IPCC Says 20 Years Left to Reverse Course

The IPCC on Monday (2021_0809) released the first installment of its sixth multi-volume update to it's Assessment Report (AR6), which will be completed in 2022.

Summary:

"For the first time, the Sixth Assessment Report provides a more detailed regional assessment of climate change, including a focus on useful information that can inform risk assessment, adaptation, and other decision-making, and a new framework that helps translate physical changes in the climate – heat, cold, rain, drought, snow, wind, coastal flooding and more – into what they mean for society and ecosystems."

The report provides new estimates of the chances of crossing the global warming level of 1.5°C in the next decades, and finds that unless there are immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, limiting warming to close to 1.5°C or even 2°C will be beyond reach.

At 1.5°C of global warming, there will be increasing heat waves, longer warm seasons and shorter cold seasons. At 2°C of global warming, heat extremes would more often reach critical tolerance thresholds for agriculture and health, the report shows.

The report also shows that human actions still have the potential to determine the future course of climate. The evidence is clear that carbon dioxide (CO2) is the main driver . . . .“Stabilizing the climate will require strong, rapid, and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, and reaching net zero CO2 emissions.

Link:   IPCC Sixth Assessment Report

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Limits to Growth Update 2021 - Crash Possibility by 2040

Updates to Limits to Growth (1972)--Comparing the World3 model with empirical data, RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS, Gaya Herrington, KPMG LLP, Los Angeles, California, Journal of Industrial Ecology 2020;1–13. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/jiec © 2020 by Yale University 1 

YouTube:  Computer predicts the end of civilisation (1973) | RetroFocus: 

Abstract.  In the 1972 bestseller Limits to Growth (LtG), the authors concluded that, if global society kept pursuing economic growth, it would experience a decline in food production, industrial output, and ultimately population, within this century. The LtG authors used a system dynamics model to study interactions between global variables, vary- ing model assumptions to generate different scenarios. Previous empirical-data com- parisons since then by Turner showed closest alignment with a scenario that ended in collapse. This research constitutes a data update to LtG, by examining to what extent empirical data aligned with four LtG scenarios spanning a range of technological, resource, and societal assumptions. The research benefited from improved data avail- ability since the previous updates and included a scenario and two variables that had not been part of previous comparisons. The two scenarios aligning most closely with observed data indicate a halt in welfare, food, and industrial production over the next decade or so, which puts into question the suitability of continuous economic growth as humanity’s goal in the twenty-first century. Both scenarios also indicate subsequent declines in these variables, but only one—where declines are caused by pollution— depicts a collapse.

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IEA Says No New Investment in Fossil Fuels Needed

From The New Yorker, Daily Commnet, Bill McKibben, 051821.  The statement on Tuesday (O51821) from the I.E.A. is a recommendation. It reads, “There is no need for investment in new fossil fuel supply in our net zero pathway.

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Enabling Sustainability Success with Regenerative Regional GIS

A S2030 Presentation at the Esri GeoDesign Summit 2021:  

In this year of the 51st Earth Day celebration (April 22, 2021), humanity finds itself in trouble. The IPCC is predicting only 10 years left to make substantial progress on reversing climate change to avoid unrecoverable effects. Yet, climate change is only the visible tip of the larger, and relatively invisible, unaddressed, and more fundamental sustainability challenge. The ensuing sustainability response has progressed through a few modes since the first Earth Summit, Rio92. As laudable as your response has been, it seems to be stuck in the mode of too little too late for success in time. True or false? Why/why not? If so, what are the options? Go the the Initiative Presentation Page for more detail, links, and resources for a deeper understanding.

Presentation Summary & Primary Links:

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The Emerging Field of Sustainability Science

Sustainability science, as described by the PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America website), is “…an emerging field of research dealing with the interactions between natural and social systems, and with how those interactions affect the challenge of sustainability: meeting the needs of present and future generations while substantially reducing poverty and conserving the planet's life support systems.” Over the past 7 y, PNAS has published over 300 papers in its unique section on sustainability science and has received and reviewed submissions for many hundreds more. What kind of a science is sustainability science? The article by Bettencourt and Kaur (1) on the evolution and structure of sustainability science provides one answer . . . (PDF Article Link) Selected references:

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Climate Change is the Visible Problem – Regenerative Sustainability is the Invisible Solution

A recent article in the New York Times, “U.S. Cities Are Vastly Undercounting Emissions, Researchers Find” (John Schwartz, 2/2/2021), reports on a new study showing that “Inconsistent and flawed data is undercutting efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from American cities.” It asserts that more accurate measurement of city emissions is necessary for effective action as the US rejoins the Paris Agreement and the larger effort to reverse global climate change, but is it?

Although the point is a valid one, it is not the crux of the issue nor the whole solution. 

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Singapore Builds a Smart City

"Promising 42,000 new homes across five residential districts . . . , the eco-town will be the 24th new settlement built by Singapore's government since World War II. It is, however, the first with centralized cooling, automated trash collection and a car-free town center, which conservationists hope offers a roadmap for slashing carbon emissions in the Southeast Asian city-state. The development is being dubbed a "forest town" by officials," due to its abundant greenery and public gardens, and consistent with Singapore's global leadership in biophilic city planning and design (see: the CNN article,  Biophilic Cities Singapore Summit 2019 and Reflections on the Singapore Summit).

Gates on US's 4 Next Leadership Moves on Climate Change

Congress and the new administration can help put the world on a path to zero emissions.

That’s why we should create the National Institutes of Energy Innovation. This NIEI should be modeled on the phenomenally successful National Institutes for Health.

1.  Increase the supply of innovation.

2.  Increase the demand for innovation.

3.  Work globally.

4.  Prepare for a warming world.

Read the details here!

Esri GeoDesign Summit 2021(Feb) -- Resilient by Geodesign

Our planet and its inhabitants are facing new challenges for the first time in history—climate change, resource depletion, and massive migrations. Using geodesign, we aim to foster integrated and collaborative planning and design solutions for rapidly evolving landscapes in diverse contexts. We want to overcome challenges by connecting people, data, methods, and technology to be stronger and better prepared i.e., resilient by geodesign.  S2030's Session Description:  Enabling Sustainability Success with Regenerative Regional GIS, (Link) WED, 1/10/21, 9:25 a.m. — 9:45 a.m, Bio. GeoDesign Summit Home Page (click).  For more resources and post-Summit, see this S2030 Initiatives Page (Link)

Drawdown Conference (Jan 2021)

Project Drawdown is partnering with the National Council for Science and the Environment (NCSE) to present the Second International Drawdown Conference. “Research to Action: Science and Solutions for a Planet Under Pressure” will feature the latest scientific research and real-world actions to achieve drawdown and the regenerative future we want. 

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Project Drawdown Launches Labs

. . . a consortium of private sector partners working to go beyond ‘net zero’ to scale climate solutions in the world, within and outside their own operations.

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Saving the World’s Most Polluted "Citarum" River--A Litmus Test for Humanity

The Citarum River in Indonesia is the world’s most polluted river. One of the main polluters is the fashion industry: 500 textile factories throw their wastewater directly into the river.  See DW TV, 1 hr. Doc Film that resulted in the National Government committing to a clean Citarum River by 2025! Powerful.

The fact that this situation exists in 2020, in contrast to 1970, is a disturbing indictment of globalization. Scaling industry that pollutes with impunity and apparent ignorance, without organizational reflective and self-governing capacity or Nationally enlightened standards and regulatory capacity, is truly a failing of our humanity. 

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The Climate Clock is Running Down -- Will the Circle Remain Unbroken?

 But all is not lost if we pull together and respond intelligently, swiftly, and effectively. The innovation we need is bubbling up already across society. We simply need to recognize it, grab it, and use it.

This week's UN's Climate Summit released a sobering State of Climate Change report, United in Science.

Click the thumbnail image to the left for their eight key points. 

The primary finding is that global warming is occuring five times faster than our smartest scientists' best guesses from reports prepared in the 1990s and early 2000s. Under our current business-as-usual trajectory, we are on course to increase average temperature to 3 degrees celisius at minimum. Scientists expect an increase of two degrees to be the red zone, afterwhich there is little possibility of reversing a race to catastrophic, inhospitable climate conditions. 

Instead of following the previously recommended IPCC CO2 reduction path of peak emissions by 2017 with a reduction to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050, we must now reach peak emissions ASAP and reduce them more quickly, likely by 2040 or as early as possible.

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Regenerative Urbanism: The Meaning, Challenge, and Promise

If regenerative urbanism’s promise is true, then inventing cities that “make” more than they “take” will lead us out of our present sustainability planning predicament--current practice that cannot produce the needed systems-level sustainability performance or produce it quickly enough to avoid causing irreversible systems change. In so doing, we would also achieve the world’s new UN Sustainable Development Goals and Habitat III’s New Urban Agenda.  What a promise; what an opportunity! Let’s continue to deepen our understanding, turn up the innovation, make mid-course corrections, and keep on going!

Click here for the draft article or here for the published version.

Making Renewables Easy - State of Iowa Takes the Lead

Apple is locating its new data center in Iowa, all other things being equal, because "Iowa is the easiest state in the country for companies to purchase renewable energy."

In addition, "Governor Kim Reynolds added that Iowa can also ensure more reliable access to electric power, another key factor in Apple's decision. 'We have the geographic benefit of being statistically one of the safest areas in the United States, free from hurricanes, earthquakes, and rolling blackouts, that might threaten the integrity of data centers,' Reynolds said.

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Tesla's Big Batteries Make Renewables Work - Move Over Fossil Fuels

"Within 100 days (from July 7, 2017), there will be a huge battery system making South Australia’s energy grid clean, affordable and reliable, and benefitting the eastern states along with it."

"Renewable energy, which obviously wins on emissions, is now beating coal on cost. What’s more, with an energy grid managed effectively by people who want renewables to succeed, it is no less reliable than fossil fuels."

"Elon Musk’s agreement to build the world’s largest battery for South Australia isn’t just an extraordinary technological breakthrough that signs coal’s death warrant. It’s potentially a game changer in the way we do politics, reinserting the importance of basic reality into a debate which has been bereft of it for too long."

(Read More in the Guardian)

Future-ready City-Regions: The Next Competitive Edge?

A recent post by Alex Steffan poses some provocative challenges to urban planning, urban planners, and municipal executives around the world. In a sense, it illuminates the core challenge and intention of the world's new Sustainable Development Goals and New Urban Agenda. The following post paraphrases and excerpts the key points.

In light of our climate and our other planetary crises, many of us and our children will likely make residential location decisions in the coming years based on a city/region’s future-readiness. But which city to select; maybe the most "future-ready?"

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The World's New Urban Agenda & SDGs

With the world's adoption of new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the New Urban Agenda (NUA), years 2015 and 2016, respectively, were a watershed for urban policy and planning in general and sustainability in particular.

At no time in history has urban policy, planning, and sustainability been elevated to such central prominence.

Summaries and links to resources can be found in the following posts on the APA California Northern Sustainability Committee's web blog, Plan-it Sustainably, as follows:

• The UN’s New SDGs & Implications for Local Practice
• Habitat III And Bay Area Sustainability Planning

Regenerative Urbansism - a Summary

This idea for a literature review of the emerging theoretical and practice arena of what usefully can be called "regenerative urbanism," is worth the larger effort involved. Until then, this short summary and list of key resources will have to suffice.

As 21^st century planning and design accelerate out of the first decade, a variety of emerging ideas and practices in the planning-design-build professions with roots in the 1990s and beyond are coalescing around the theme of living – living cities, living buildings, cities alive, ecocities, biophilic cities—or more generally, living systems. The core concept of this theme and living systems is “regeneration.” Hence, the title regenerative urbanism, planning, design, etc.

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Earth Endangered by New Strain of Fact-Resistant Humans?

“These humans appear to have all the faculties necessary to receive and process information,” Davis Logsdon, one of the scientists who contributed to the study, said. “And yet, somehow, they have developed defenses that, for all intents and purposes, have rendered those faculties totally inactive.”

More worryingly, Logsdon said, “As facts have multiplied, their defenses against those facts have only grown more powerful.”

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