Iceland commemorates first glacier lost to climate change
18 Aug 2019 at 09:45
AFP
REYKJAVIK: Iceland on Sunday honours the passing of Okjokull, its first glacier lost to climate change, as scientists warn that some 400 others on the subarctic island risk the same fate.

A bronze plaque will be unveiled in a ceremony starting around 1400 GMT (9pm in Thailand) to mark Okjokull -- which translates to "Ok glacier" -- in the west of Iceland, in the presence of local researchers and their peers at Rice University in the United States, who initiated the project.

Iceland's Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir, Environment Minister Gudmundur Ingi Gudbrandsson, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson are also due to attend the event.

"This will be the first monument to a glacier lost to climate change anywhere in the world," Cymene Howe, associate professor of anthropology at Rice University, said in July.

The plaque bears the inscription "A letter to the future," and is intended to raise awareness about the decline of glaciers and the effects of climate change.

"In the next 200 years all our glaciers are expected to follow the same path. This monument is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it," the plaque reads.

It is also labelled "415 ppm CO2," referring to the record level of carbon dioxide measured in the atmosphere last May.

"Memorials everywhere stand for either human accomplishments, like the deeds of historic figures, or the losses and deaths we recognise as important," researcher Howe said.

"By memorialising a fallen glacier, we want to emphasise what is being lost -- or dying -- the world over, and also draw attention to the fact that this is something that humans have 'accomplished', although it is not something we should be proud of."
https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/17323 ... ate-change

the dinosaurs were having this same conversation.
the vegetarians were telling the T-Rex and other meat eaters it was their fault and the carnivores were blaming the veg heads for farting and one day the sky grew dark and a big fucking rock fell from the sky and wiped them all out.

The oceans are increasingly threatened by global warming, acidification and pollution, and the impacts will affect us all, warned the U.N. oceans envoy

By Adela Suliman

STOCKHOLM, Aug 31 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The world's seas are increasingly threatened by global warming, acidification and pollution, making it crucial to agree on a global treaty to protect them, the U.N. oceans envoy said.

Peter Thomson warned in an interview with the Thomson Reuters Foundation that the oceans were "in deep trouble".

"It is worse than we think and there are no easy solutions," he said at World Water Week in Stockholm this week, as the latest round of talks on a treaty wound up in New York.

The first global ocean treaty is due to be agreed in the first half of 2020. But on Friday environmental group Greenpeace said the negotiations were "disappointing" so far, blaming a lack of political will to secure a "progressive outcome".

Thomson said a "comprehensive global regime" was needed to accelerate action to protect waters beyond national jurisdictions.

"It is critical in these challenging times for planetary environmental conditions that we develop a binding treaty for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity in the ocean," he said.

A flagship scientific report warned this year that two-thirds of the ocean area was already affected by growing human impacts, primarily from stressors linked to global warming.

Climate change and the oceans were "intimately linked", Thomson said, adding humanity was on a "totally irresponsible course" by not tackling global warming urgently enough.
http://news.trust.org/item/20190830095954-jq9ky

There is a similarity between humans and viruses. Both expand uncontrollably and both destroy their host organism. My theory is the the planet is currently trying to remove the virus (us people) by making our environment unlivable. It is a fact that if every square inch of the earth was totally destroyed, it would completely regenerate in about 125,000 years as a lush paradise, and eventually new life forms would develop. But humans would probably not be one of them. And planet earth would say good riddance. Given man's absolutely awful history of cruelty, greed, violence and depravity it's hard to argue with that.

Have you seen Godzilla: King of the Monsters yet?

Premise - Godzilla, Mothra, Rhodan, King Ghidra are released to wipe out man and save the planet.

Regions in Australia are suffering from their most severe drought for a century as primary rivers dry up.

Thirst turns to anger as Darling River runs dry
By Reuters
Published: October 24, 2019
MENINDEE: Reduced to a string of stagnant mustard-coloured pools, fouled in places with pesticide runoff and stinking with the rotting carcasses of cattle and fish, the Darling River is running dry.

The parched earth of Australia’s longest waterway, if tributaries are included, is in the grip of the continent’s most severe drought in a century.

At Menindee, 830km west of Sydney, despair has turned to anger as residents blame the government for exacerbating the drought by drawing down river water in 2017 for irrigation and other uses downstream.

Locals now avoid using tap water for drinking and washing babies and children, saying it has caused skin irritation, and prefer boxed and bottled water instead.

“That was our food source, the river, our water source. That was our livelihood,” said Aboriginal elder Patricia Doyle, in her backyard piled with flotsam discovered in the now-exposed riverbed.

“When you live on a river and you have to have water brought into your town to drink and survive on, what’s that saying? It’s saying that our system … isn’t looked after properly.”

The past two years have been the driest in the catchment area of the Darling, which flows 2,844km over the outback to the sea, and adjoining Murray River since records began in 1900.

Drought is weighing on economic growth, and the dire conditions have prompted Australia, a major wheat exporter, to import the grain for the first time in 12 years.
https://tribune.com.pk/story/2086430/3- ... -runs-dry/

No ones going to worry much until the Mekong runs dry like the Murry /Darling rivers.

Climate change is causing diseases like dengue, as well as flesh-eating bacteria to flourish
Associated Press
Published: 11:30am, 14 Oct, 2019

An outbreak of a deadly and rare brain disease has killed at least 11 people in the United States so far this year. Scientists say the mosquito-borne illness, Eastern equine encephalitis, may be worse because of unseasonably warm temperatures. It’s one of just several diseases scientists worry are being affected by climate change.

The nation’s changing climate patterns are bringing heatwaves, flooding, warming waters and droughts. These in turn alter the environment, and the microbes, viruses and insects that inhabit it in ways that can cause them to increase or appear in new areas and at different times than before.

While it’s difficult to attribute any particular disease event to global warming, it’s safe to say that climate change will change disease dynamics, said Erin Mordecai, a professor of biology at Stanford University in California, who studies the ecology of infectious disease.

Full article: https://www.scmp.com/better-life/enviro ... esh-eating