2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #30

Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Reviews... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week...

Story of the Week...

Global Footprint Network promotes real-world solutions that #MoveTheDate, accelerating the transition to one-planet prosperity

On July 29, humanity will have used nature’s resource budget for the entire year, according to Global Footprint Network, an international sustainability organization that has pioneered the Ecological Footprint. It is Earth Overshoot Day. Its date has moved up two months over the past 20 years to the 29th of July this year, the earliest date ever.

2019 Past Overshoot Days by Global Carbon Footprint 

 

Earth Overshoot Day falling on July 29th means that humanity is currently using nature 1.75 times faster than our planet’s ecosystems can regenerate. This is akin to using 1.75 Earths. Overshoot is possible because we are depleting our natural capital – which compromises humanity’s future resource security. The costs of this global ecological overspending are becoming increasingly evident in the form of deforestation, soil erosion, biodiversity loss, or the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The latter leads to climate change and more frequent extreme weather events.

“We have only got one Earth – this is the ultimately defining context for human existence. We can’t use 1.75 without destructive consequences,” said Mathis Wackernagel, co-inventor of Ecological Footprint accounting and founder of Global Footprint Network.

His just released book, Ecological Footprint: Managing Our Biocapacity Budgetdemonstrates that overshoot can only be temporary. Humanity will eventually have to operate within the means of Earth’s ecological resources, whether that balance is restored by disaster or by design. “Companies and countries that understand and manage the reality of operating in a one-planet context are in a far better position to navigate the challenges of the 21st century,” Wackernagel writes. 

Global Footprint Network promotes real-world solutions that #MoveTheDate, accelerating the transition to one-planet prosperity. Press Release, Global Footprint Network, July 23, 2019


Toon of the Week...

2019 Toon 30 

 

Hat tip to the Stop Climate Science Denial Facebook page. 


Coming Soon on SkS...


Climate Feedback Claim Review...

Data shows the Earth is currently warmer globally than at any time in the past 2,000 years

CLAIM:

"A graph of the Earth’s mean temperature over the last 2,000 years shows two previous periods when temperatures were warmer than they are now; from 1–200 A.D., an epoch called the Roman Warm Period, and more recently the Medieval Warm Period from 900–1100 A.D.[…] It is worth noting that both of these climate optima occurred centuries before the discovery of fossil fuels and the invention of the internal combustion engine."

SOURCE:

Apocalyptic Sea-Level Rise—Just a Thing of the Past?, Opinion by Gregory Rummo, Town Hall, July 23, 2019

 VERDICT:

 Inaccurate 

DETAILS:

Factually Inaccurate: Available climate records show that recent global temperatures are likely the highest of the last 2,000 years and there is no data supporting the claim that, globally, the Earth was warmer during the Roman or Medieval eras.

Flawed Reasoning: Natural climate change events in the past do not provide evidence that human emissions of greenhouse gas are incapable of changing the climate today.

KEY TAKE AWAY:

It's not true that the world has been warmer at other times during the last 2,000 years. But even if that were the case, it would not change the fact that human emissions of greenhouse gases are causing Earth's climate to warm.

Data shows the Earth is currently warmer globally than at any time in the past 2,000 years, Edited by Scott Johnson, Claim Reviews, Climate Feedback, July 26, 2019


Poster of the Week...

 2019 Poster 30


SkS Week in Review... 

Posted by John Hartz on Sunday, 28 July, 2019


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