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neil young: ‘dirty-money’ and climate-change.. 

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Neil Young.

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Those attending the COP24 climate negotiations in Katowice, Poland, this week have been greeted by a bizarre sight: an artistic celebration of one of the main fuels responsible for destroying the global climate.

Katowice is the centre of Poland’s coal industry and despite hosting a conference that represents the last chance saloon when it comes to taking meaningful action on climate change – local politicians pride themselves on the black stuff.

Perhaps we could have expected no different when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change decided on such an inappropriate venue and to allow coal companies to sponsor the talks.

If we do make it through climate change with some form of civilisation intact we will look back at some of the things we are doing now with the moral repugnance we feel towards slavery.

There are legitimate parallels here.

Climate change will most hurt those yet to be born.

Our failure to make the dramatic changes needed to our economy and society means we are behaving as if we own the lives of future generations and have a right to steal their lives from them.

Art plays a key role in recording contemporary life but because it is exploratory and imaginative it also invites us to challenge the assumptions we live by.

In Katowice there is a counter-exhibition on coal by art students – drawing attention to the “dark side of coal”.

Meanwhile the campaign movement Art Not Oil – which has been pushing for an end to oil sponsorship of the arts – ran a parallel protest exhibition alongside the British Museum’s I Object show in opposition to financial backing from BP – a company that proudly boasts it is one of the most significant corporate investors in UK arts and culture.

Performers acted as ‘rebel curators’ – presenting objects to the public that represent BP’s complicity in climate breakdown.

Just as in Bristol – where the Green lord mayor, Cleo Lake has banished paintings related to the slave trade from her office – so galleries should shun BP funding.

Musicians are also challenging corporate sponsorship.

Neil Young is due to play a large concert in Hyde Park next summer.

Recently he criticised the event’s sponsor Barclays – declaring the bank a ‘fossil-fuel-funding entity’.

Young said such sponsorship was incompatible with his beliefs about the climate and that he was seeking to rectify the situation.

Yesterday he claimed victory – saying the concert was now proceeding without Barclays as a sponsor.

Others need to follow his lead.

And perhaps Young and other musicians concerned about climate change will also need to think carefully about the carbon footprint of performing concerts around the globe.

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Source: Neil Young’s made a start, but the arts must do more to oppose dirty money | Molly Scott Cato | Opinion | The Guardian

‘beef-eating ‘must fall drastically’ as world population grows’.. 

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Cattle farming in California.

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People in rich nations will have to make big cuts to the amount of beef and lamb they eat if the world is to be able to feed 10 billion people – according to a new report.

These cuts and a series of other measures are also needed to prevent catastrophic climate change it says.

More than 50% more food will be needed by 2050 according to the World Resources Institute (WRI) report but greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture will have to fall by two-thirds at the same time.

The extra food will have to be produced without creating new farmland it says – otherwise the world’s remaining forests face destruction.

Meat and dairy production use 83% of farmland and produce 60% of agriculture’s emissions.

Increasing the amount of food produced per hectare was the most critical step the experts said – followed by cutting meat-eating and putting a stop to the wasting of one-third of food produced.

‘We have to change how we produce and consume food – not just for environmental reasons but because this is an existential issue for humans’ said Janet Ranganathan – vice-president for science and research at the WRI.

Tim Searchinger of the WRI and Princeton University said: ‘If we tried to produce all the food needed in 2050 using today’s production systems the world would have to convert most of its remaining forest – and agriculture alone would produce almost twice the emissions allowable from all human activities’.

The new report – launched at the UN climate summit in Katowice Poland – follows other major scientific analyses showing that huge reductions in meat-eating are “essential” to avoid dangerous climate change.

Another found that avoiding meat and dairy products was the single biggest way to reduce an individual’s environmental impact on the planet – from slowing the annihilation of wildlife to healing dead zones in the oceans.

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Source: Beef-eating ‘must fall drastically’ as world population grows | Environment | The Guardian

david attenborough: ‘collapse of civilisation is on the horizon’..

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Image result for free to use image of david attenborough at climate conference

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The collapse of civilisation and the natural world is on the horizon – Sir David Attenborough has told the UN climate change summit in Poland.

The naturalist was chosen to represent the world’s people in addressing delegates of almost 200 nations who are in Katowice to negotiate how to turn pledges made in the 2015 Paris climate deal into reality.

As part of the UN’s people’s seat initiative – messages were gathered from all over the world to inform Attenborough’s address on Monday.

‘Right now we are facing a manmade disaster of global scale – our greatest threat in thousands of years: climate change’ he said.

‘If we don’t take action the collapse of our civilisations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon’.

‘Do you not see what is going on around you?’ asks one young man in a video message played as part of a montage to the delegates.

‘We are already seeing increased impacts of climate change in China’ says a young woman.

Another woman, standing outside a building burned down by a wildfire says: ‘This used to be my home’.

Attenborough said: ‘The world’s people have spoken.

Time is running out.

They want you – the decision-makers – to act now.

Leaders of the world – you must lead.

The continuation of civilisations and the natural world upon which we depend is in your hands’.

Attenborough urged everyone to use the UN’s new ActNow chatbot – designed to give people the power and knowledge to take personal action against climate change.

Recent studies show the 20 warmest years on record have been in the past 22 years and the top four in the past four years.

Climate action must be increased fivefold to limit warming to the 1.5C scientists advise – according to the UN.

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Source: David Attenborough: collapse of civilisation is on the horizon | Environment | The Guardian

‘hellfire: this is what our future looks like under climate change’.. 

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In late July nearly half of the 92,000 residents of Redding California were forced to evacuate.

More than 1,600 homes – businesses and other structures burned in the Carr fire – due to sparks thrown by a trailer wheel with a flat tire.

But the cause hardly matters; it was 113F that day and the land was primed for fire.

Seven people were killed – three of them firefighters but when survivors tell of their escapes it seems a miracle there weren’t many more.

A local dentist – surprised by the flames in the gated community of Stanford Hills – fled for her life through the woods.

Disoriented – with no idea where to go – she and her husband followed the animals – deer – rabbits and squirrels – as they fled downhill toward the Sacramento river.

Several of her neighbors were rescued by helicopter.

Another neighbor – a retired homicide detective named Steve Bustillos – was preparing to evacuate when he noted an ominous breath-like quality to the rising wind.

It was the fire drawing oxygen into itself – so powerfully that it made the seals in his house whistle.

When Bustillos stepped outside he saw the air rippling ‘like when you open an oven door’.

A moment later the air itself appeared to burst into flames.

Trees and houses followed – igniting spontaneously in the superheated air.

Bustillos escaped in his pickup- but the fire caught him on Buenaventura boulevard – a kilometre from his home.

His pickup was heavy – over three tonnes – but it was moved off the road.

After the passenger window blew out and the truck caught fire Bustillos managed to exit the vehicle and take refuge under a nearby bulldozer.

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Source: Hellfire: this is what our future looks like under climate change | World news | The Guardian

‘future technology ‘cannot rescue’ mankind from climate change’.. 

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Technology will not ‘come to the rescue’ and reverse greenhouse gas emissions – experts have warned.

In a new report a group of prominent European scientists has emphasised the importance of focusing on reducing emissions in order to meet global warming targets.

Technologies that remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere have been singled out as a major component in the struggle to keep the global temperature rise below the 2C decided in the Paris climate agreement.

However, the new report has highlighted the shortcomings of these technologies – describing expectations placed on them as ‘seriously over-optimistic’.

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Source: Future technology ‘cannot rescue’ mankind from climate change, say experts | The Independent