradable plastic using local agricultural waste product; designing an efficient, environmentally-friendly mosquito trap using solar power and compost by-product; saving approximately 2,000 tadpoles and raising adult frogs and toads; repurposing more than 25,000 books; organizing recycling programs to benefit disaster victims and underserved community members; and promoting bee health.

Indian American photographer Anand Varma from Atlanta is named ‘Emerging Explorer’ by National Geographic. One of the achievers in the Atlanta Indian community, he is one of the 14 individuals from different walks of life, who

National Geographic selected as Emerging Explorers of the year 2017.
National Geographic’s list of Emerging Explorers recognizes exceptional talent of aspiring artists, storytellers, scientists, innovators and conservationists from across the world, who act as agents of change for betterment of the world through their work of art, technology, engineering, education, or innovation.

Varma is a science photographer who works to tell the story behind the science of everything from primate behavior and hummingbird biomechanics to amphibian disease and forest ecology, according to National Geographic.
On his website, www.varmaphoto.com, the native of Atlanta, Ga., explained how he picked up his father’s old camera and “found that I could use it to feed my curiosity about the natural world— and to share my adventures and discoveries with others.”

He has assisted with 13 articles published in National Geographic since 2006. In 2010, he was honored with a Young Explorer Grant from the National Geographic Society. “These bold people with transformative ideas are taking National Geographic’s mission further and improving the world as they go,” National Geographic said in a news release.

Being a first-generation Indian American, Anand grew up in Atlanta exploring the charms of woods and admiring the vivacity of streams unlike other children. His curiosity about the world of nature knew no bounds when he found his dad’s old camera in his teens. It set him on an adventure spree to discover joys and wonders in the natural world.
Anand Varma’s interest in photography is not limited to exploring the wonders of nature and telling their stories. A graduate in interactive biology from the University of California, Berkeley, he also helps biologists communicate their research through photographs. His photographs depict the science behind an array of things from amphibian diseases to mangrove forests.

His tryst with National Geographic dates back to 2006 since when he has assisted several personalities with 13 articles published in National Geographic. The title ‘Emerging Explorer’ is not his first recognition from National Geographic. He received a Young Explorer Grant from the National Geographic Society in 2010.

To help this group of trailblazers expand the impact they are making in the areas of science, storytelling, education, technology and conservation around the world, National Geographic awards each of them $10,000 for research and exploration, it said. With the help of National Geographic Society, this group of 14 will explore new frontiers and find innovative ways to remedy some of the greatest challenges facing our planet.

“Nuclear terrorists” can strike anywhere, the head of the UN atomic watchdog warned on Monday at the start of a week-long ministerial conference on preventing misuse of radioactive materials and attacks on facilities.

“Ensuring effective nuclear security is important for all countries, including those which possess little or no nuclear or other radioactive material,” International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano said.

“Terrorists and criminals will try to exploit any vulnerability in the global nuclear security system. Any country, in any part of the world, could find itself used as a transit point. And any country could become the target of an attack,” he said in Vienna.

Countries all over the world have stepped up their investment in nuclear security with support from the IAEA, and have been working to reinforce staffing levels with more than 10,000 police, border guards and other specialists trained in the past six years, Amano said.

The IAEA has given countries over 3,000 instruments for detecting nuclear material and this year provided radiation detection equipment and other assistance to Brazil during the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

This year, the IAEA also hosted the International Conference on Computer Security in a Nuclear World looking at the growing issue of cybersecurity as the reliance on digital systems within nuclear facilities grows.

The year 2016+ will “very likely” be the hottest on record, the UN said today, warning of calamitous consequences if the march of global warming cannot be halted. Average temperatures for the year were set to hit about 1.2 Celsius over pre-Industrial Revolution levels – meaning that 16 of the 17 hottest years on record were this century, said the UN’s World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).

The new record means the world is already more than halfway to the upper limit of 2 C of warming overall, 1.5 C if possible, which UN nations had agreed upon to stave off worst- case-scenario climate change. “Another year. Another record. The high temperatures we saw in 2015 are set to be beaten in 2016,” WMO secretary general Petteri Taalas said in a statement.

The El Nino weather phenomenon had boosted temperatures in the early months of the year, but even after its effects dissipated, the mercury stayed high. In parts of Arctic Russia, temperatures were 6 C to 7 C higher than the long-term average, the statement said. Other Arctic and sub-Arctic regions in Russia, Alaska and northwest Canada were at least 3 C above average.

“We are used to measuring temperature records in fractions of a degree, and so this is different,” said Taalas. The WMO report was published as UN climate talks entered their second week in Marrakesh – the first since last year’s huddle in the French capital concluded with the climate-rescue Paris Agreement.

The Moroccan followup is meant to agree on rules for executing the plans and goals outlined in the pact, which envisions reining in global warming by cutting back on greenhouse-gas emitting coal, oil and gas for energy. Earlier today, the annual Global Carbon Budget report said carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels have been nearly flat for three years in a row – a “great help” but not enough to stave off dangerous climate change. Both analyses warned that concentrations of planet- warming greenhouse gases in the atmosphere continued to rise, reaching 400 parts per million in 2015 and likely to exceed that record in 2016.

Paris agreement will help Indians learn to care for nature and start using natural resources like water more efficiently.  India’s ratification of the Paris climate agreement may help reduce the impact of climate change and is a positive move for the nation’s sustainable growth, according to environmentalists.

By ratifying the agreement, which was formulated in Paris last December, India has agreed to reduce carbon emissions believed to cause climate change. The nation also plans to produce at least 40 percent of its electricity from non-fossil resources by 2030.

India’s permanent representative to the United Nations, Syed Akbaruddin submitted the instrument of ratification at the organization’s headquarters in New York on Oct. 2, the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, father of the Indian nation.

The agreement has so far been ratified by 62 countries, including India, and will come into force when 55 countries that produce at least 55 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions ratify it.

Progress on the agreement goals will be evaluated every five years. The first evaluation will be in 2023.

“It is a very positive step forward. We are the third largest country after U.S. and China to ratify it. It is a challenge for us to be careful and make our progress sustainable,” said Jesuit Father Robert Athickal, founder of Tarumitra (friends of trees), a nationwide organization of some 200,000 students promoting ecological sensitivity.

The priest said that no country has a choice of not doing something positive when it comes to the environment. “If we do not ratify, we will suffer. We know that we are exploiting the Earth,” he said.

Father V.J. Thomas, director of Jhansi Diocese’s social service wing, said the agreement would help increase awareness about climate change. “The farmers will also learn to care for nature and will start using natural resources like water more efficiently,” the priest said.

His diocese covers the drought-hit region in Uttar Pradesh. Father Thomas introduced a program there to help farmers return to more sustainable agriculture. Caritas India said the move would improve governmental and non-governmental efforts to address climate issues.

“Caritas India had already realized the importance of addressing issues related to climate change and these include preventive measures and also mitigating the impacts of natural disasters that are now occurring more frequently due to climate change,” Rajesh Upadhyay, Caritas India’s head of partner support services, told ucanews.com.

He said that the organization has already implemented projects in various Indian states to promote natural and organic farming to reduce dependence on energy-intensive chemical fertilizers and pesticides. “We have supported rain water harvesting structures in drought-prone areas and promoted eco-friendly programs in areas prone to floods, drought and landslides,” he said.

Described as the world’s largest ever to focus on the environment has opened to warnings that our planet is at a “tipping point” but also with expressions of hope that governments, civil society and big business are learning to work together.

The 10-day IUCN World Conservation Congress hosted by the United States in Hawaii has brought together 9,500 participants from 192 countries and communities, IUCN Director-General Inger Andersen told reporters.

“The world must move from random acts of kindness to strategic conservation.” — Sally Jewell, U.S. Secretary of the Interior “Ambitions for this conference are very high…It is the largest environmental gathering ever,” she said after the Sep. 1 opening ceremony.

The Swiss-based International Union for Conservation of Nature was founded in 1948 by British biologist Julian Huxley, and brings together its members – including governments, NGOs, scientists and the business community – in a congress every four years where motions and resolutions are put to a vote. Although they might not carry the weight of international law, the findings of the IUCN have gone on to form the basis of legislation in member states and international bodies.

Focused on the theme of “Planet at a crossroads”, speakers at the opening ceremony held in a Honolulu sports arena reminded participants that the main goal was to come up with concrete proposals and measures to help implement the two historic international agreements forged last year – the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement on climate change.

IUCN president Zhang Xinsheng, a senior Chinese politician and former senior UN official, set the tone of collaboration by praising U.S. President Barack Obama for establishing the world’s largest nature sanctuary – more than half a million square miles – in the waters and islands of the northwest Hawaiian archipelago. “President Obama has set a high bar,” Zhang said. This congress, he added, was not just about “avoiding tragedy” but working together.

His comments followed remarks made by Obama at a meeting of Pacific leaders in Honolulu on Wednesday night, raising expectations that China and the US may soon announce they intend to formally join the Paris Agreement. China opens a meeting of the G20 industrialised nations on Friday.

Erik Solheim, head of the UN Environment Programme, noted the warnings that mankind is destroying its only home but went on to dwell on the progress being made. Brazil, he said, had dramatically reduced its rate of deforestation while Costa Rica had doubled its tree cover. As for Obama and his marine reserve, Solheim simply said, “How much we will miss this president when he leaves office.”

Sally Jewell, U.S. Secretary of Interior, suggested that the Papahanaumokuakea example could be followed by similar initiatives for the territories of indigenous people’s on the U.S. mainland. “The world must move from random acts of kindness to strategic conservation,” she added, noting research showing that a “football field” of natural areas disappears every two minutes in the U.S.
“Around 100 motions are expected to be adopted by this unique global environmental parliament of governments and NGOs, which will then become IUCN Resolutions or Recommendations calling third parties to take action,” the IUCN said.

The world’s super-polluters – the United States and China – have formally joined the Paris Agreement on climate change in a symbolic show of unity. At a ceremony in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou, where China is hosting a summit of G20 industrialised nations, President Barack Obama and President Xi Jinping handed their documents of ratification to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
The joint move by the U.S. and China, which account for nearly 40 percent of global carbon emissions, paves the way for the Paris Agreement forged last December to enter into force, most likely by the end of the year. For the agreement to enter into effect and start to be implemented, at least 55 countries representing at least 55 percent of global emissions need to formally join.

The UN Secretary General praised Obama for his “inspiring” leadership. He said Obama and Xi had both been “far-sighted, bold and ambitious”. Under the Paris Agreement, countries are required to set national targets for reducing or reining in their greenhouse gas emissions. Those targets aren’t legally binding, but countries must report on their progress and update their targets every five years. India is home for 1/5th of world population. Yet they have been denied peaceful use of atomic energy. India”s entery into NSG is linked to endeavors in protecting climate, India complained.

The White House has attributed the accelerated pace to an unlikely partnership between Washington and Beijing. To build momentum for a deal, they set a 2030 deadline for China’s emissions to stop rising and announced their “shared conviction that climate change is one of the greatest threats facing humanity.” The US has pledged to cut its emissions by at least 26 per cent over the next 15 years, compared to 2005 levels.

For Amitav Ghosh, an acclaimed Indian novelist and essayist, the future of humankind as global warming impact events spread worldwide looks grim. So grim that the 60-year-old pamphleteer has titled his new book of three climate-related essays “The Great Derangement.”

The way we humans are dealing with, or not dealing with, climate change appears to be deranged. What will future generations in say, 2116 or 2216, think of those of us in 2016?

Ghosh, a cosmopolitan, globe-trotting public intellectual, is worried. So worried that his hair has turned brilliantly white, while his eyes burn with a probing yet affable intensity.

There’s a reason his book has been subtitled “Climate Change and the Unthinkable,” and it’s not a pretty picture. Looking at how novelists and literary circles, geopolitics and academics are reacting to climate change now in the early part of the 21st century, Ghosh has written a brilliant and fearless “wake up call” on global warming that he hopes will reach world leaders and  politicians.

Himself an acclaimed novelist, Ghosh looks at how poets and storytellers are putting climate themes into their published works, from Margaret Atwood to Kim Stanley Robinson. He even gives a shout out to the rising new genre of “cli-fi” (short for climate fiction) while also looking at Indian literary and cinema greats like Rabindranath Tagore and Satyajit Ray.

In the realm of geopolitics, Ghosh looks at last year’s global  climate “agreement” signed in Paris and calls foul. Read the fine print, he says. Connect the dots, he says. Are we deranged, he asks? There’s much to contemplate in this “made in India” alarm-bell warning flare to the world, but it’s written in an easy-to-digest style.

East or West, we are all in this together now. For a longtime Indian climate activist living in New Zealand, Ghosh’s distinctive approach of speaking truth to power packs a punch.

“Coming from a leading Indian author who is widely-read in the West, this book will likely have a major impact in shining  a  spotlight on global warming issues before a much wider audience,” he told the media in a recent email. “In addition, a book such as this has the potential to bring together the stories of global warming and climate change from a combination of  Indian, South Asian and Western perspectives. So it’s invaluable in bridging the gap among nations and why I think the essays need a global audience beyond the India edition.”

Originally commissioned by the University of Chicago Press, the essays will be published in a U.S. edition in September with a slightly different cover for Western readers. Until then, the book is in India’s hands this summer and is getting plaudits left and right in dozens of the country’s newspapers and magazines. Ghosh, in his 60s with a handsome shock of white hair gracing a usually smiling face, is married to the American writer Deborah Baker. The couple have two grown children and live part of the year in New York and part of the year in India.

With “The Great Derangement,” Ghosh has shown himself to be an international climate activist of the literary kind, fearless in attacking both “the powers that be” in his own country and the “business as usual” mantra of the West.

In India, where climate denialists don’t actually exist, Ghosh’s book has been received with high praise. However, in America and Britain, where denialists are legion and have spit on the truth with unbridled, deranged venom for years, it might be a different story.

Someone might even write a ‘cli-fi’ novel one day about this “great derangement.” It could be explosive.

India will file 16 cases against the US for violating World Trade Organization (WTO ) treaties as certain programs of the United States in the renewable energy sector are “inconsistent” with global norms, the India’s Upper House of Parliament was informed last week by Nirmala Sitharaman, India’s Commerce and Industry Minister.

She said that India believes that certain renewable energy programs of the US at the sub-federal level are inconsistent with WTO provisions, particularly with respect to the obligation under GATT (General Agreement on Tariff and Trade) 1994, Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures and/or TRIMS (Trade-Related Investment Measures) Agreement.

In a separate reply, she said India has appealed before the WTO appellate body on the findings and recommendations of the dispute settlement panel.  To promote domestic manufacturing of solar cells and modules, which is one of the components of the National Solar Mission, India set domestic content requirement for a few of the programs under the mission.

In a separate reply, the minister said India continues to be placed on the priority watch list under the US Special 301 on account of US assessment of Indian intellectual property rights (IPR) protection being inadequate.

“The Special 301 report issued by the US under their Trade Act of 1974 is a unilateral measure to create pressure on countries to enhance IPR protection beyond the TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) Agreement,” she added.  She made a point that the report which is an “extra territorial application” of the domestic law of a country is inconsistent with established norms of WTO. Last month, releasing its annual 301 Report, the US has said it will continue to put India and China on its priority watch list for IPR.

The ubiquitous, easily torn, often doubled-up plastic bags from the grocery store — hoarded by dog owners, despised by the environmentally concerned and occasionally caught in trees — will soon cost at least a nickel in New York City. The City Council voted 28 to 20 on Thursday, May 6th to require certain retailers to collect a fee on each carryout bag, paper or plastic, with some exceptions. Mayor Bill de Blasio has expressed support for the measure.

Passage of the bill came after two years of debate and at least one other attempt by the city’s elected officials to charge a fee or tax on disposable bags. The legislation, modeled on similar laws in California and Washington, D.C., encountered an unusual amount of resistance and resulted in what council members said was one of the closest votes in years, on par with the extension of term limits passed during the tenure of Mr. de Blasio’s predecessor, Michael R. Bloomberg.

The vehemence of the opposition could perhaps be traced to plastic bags’ daily presence in the lives of New Yorkers, who often shop for groceries spontaneously and then lug the crinkly bags home to be reused as trash-can liners or to pick up after pets. As with previous measures adopted by the 51-member Council to prohibit smoking in bars and to include calorie information on restaurant menus, the impact of the bag bill, which would take effect in October, is likely to be immediate for millions of people.

That many will be unhappy about paying for bags that have always been free is the point.

“The fee is irritating, which is precisely why it works,” said Councilman Brad Lander, a Brooklyn Democrat and, with Councilwoman Margaret Chin, a Manhattan Democrat, a main sponsor of the legislation. “We don’t want to pay it so we’ll bring bags instead. So the fact that it’s irritating irritates a lot of people.” In New York City, the Sanitation Department has said it collects roughly 10 billion single-use plastic bags a year.