Palm Oil and Global Warming

sawyer · Oct 31, 2017

Well here's a few hundred more things you better take out of your cupboard and off your shopping list if you are an alarmist. Your world gets smaller every day.
"I also saw acre after acre of once-pristine rainforests that had been transformed into barren moonscapes; rivers devoid of life and polluted by palm oil effluent and heavy metals; orphaned baby orangutans whose mothers were killed in palm oil plantations as agricultural pests. I learned that the forest home of many of these magical creatures is disappearing rapidly and suffering from the impacts of slash-and-burn agriculture.
"Palm oil is an edible vegetable oil from the fruit of the West African oil palm tree. It is used for biofuel, cosmetics, snack foods, ice cream, lotion and soap, and is in about half of all products on store shelves. The oil palm tree is grown in tropical regions (mostly in Indonesia and Malaysia, but now spreading all over the tropics, including Africa), and rain forests are being cleared to make room for more of this crop. Since rain forests are the largest carbon sinks, when destroyed they release massive amounts of carbon dioxide. Deforestation is the second largest manmade source of atmospheric carbon dioxide, after fossil fuel burning.

NASA satellites make it possible for scientists to monitor changes in rainforest landscapes around the world and to collect images of areas that are actively burning (here and here). In addition, the AIRS instrument on the Aqua satellite can keep an eye on the carbon monoxide produced from these fires. These satellites and instruments are part of a fleet of 18 Earth-observing satellites that are monitoring our home planet 24/7."

https://climate.nasa.gov/blog/1144/

waltky · Dec 8, 2017

Granny says, "Dat's right - we all gonna fry like a frog inna kettle...

Global warming outpacing forecasts
Fri, Dec 08, 2017 - BIGGER CHALLENGE: By tracking how much sunlight gets bounced back into space, the study showed that the more alarming projections are clearly aligned with that data

The UN’s forecast for global warming is about 15 percent too low, which means end-of-the-century temperatures could be 0.5?C higher than previously predicted, a study released on Wednesday said. The prediction makes the already daunting challenge of capping global warming at “well under” 2?C — the cornerstone goal of the 196-nation Paris Agreement — all the more difficult, the authors said. “Our results suggest that achieving any given global temperature stabilization target will require steeper greenhouse gas emissions reductions than previously calculated,” they wrote. A half-degree increase on the thermometer could translate into devastating consequences. With only 1?C of global warming so far, the planet has already seen a crescendo of deadly droughts, heatwaves and super storms engorged by rising seas.

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which provides the scientific foundation for global climate policy, projects an increase in the Earth’s average surface temperature of about 4.5?C by 2100 if carbon pollution continues unabated, but there is a very large range of uncertainty — 3.2?C to 5.9?C — around that figure, reflecting different assumptions and methods in the dozens of climate models the panel takes into account. “The primary goal of our study was to narrow this range of uncertainty and to assess whether the upper or lower end is more likely,” said lead author Patrick Brown, a researcher at the Carnegie Institution for Science at Stanford University in California. By factoring in decades of satellite observations which track how much sunlight gets bounced back into space, the study showed that the more alarming projections are clearly aligned with that data and the warming that has been measured so far. “Our findings eliminate the lower end of this range,” Brown said. “The most likely warming is about 0.5?C greater than what the raw model results suggest.”

One scientist not involved in the research described it as a “step-change advance” in the understanding of how hot our planet is likely to become. “We are now more certain about the future climate, but the bad news is that it will be warmer than we thought,” University of Reading professor of meteorology William Collins said. The study, published in the journal Nature, not only narrows the temperature range, but reduces the degree of uncertainty as well. “If emissions follow a commonly used ‘business as usual’ scenario, there is a 93 percent chance that global warming will exceed 4?C by century’s end,” coauthor Ken Caldeira said.

Up to now, there was barely more than a coin-toss certainty that the Earth would breach the 4?C barrier by 2100 under that story line, but even if one assumes a more optimistic future in which humanity rapidly accelerates the global economy’s transition from “brown” to “green” energy, the findings still apply, the authors said. “We should expect greater warming than previously calculated for any given emissions scenario,” they wrote. Brown and Caldeira “have checked and corrected all the models, revealing they underestimated potential warming by up to 15 percent” City, University of London climatologist Mark Maslin said. “This means international action to keep global temperature below 2?C, or even 1.5?C [an aspirational goal in the Paris Agreement], will require cutting carbon emissions deeper and faster.”

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2017/12/08/2003683638
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waltky · May 8, 2018

Global Warming Threatens Marine Wildlife with Extinction...

Hotter Seas Threaten Marine Wildlife with Extinction, Researchers Say
May 07, 2018 — Polar bears and other iconic animals could be extinct by the end of the century if ocean temperatures continue to rise at the current rate, marine biologists warned Monday.

Warming temperatures caused by climate-changing emissions may result in a catastrophic loss of marine wildlife and drastic changes to ocean food webs by 2100, scientists at the Florida Institute of Technology and the University of North Carolina said in a paper published in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Ocean temperatures on rise

Much current marine life will be unable to tolerate ocean temperatures that are projected to increase by 2.8 degrees Celsius on average, according to the study. “With warming of this magnitude, we expect to lose many, if not most, animal species from marine protected areas by the turn of the century,” said the study's lead author, John Bruno, a biologist at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

A polar bear keeps close to her young along the Beaufort Sea coast in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska

Marine protected areas, established as sanctuaries for polar bears, coral reefs and other wildlife threatened by human activities such as fishing and oil extraction, have failed to protect species from the impacts of global warming, the scientists said. In Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, a large number of corals already have been destroyed by bleaching and diseases related to higher temperatures, the study noted.

Poles are most at risk

The protections in place will be ineffective by 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise at the current rate, researchers said. Reduced oxygen concentrations in the ocean — one consequence of global warming — will make marine protected areas uninhabitable to most species, they argued.

Richard Aronson, a co-author of the study and head of the department of ocean engineering and marine sciences at Florida Tech, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that wildlife in the Arctic and Antarctic is particularly at risk. “Oceanic warming is happening most rapidly at the poles. Warming will threaten polar ecosystems generally, including iconic wildlife like polar bears and penguins,” he said in an email.

Oceans absorb gases

Around 90 percent of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases is absorbed by oceans, Aronson said. “We have to take bold steps individually and as a society to control emissions. Shifting away from our dependence on fossil fuels would be a major step in the right direction,” he said. “Stabilizing emissions over the next few decades could cut the rate of warming in half,” he added.

https://www.voanews.com/a/hotter-se...-with-extinction-researchers-say/4384102.html
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crank · May 8, 2018

The horrors of palm oil have been known about for years. Hard to imagine anyone is still buying products which contain the stuff, in 2018.

kazenatsu · Sep 30, 2020

US says it will block palm oil from large Malaysian producer
September 30, 2020
The United States will detain shipments of palm oil and its products from a major producer in Malaysia after a wide range of labor abuse indicators were found, including physical and sexual violence and forced child labor. The company is FGV Holdings Berhad, one of the world’s largest palm oil companies, and is closely connected to Felda, which is owned by the Malaysian government.
The order comes only a week after an Associated Press investigation exposed a litany of labor abuses in the palm oil industry in Malaysia and Indonesia, which together produce around 85% of the world supply.

https://apnews.com/article/malaysia-archive-asia-e2258c8e29cf5dbc6906d14303614679

politicalcenter · Dec 10, 2020

Palm oil.... Heart attack in a bottle.

crank · Dec 12, 2020

And it's now 2020. Are people STILL buying palm oil products?

Jolly Penguin · Dec 19, 2020

Sadly palm oil is still big business. Indonesian orangutans (beautiful creatures) have had their habitats cut down dramatically and they may become endangered very soon all because of this.

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Palm Oil and Global Warming

sawyer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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sawyer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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