Environmental News

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Five Pacific Islands Officially Lost to Rising Seas

Five Pacific Islands have been swallowed by rising seas and coastal erosion, in what Australian researchers say is the first confirmation of what climate change will bring.

The submerged region, which was part of the Solomon Islands archipelago and was above water as recently as 2014, was not inhabited by humans.

However, a further six islands are also experiencing "severe shoreline recession," which is forcing the populations in those settlements—some of which have existed since at least 1935—to flee, according to a study published last week in Environmental Research Letters.

Researchers used aerial and satellite images dating back to 1947 to track coastal erosion across 33 islands. At least 11 islands across the northern region of the archipelago "have either totally disappeared over recent decades or are currently experiencing severe erosion," the study found.

"This is the first scientific evidence...that confirms the numerous anecdotal accounts from across the Pacific of the dramatic impacts of climate change on coastlines and people," the researchers wrote at Scientific American on Monday.

Lead author Dr. Simon Albert, a senior research fellow at the University of Queensland, told Agence France-Presse that rates of sea level rise in the Solomons are almost three times higher than the global average.

The five that sank ranged in size from one to five hectares (roughly two to 12 acres) and supported "dense tropical vegetation that was at least 300 years old," the researchers wrote for Scientific American, calling the event "a warning for the world."

Rates of sea level rise were substantially greater in areas exposed to high wave energy, the researchers found, "indicating a synergistic interaction between sea-level rise and waves."

That means islands exposed to higher wave energy in addition to sea level rise face faster and more widespread loss than sheltered islands.

They wrote:

"These higher rates are in line with what we can expect across much of the Pacific in the second half of this century as a result of human-induced sea-level rise. Many areas will experience long-term rates of sea-level rise similar to that already experienced in Solomon Islands in all but the very lowest-emission scenarios."

Understanding the factors that put certain regions at greater risk for coastal erosion is vital to help frontline communities adapt, the study concluded.

The families that have already been forced to relocate did so using their own limited resources and received little to no assistance from their government or international climate funds, the researchers noted. The exodus had the additional impact of fragmenting established communities of hundreds of people.

Melchior Mataki, who chairs the Solomon Islands' Natural Disaster Council, told the researchers, "This ultimately calls for support from development partners and international financial mechanisms such as the Green Climate Fund. This support should include nationally driven scientific studies to inform adaptation planning to address the impacts of climate change in Solomon Islands."

The Solomon Islands were among the 175 nations that signed the Paris climate agreement in New York last month.

http://commondreams.org/news/2016/05...st-rising-seas

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http://commondreams.org/news/2016/05...o-latest-spill

'Status Quo': Shell Spews Nearly 90,000 Gallons of Oil into Gulf of Mexico in Latest Spill

Royal Dutch Shell's offshore drilling operations were pouring oil into the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday, ultimately releasing nearly 90,000 gallons of oil into the water off the Louisiana coast.

"We have allowed the [Gulf] to be perpetually treated as a sacrifice zone—a place where we tolerate pollution and disasters to continue our dependence on fossil fuels."—Michael Brune, Sierra Club

The company said the spill was spotted above an underwater pipeline system, although specific details regarding the leak's cause were not made public.

The spill left a 13-by 2-mile sheen on the water, NBC reports. While the company assured reporters and government agencies that wells in the area had been shut off and the spill was being contained, local observers expressed deep skepticism.

"What we usually see in oil industry accidents like this is a gross understatement of the amount released and an immediate assurance that everything is under control, even if it's not," said Anne Rolfes, founding director of anti-offshore drilling group the Louisiana Bucket Brigade. "This spill shows why there is a new and vibrant movement in the Gulf of Mexico for no new drilling."

Locals opposed to offshore drilling argue that oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico have become tragically commonplace. "According to the federal National Response Center, the oil industry has thousands of accidents in the Gulf of Mexico every year," the Louisiana Bucket Brigade said.

This latest disaster occurred mere weeks after the six-year anniversary of BP's catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf and on the very same day that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) held a hearing on the agency's next Five Year Plan for the Gulf of Mexico.

Thursday's BOEM hearing focused on the environmental impact statement of oil drilling in the Gulf. The Louisiana Bucket Brigade reported that locals discovered and collected tarballs in the Gulf's Grand Isle last month—demonstrating that "BOEM's environmental impact assessment is inadequate."

"It's unacceptable that oil spills have been permitted to become the status quo in the Gulf," said Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune in response to this latest disaster. "From Deepwater Horizon to the Taylor Well to Shell's latest disaster, we have allowed the region to be perpetually treated as a sacrifice zone—a place where we tolerate pollution and disasters to continue our dependence on fossil fuels."

Activists nationwide are urging President Obama to put a stop to all oil and gas leases in the Gulf to prevent such disasters from continuing.

Indeed, the global environmental campaign Break Free from Fossil Fuels has planned a march in Washington, D.C. on Sunday to call for an end to offshore drilling.

"This practice must end now," Brune said. "Hundreds of thousands of people have mobilized across the country, and thousands more will march in Washington, D.C. this Sunday calling for President Obama to protect our waters and coastal communities from offshore drilling."

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'If We Don't Lead This Fight, Who Will?' Tribal Leaders Demand Army Corps Stop Pipeline
Indigenous people and supporters hand-deliver letters of protest to Army Corps of Engineers in Nebraska

Native Americans are fighting not only on their own behalf, but for the rights of all people to clean water: "The thousands of Indians who are camping to prevent the pipeline from being built—they are fighting not only for their safety and their protection of their water supply. They are also fighting to protect the water supply of the entire region, for the farmers and ranchers who live along the river."

The battle between corporate interests and activists is heating up: currently, dueling lawsuits regarding the pipeline are wending their way through the courts. "The main company behind the Dakota Access pipeline, Energy Transfer Partners, is set to make its case in a North Dakota court today against the thousands of protesters," Politico notes, while water protectors await a Friday decision from a federal judge in response to their request for an injunction against the pipeline's construction.

http://www.commondreams.org/news/201...-stop-pipeline


Dakota Pipeline Was Approved by Army Corps Over Objections of Three Federal Agencies

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/3...al-environment

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“Stop. This is crazy. It’s like using a sledgehammer to crack a peanut. The devastation that it has already caused is beyond comprehension. We can’t live without these honeybees” said Stanley. Jason Ward, Dorchester County Administrator, has stated the spraying happened because four people in the county were already infected, worrying residents.

Millions of honeybees killed by spraying in one county in one state alone. The devastation done to a bee population barely recovering will be unprecedented.

http://thefreethoughtproject.com/mil...praying-naled/

http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/09/health/florida-zika-spraying-
starts/

Zika on steroids: How the Christian Right’s sex hangups turn Zika into a bigger crisis

http://www.salon.com/2016/09/07/zika...risis_partner/

Zika could have been an ordinary epidemic, like the ever-changing influenza that emerges each winter and spreads across the Northern Hemisphere with sad but rare complications. But the Religious Right’s antagonism to birth control and abortion — and honest conversation about sex in general — has transformed the Zika epidemic into a nightmare that will devastate lives for an entire generation.

In the absence of pregnancy, Zika usually isn’t a big deal. Only one in five people who contract Zika experience symptoms, and those who do mostly feel like they’ve gotten the flu. This is not to say Zika never does lasting harm to adults, just that, like the flu, those cases appear to be rare.

The difference, as most people now know, is that getting Zika while pregnant is really, really bad. The virus attacks the fetal nervous system, eating brain structures that have already developed and blocking development of others. Even babies who look normal may be damaged for life.

Unlike the flu, when it comes to Zika, pregnancy prevention or timing is everything.

Even if Zika spreads across its potential range of 41 states, a quick and targeted response could make lasting harm rare, at least within U.S. borders. The solution is simple and relatively cheap, but it consists of policies that the sex-obsessed, patriarchy-protecting Religious Right has been opposing for decades:

Information. Launch a huge public education campaign so all couples know how to prevent mistimed or unwanted pregnancy and can delay parenthood until the time is safe. Currently a third of pregnancies globally and almost half in the United States are accidents, with some of the highest rates where Zika-carrying mosquitos live.
Contraception. Make state-of-the-art birth control available to all free of charge, including the very best IUDs and implants, which drop the accidental pregnancy rate below one in 500. (With the pill that’s one in 11; with condoms one in six; with the rhythm method it’s closer to one in four.)
Abortion. Ensure that couples who discover microcephaly and other fetal defects in utero can, if they prefer, abort a diseased pregnancy and start over. Millions of healthy children exist in this world only because their parents receive the mercy of a fresh start (like I did).
Each of these steps is easier and cheaper than trying to eradicate mosquitos, prevent people from getting bitten, or develop and distribute a vaccine. With existing contraceptive knowledge and technologies, birth defects from Zika could drop to near zero. The problem is not a lack of means; it’s a lack of will brought on by religious teachings that generate resistance and controversy around anything that has to do with sex, gender roles or reproduction.

You reap what you sow

No matter what, tragic birth defects from Zika would have hit some families as the virus spreads out of Africa where it is endemic (and where most women appear to have immunity before they reach reproductive age). But without relentless promotion of ignorance and falsehood by priests and pastors — without anti-contraception campaigning by the Vatican in particular — birth defects from Zika would be a small fraction of what humanity now faces.

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http://www.commondreams.org/news/201...ing-rock-sioux

US Government Steps In After Judge Rules Against Standing Rock Sioux
Federal judge denies tribe's request for injunction, but federal agencies issue statement pausing pipeline construction

A series of "game-changing" developments impacting the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) battle on Friday afternoon were testament to the power of organizing.

Striking a blow to the vibrant, Indigenous-led resistance movement that has sprung up against the four-state oil pipeline, a federal judge on Friday denied the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's attempt to halt its construction.

Shortly afterward, however, the Department of Justice, the Department of the Army, and the Department of the Interior issued a joint statement indicating that "important issues raised by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and other tribal nations and their members regarding [DAPL] specifically, and pipeline-related decision-making generally, remain."

As a result, the statement read, construction on Army Corps land bordering or under Lake Oahe—which straddles North and South Dakota—will be halted until the Corps "can determine whether it will need to reconsider any of its previous decisions regarding the Lake Oahe site under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) or other federal laws."

"In the interim," the agencies continued, "we request that the pipeline company voluntarily pause all construction activity within 20 miles east or west of Lake Oahe."

The statement continued:

Furthermore, this case has highlighted the need for a serious discussion on whether there should be nationwide reform with respect to considering tribes’ views on these types of infrastructure projects. Therefore, this fall, we will invite tribes to formal, government-to-government consultations on two questions: (1) within the existing statutory framework, what should the federal government do to better ensure meaningful tribal input into infrastructure-related reviews and decisions and the protection of tribal lands, resources, and treaty rights; and (2) should new legislation be proposed to Congress to alter that statutory framework and promote those goals.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, who on Thursday proposed legislation that would prevent the Army Corps from approving the pipeline until the agency has completed an environmental impact statement, praised the agencies' decision.

As Common Dreams has reported extensively, the Standing Rock Sioux had challenged the Army Corps of Engineers' decision to grant permits for Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners' $3.8 billion pipeline, saying that the project violates federal laws—including the Clean Water Act and National Historic Preservation Act—and would endanger both water supplies and ancient sacred sites.

But in his decision (pdf), U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington, D.C., said "the Tribe has not carried its burden to demonstrate that the Court could prevent damage to important cultural resources by enjoining the Corps' DAPL-related permitting."

He ordered the parties to appear for a status conference on Sept. 16.

Still, those who have voiced their opposition to the controversial project said they'd fight on.

In the lead-up to the ruling, tribal chairman David Archambault II declared: "Regardless of the court's decision today, we will continue to be united and peaceful in our opposition to the pipeline. Our ultimate goal is permanent protection of our sacred sites and our water. We must continue to have faith and believe in the strength of our prayers and not do anything in violence. We must believe in the creator and good things will come."

Earthjustice, who filed the lawsuit in July on behalf of the tribe, said in the days before the ruling that it would be challenged.

A press conference and protest will take place at the North Dakota Capitol starting at 3pm local time on Friday. Solidarity events are planned nationwide next week.

Updates are being shared under the hashtags #NoDAPL, #RezpectOurWater, and #StandWithStandingRock.

[Cin]

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/3...ontinues-apace

Toxic Slime Spreads Across World's Oceans as Climate Disruption Continues Apace

It is August 30. I'm in Anchorage, Alaska, and it's hot. Very hot. In fact, it's the fourth straight day of record high temperatures, amidst a year that has seen record high temperatures becoming normalized across the entire state.

Two days ago, this city (the most populous in Alaska) saw a record high temperature of 78 degrees, which beat the previous record by a whopping seven degrees.

Last night, I returned here from a trip with the US Geological Survey (USGS), during which we measured the Gulkana Glacier in the Eastern Alaska Range. Almost needless to say, the glacier, like thousands across this northernmost state, is melting rapidly and is in full retreat.

I asked one of the USGS researchers studying this glacier to share his feelings about what is happening to the glaciers in his home state of Alaska.

Climate Disruption Dispatches"You see stuff and it's hard to believe it sometimes," Shad O'Neel, a USGS research geophysicist says as we sit talking in a meeting room at the USGS office complex in Anchorage. "The scale that is happening, like hiking into Gulkana [Glacier], the stream you follow up to it, it branches into two before you get to the glacier."

As we talk, we are both cognizant of the fact that it is warming rapidly outside, and the forecast is for more of the same.

"When I was in grad school, the terminus of the glacier was at that river branch, which is now one kilometer from the terminus," he says. "Last year I was there, and I realized it wasn't that long ago I was in school, and now look at how much ice is just gone. It's a lot of ice. It's hard for me to wrap my head around how fast it has been happening just in the past few years."

He pauses, then says, "There was a while when it was warmer but the glaciers hadn't quite responded yet, but now we're really seeing the change in them, and it's accelerating."

It has been amazing and disturbing to be in Alaska for much of the summer as one record after another is broken. The contrast between spending time on glaciers, on Denali (the highest mountain peak in North America) and in some of the most remote areas of the state wilderness -- bearing witness to the grandeur of nature -- and then coming back to Anchorage between each trip to read about record temperatures has been heartbreaking. But I know the reports are true: I've seen firsthand the glaciers retreating so quickly that even the glaciologists here are shaking their heads.

Anchorage, at the time of this writing, had seen a record 77-day run of higher-than-previous temperatures, with its low temperatures all at or above 50 degrees. This shattered the previous such record of 53 days, which was just set three years prior.

Anchorage-based National Weather Service meteorologist Joe Wegman told the Anchorage Dispatch News of these phenomena, "The top four (low-temperature runs) were in the last four years. These are very late to be having temperatures this high."

He went on to predict, "We're going to be around record territory for quite a while yet."

The march of anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD) across Alaska and the rest of the Arctic is glaringly apparent.

The most detailed study to date shows that Arctic sea ice-melt over the last 20 years is "unprecedented" and "enormously outside the bounds of natural variability." Julienne Stroeve with the US National Snow and Ice Data Center said that the Arctic sea ice has not been at levels as low as it is today for at least 5,000 to 7,000 years. Stroeve noted, "Some other studies have suggested at least 800,000 years."

"Next year or the year after, the Arctic will be free of ice," Dr. Peter Wadhams, who has spent his entire scientific career involved in dozens of trips to study the Arctic, told The Guardian recently. Wadhams, who was one of the very first scientists to warn that the thick Arctic icecap was beginning to thin, directed the Scott Polar Institute in Cambridge from 1987 to 1992, and has been a professor of ocean physics at Cambridge since 2001.

Meanwhile, capitalizing on the disaster afflicting the Arctic (and the planet), a luxury cruise ship set sail from Seward, Alaska in late August en route to New York, via the Arctic. Upwards of 1,700 passengers and crew are, as you read this, riding aboard the "Crystal Serenity," with passengers paying from $22,000 per person for the trip, with some paying in the six-figure range. Those prices do not include helicopter rides or excursions onto the melting Greenland Ice Sheet, which will also be offered. The ship that is making its way through the fragile Arctic is 820 feet long with 13 decks, 535 staterooms, multiple swimming pools, a movie theater, a driving range and putting green, a casino, a spa, fitness center, hair salon and 24-hour room service.

The boat sold out quickly, and the company is already well into the planning of a second journey.

The tropics aren't faring any better than the Arctic, in the climate department.

A recent report showed that the carbon pledges made by 178 countries in Paris last December won't be nearly enough to save most tropical coral reefs and cloud forests, let alone preventing mass global extinctions.

Every day now brings us further into uncharted territory.

Earth

A recent study published in Scientific Reports showed that ACD is going to cause beaches to become saltier, which will likely lead to significant changes for birds, crabs and other creatures living on coasts.

Shocking news recently emerged from India, where over a quarter of that country's land is turning into desert thanks largely to ACD, according to a recently published study.

In the Western US, the American pika is vanishing across many mountain areas due to ACD, altering the habitat of the rabbit-like mammal according to recently released USGS findings. For example, in northeastern California, pikas were only found in 11 of 29 sites where they once lived.

In Scotland, a conservation group recently announced that rare mountain plants in the Scottish highlands are disappearing at an "alarming rate" and facing possible extinction due to ACD.

Back in Alaska, the city of Shishmaref -- which is located on an island that is being rapidly eroded by rising seas, melting permafrost and intensified storms -- has voted to relocate due to ACD. There are at least 31 other Alaskan Native villages threatened by ACD, which will eventually have to relocate as well.

Alaska, which has never had dog ticks before, is now threatened with exotic ticks, which have recently begun to establish themselves in the state. While researchers acknowledge that some of the ticks likely hitchhiked on dogs and humans, many of them did not. One variety, the American dog tick, transmits the bacterium that causes Rocky Mountain spotted fever. It can also secrete a toxin that causes tick paralysis, which can be fatal in both dogs and humans, according to the researchers.

Water

The massive "blob" of overheated water in the Eastern Pacific that has been afflicting marine life along the US West Coast and Alaska for the last several years, persists. It has now become just another example of a growing global phenomenon of oceanic "heat waves." One has been impacting Australia recently as well.

Off the coast of Australia, the Great Barrier Reef recently experienced a massive coral bleaching event that killed off more than one-fifth of the reef.

Another recent report showed that ocean slime, composed of toxic algae blooms, is rapidly spreading across Earth as a result of warming ocean waters. The toxic algae is worsening dead zones and wiping out parts of the food chain for marine life, causing collapsing populations of sea lions, seals, various bird species and fish around the planet.

Meanwhile in the Arctic, fish populations are shifting rapidly as the sea ice dwindles. According to a recent report from the USGS and the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), at least 20 different species have now found their way into Arctic waters that had previously never been found there. Additionally, another 63 species have changed their ranges from what they used to be.

A recent study also showed that the Greenland Ice Sheet continues to melt extremely rapidly, losing the equivalent of 110 million Olympic-size swimming pools worth of water each year. In other words, 270 gigatons of ice have melted per year from 2011 to 2014. The study also showed that the melting in Greenland is continuing to accelerate with time.

Down in the Antarctic, a recent report showed that a massive rift is growing across the fragile Larsen C Ice Shelf. As the crack continues to spread at an accelerating rate, it threatens to release an iceberg the size of Delaware. More importantly, it will eventually destabilize an even larger area of ice, roughly the size of Scotland.

Back in the continental US, a massive fish kill in Yellowstone National Park caused authorities to close off a 183-mile portion of the river and its tributaries. The parasite that caused the die-off was helped along by the ACD-warmed river water.

Lastly, as the planet continues to warm and Canada experiences less and less snowfall, the country's ski resorts are attempting to "weatherproof" themselves from the impacts of ACD. This means they will be offering other things to do aside from skiing and snowboarding in the winter -- such as mountain biking, eco-tours and Iron Man competitions. Earlier this year, British Columbia's world-renowned Whistler Blackcomb resort announced a $345 million plan to become "weather independent," whatever that means.

Fire

Given that much of the Northern Hemisphere is in the warmest portion of summer of the hottest year on record (thus far), it should not come as a surprise that there is a preponderance of major wildfires.

In the US, record temperatures and an ongoing five-year-long drought across most of California caused one fire to burn well over 30,000 acres, forcing more than 82,000 people to evacuate.

More than 170 square miles, and counting, have been burned across California during this wildfire season alone.

A recently published study shows that both California's wildfire season and its air quality will be getting worse with time. The study outlines the obvious: Warmer temperatures and drought across California are expected to continue, hence setting the stage for more and larger wildfires, which will bring far more smoke, ash and particulate.

Furthermore, according to the US Forest Service, there are at least 66 million dead trees located across 760,000 acres in the Southern Sierra Nevada, which are essentially a massive wildfire waiting to happen.

Air

NASA's top climate scientist, Gavin Schmidt, who directs the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, recently said that Earth is warming at a pace not seen for at least the past 1,000 years, which means it is "very unlikely" that global temperatures will stay below the 1.5C limit agreed to in Paris. "In the last 30 years, we've really moved into exceptional territory," Schmidt told the Guardian US. "It's unprecedented in 1,000 years."

"Maintaining temperatures below the 1.5C guardrail requires significant and very rapid cuts in carbon dioxide emissions or coordinated geoengineering," he added. "That is very unlikely. We are not even yet making emissions cuts commensurate with keeping warming below 2C."

While it has been discussed before, an international team of researchers recently stated that Earth has now been pushed into the Anthropocene epoch, due to ACD, the spread of plastics, and new metals and concrete. This is the first new geological epoch for the Earth in more than 11,500 years, and it is due to the intensely rapid industrialization of the planet over the course of the last century.

Denial and Reality

Willful ACD denial, while still alive and well in the fossil-fuel-funded political corridors of the US federal government, is currently taking a serious (and much-needed) attack.

A recently released report by the environmental advocacy group Climate Investigations Center showed that at least 18 major companies have departed from the two primary coal lobbying groups, the National Mining Association and the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, since 2009. Some of those leaving are doing so because of the lobbying groups' so-called climate science.

Other significant strides are being made on the reality front.

Across the Atlantic, The Netherlands could become the first country in the world to ban gas- and diesel-powered vehicles by 2025 if members of the Dutch Labour Party get their way. These politicians have put forth their proposal.

"We need to phase out CO2 emissions and we need to change our pattern of using fossil fuels if we want to save the Earth," John Vos, a member of the Dutch Labour Party, told the Yale Climate Connection.

National Public Radio recently ran a story addressing the issue of overpopulation. The story features Travis Rieder, a philosopher with the Berman Institute of Bioethics at Johns Hopkins University, who is visiting classrooms in order to encourage students to consider the ramifications of population growth during runaway ACD.

Considering the fact that there will be 240,000 people at the dinner table tonight who weren't there last night, and that we are adding the equivalent of a city the size of Houston to the planet every month, and a country the size of Egypt every year, Rieder is giving folks something to consider.

Meanwhile, another recently published study showed that anthropogenic greenhouse gases began to increase the Earth's temperatures nearly two centuries ago when the Industrial Revolution began to pick up steam, thus challenging the widely held notion that ACD only began in the 20th century.

Another reality check came recently in the form of a striking piece in the Guardian, which outlined how national parks across the US are being utterly hammered by ACD.

"An NPS [National Park Service] study from 2014 found four in five of America's national parks are now at the 'extreme end' of temperature variables charted since 1901," the article reads. It goes on to quote Gregor Schuurman, an ecologist at the NPS climate change response program: "We are starting to see things spiral away now…. We are going to look back at this time and actually think it was a calm period. And then people will start asking questions about what we were doing about the situation."

The article draws attention to several stark realities, including the fact that since 1968, the number of glaciers at Glacier National Park has fallen by half. Researchers predict that by the middle of the 21st century, if conditions remain similar, all of the park's glaciers will be gone.

What will Glacier National Park be called when all of its glaciers have disappeared?

Lastly, a recent report warned that we are already locked into far more planetary warming than most folks realize. Given that humans continue to inject over 30 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere annually, and the fact that what is already there has us locked into (conservatively) another 1.5-3C of warming in the coming decades, the new climate reality is upon us.

After spending a summer traversing much of Alaska while doing climate disruption research, I know that Alaska is no longer the Alaska of American folklore. It's also no longer the Alaska I knew 20 years ago. The glaciers are melting and receding at record paces, and the long, frigidly cold winters are no longer nearly as cold as they once were.

Alaska, along with the rest of the Arctic, is truly the canary in the proverbial coal mine. It is sending us a clear message: We are already living in a new world -- a world definitively shaped by anthropogenic climate disruption.

[Cin]

Mass Fish Die-Offs Are the New Normal: Climate Change Shuts Down a Montana River

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/3...-montana-river



"People keep referring to 'abnormal' conditions and 'extreme' events," Alsentzer said. "Those abnormal conditions and extreme events are not a temporary situation and they are no longer abnormal. The years of high snowpack, strong and stable run-off and resilient rivers are now the abnormal years. The future is here, this is happening to all of us, this is the new normal."

To many, the fish kill is a symptom of an ecosystem in crisis. Montana, similar to the rest of the western United States, is already experiencing serious impacts from climate change. The state is hotter and drier; snowpack is decreasing; wildfires are becoming more severe and begin sooner; spring run-off from the mountains happens earlier every year; and there is less water in the rivers. Montana has already warmed 2 degrees Celsius and is expected to experience a temperature rise of 4 to 5 degrees Celsius by 2055. A 2 degree C rise is already causing dramatic changes to the West's river systems.

"The conditions that are giving rise to these events are no longer temporary," Alsentzer said. "We need to come around the table and talk about the facts. What are the new realities that cannot be debated? Our rivers are a shared public trust resource. We all need to be talking about how we can do better."

"If we really want to protect rivers like the Yellowstone, we need to kick our addiction to fossil fuels and stop raising the planet's thermostat. This is a huge problem that requires a serious political solution. Wishful thinking and band-aids aren't going to cut it. Citizens need to wake up and demand that Congress take climate change seriously."