concern for the environment is now at the
Renee Obringer, et. al, The Overlooked Environmental Footprint of Increasing Internet Use, 167 Resources, Conservation & Recycling 105389 (2021) (explaining that the monthly carbon footprint of 15 1-hour meetings a week on a standard videoconferencing service would be reduced from 9.4 kg CO2e to 377 g CO2e by simply turning off the video
During the 1970's, you can find over one hundred sources where the media promoted global cooling alarmism, some with dire threats of a new ice age. In these you can find extreme weather events hyped as signs of the coming apocalypse and man-made pollution being blamed as the cause. Environmental extremists called for everything from outlawing
Source: unsplash Although shifting to cloud services can be potentially beneficial, the energy consumption of data centres is still going to swell up significantly. Today, IT-related services
To answer this question, a UCLA geography professor, Gregory Okin, conducted research on the environmental impact of America's pets. He found that dogs and cats in US households create about 64 million tons of carbon dioxide and methane annually, which is the equivalent of the climate impact that 13.6 million cars create in a year.
Birds of Conservation Concern. Commonly referred to as the UK Red List for birds, the status of birds has now been reviewed five times, Covering the UK, Channel Islands and Isle of Man. The latest review was published in December 2021, as Birds of Conservation Concern 5 (BOCC5). This updates the last assessment in 2015.
Sir David Attenborough has praised King Charles III for being at "the forefront" of concern about the natural world. "He took quite extreme lines when they were not as popular or as
rederciwil1977. Canada is dealing with a series of intense wildfires that have spread from the western provinces to Quebec, with hundreds of forest fires burning. Wind has carried smoke from the fires southward, triggering air-quality alerts throughout the United US Environmental Protection Agency EPA on Tuesday issued a poor air-quality alert for New England, a day after parts of Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota received a similar advisory. Last week, US officials as far south as Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania reported being affected by the a look at what you need to know at a glanceWhat’s happening?Smoke from Canada’s wildfires has been moving into the United States since last month. The most recent fires near Quebec have been burning for at least several EPA said hazy skies, reduced visibility and the odor of burning wood are likely, and that the smoke will linger for a few days in New map“It’s not unusual for us to get fire smoke in our area. It’s very typical in terms of north-west Canada,” said Darren Austin, a meteorologist and senior air-quality specialist with the Rhode Island department of environmental management. But the smoke usually has been aloft higher in the atmosphere, not affecting people’s health, he Quebec-area fires are big and relatively close, about 500 to 600 miles roughly 800 to 970km away from Rhode Island. And they followed wildfires in Nova Scotia, which resulted in a short-lived air-quality alert on 30 May, Austin the biggest concern?Air-quality alerts are triggered by a number of factors, including the detection of fine-particle pollution – known as “PM – which can irritate the lungs.“We have defenses in our upper airway to trap larger particles and prevent them from getting down into the lungs. These are sort of the right size to get past those defenses,” said Dr David Hill, a pulmonologist in Waterbury, Connecticut, and a member of the American Lung Association’s national board of directors. “When those particles get down into the respiratory space, they cause the body to have an inflammatory reaction to them.”A cyclist wears a mask due to poor air quality in Ottawa on 6 June. Photograph Sean Kilpatrick/APTrent Ford, the state climatologist in Illinois, said the atmospheric conditions in the upper midwest creating dry, warm weather made it possible for small particulates to travel hundreds of miles from the Canadian wildfires and linger for days.“It’s a good example of how complex the climate system is but also how connected it is,” Ford should be careful?Exposure to elevated fine particle pollution levels can affect the lungs and air-quality alerts caution “sensitive groups”, a large category that includes children, older adults and people with lung diseases, such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary who often are encouraged to go out and play, “are more susceptible to smoke for a number of reasons”, said Laura Kate Bender, the American Lung Association’s national assistant vice-president, healthy air. “Their lungs are still developing, they breathe in more air per unit of body weight.”What can you do for now?It’s a good time to put off that yardwork and outdoor exercise. If you go out, consider wearing an N95 mask to reduce your exposure to woman walks her dog along the Ottawa River in Ottawa as smoke from wildfires obscures Gatineau, Quebec, in the distance on 6 June. Photograph Sean Kilpatrick/APStay inside, keeping your doors, windows and fireplaces shut. It’s recommended that you run the air conditioning on a recirculation setting.“If you have filters on your home HVAC system, you should make sure they’re up to date and high quality,” Hill said. “Some people, particularly those with underlying lung disease, or heart disease, should consider investing in air purifiers for their homes.”
NEW YORK AP — Smoke from Canadian wildfires poured into the East Coast and Midwest on Wednesday, covering the capitals of both nations in an unhealthy haze, holding up flights at major airports, postponing Major League Baseball games and prompting people to fish out pandemic-era face officials asked other countries for additional help fighting more than 400 blazes nationwide that already have displaced 20,000 people. Air with hazardous levels of pollution extended into the New York metropolitan area, central New York state and parts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Massive tongues of unhealthy air extended as far as North Carolina and Indiana, affecting millions of people.“I can taste the air,” Dr. Ken Strumpf said in a Facebook post from Syracuse, New York, which was enveloped in an amber pall. The smoke, he later said by phone, even made him a bit dizzy. The air quality index, a Environmental Protection Agency metric for air pollution, exceeded a staggering 400 at times in Syracuse, New York City and Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley. A level of 50 or under is considered good; anything over 300 is considered “hazardous,” when even healthy people are advised to curtail outdoor physical activity. In Baltimore, Debbie Funk sported a blue surgical mask as she and husband, Jack Hughes, took their daily walk around Fort McHenry, a national monument overlooking the Patapsco River. The air hung thick over the water, obscuring the horizon.“I walked outside this morning, and it was like a waft of smoke,” said Funk. Canadian officials say this is shaping up to be the nation’s worst wildfire season ever. It started early on drier-than-usual ground and accelerated very quickly, exhausting firefighting resources across the country, fire and environmental officials from the blazes in various parts of the country has been lapping into the since last month but intensified with recent fires in Quebec, where about 100 were considered out of control Wednesday — which, unsettlingly, was national Clean Air Day in Canada. The smoke was so thick in downtown Ottawa, Canada’s capital, that office towers just across the Ottawa River were barely visible. In Toronto, Yili Ma said her hiking plans were canceled and she was forgoing restaurant patios, a beloved Canadian summer tradition.“I put my mask away for over a year, and now I’m putting on my mask since yesterday,” the 31-year-old lamented. Quebec Premier François Legault said the province currently has the capacity to fight about 40 fires — and the usual reinforcements from other provinces have been strained by conflagrations in Nova Scotia and elsewhere. Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre spokesperson Jennifer Kamau said more than 950 firefighters and other personnel have arrived from the Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, and more are due soon. In Washington, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said President Joe Biden has sent more than 600 firefighters and equipment to Canada. His administration has contacted some governors and local officials about providing assistance, she Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Twitter that he spoke by phone with Biden and “thanked him for all the help Americans are providing as we continue to fight these devastating wildfires.”The largest town in Northern Quebec — Chibougamau, population about 7,500 — was evacuated Tuesday, and Legault said the roughly 4,000 residents of the northern Cree town of Mistissini would likely have to leave Wednesday. But later in the day, Mistissini Chief Michael Petawabano said his community remains safe and asked residents to wait for instructions from Cree Quebec got some rain Wednesday, but Montreal-based Environment Canada meteorologist Simon Legault said no significant rain is expected for days in the remote areas of central Quebec where the wildfires are more National Weather Service meteorologist Zach Taylor said the current weather pattern in the central and eastern is essentially funneling in the smoke. Some rain should help clear the air somewhat in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic this weekend or early next week, though more thorough relief will come from containing or extinguishing the fires, he York Gov. Kathy Hochul said 1 million N95 masks would be available at state facilities. New York City closed beaches, and Mayor Eric Adams told residents to stay indoors as much as possible as smoke smudged out the skyline. Zoos in the Bronx and Central Park closed early and brought their animals inside. The Federal Aviation Administration paused some flights bound for LaGuardia Airport and slowed planes to Newark Liberty and Philadelphia because the smoke was limiting visibility. It also contributed to delayed arrivals at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, where a heavy haze shrouded the Washington Monument and forced the cancellation of outdoor tours. Major League Baseball put off games in New York and Philadelphia, and even an indoor WNBA game in Brooklyn was called off. On Broadway, “Killing Eve” star Jodie Comer had difficulty breathing and left the matinee of “Prima Facie” after 10 minutes; the show restarted with an understudy, show publicists said. “Hamilton” and “Camelot” canceled Wednesday evening performances, with “Hamilton” publicists saying the the deteriorating air quality “made it impossible for a number of our artists to perform.” In Central Park, the popular outdoor Shakespeare in the Park performances were put off through in multiple states canceled sports and other outdoor activities, shifting recess inside. Live horse racing was canceled Wednesday and Thursday at Delaware Park in Wilmington. Organizers of Global Running Day, a virtual 5K, advised participants to adjust their plans according to air Jersey closed state offices early, and some political demonstrations in spots from Manhattan to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, were moved indoors or postponed. Striking Hollywood writers were pulled off picket lines in the New York metropolitan area. The smoke exacerbated health problems for people such as Vicki Burnett, 67, who has asthma and has had serious bouts with bronchitis. After taking her dogs out Wednesday morning in Farmington Hills, Michigan, Burnett said, “I came in and started coughing and hopped back into bed.” Still, she stressed that she’s concerned for Canadians, not just herself. “It’s unfortunate, and I’m having some problems for it, but there should be help for them,” she reported from Toronto. Contributing were Associated Press journalists Randall Chase in Dover, Delaware; Michael Hill in Albany, New York; David Koenig in Dallas; Aamer Madhani in Washington; Brooke Schultz in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania; Mark Scolforo in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Lea Skene in Baltimore; Carolyn Thompson in Buffalo, New York; Ron Todt in Philadelphia; Corey Williams in West Bloomfield, Michigan; and Ron Blum, Mark Kennedy, Jake Offenhartz, Karen Matthews and Julie Walker in New York. ___This story has corrected the attribution of material about forecast for rain in Quebec to Montreal-based Environment Canada meteorologist Simon Legault, not Quebec Premier François Legault.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC recently released the first report of the sixth assessment cycle. Three others will follow in 2022. This volume of nearly 4,000 pages has observations on climate change from the past 150 years and projections for climate change up to the end of this century. It is being published 31 years after the first assessment cycle and eight years after the fifth assessment cycle. Overall, this latest report does not provide major new insights into climate change or the impact of human activity on it. It does, however, improve our understanding of the human role in climate change and reduce uncertainty about anticipated future impacts. By refining observation methods and improving the accuracy of climate models, the report makes it possible to better define the future impacts on the densely populated areas of southern Ontario and Québec. We are professors of construction engineering and members of the HC3 — Hydrology Climate Climate Change Laboratory at the École de technologie supérieure de Montréal. The laboratory specializes in the study of hydrology, climate and the impact of climate change on water resources. Warming twice as fast The average global temperature on Earth has increased C since the pre-industrial era. Climate projections predict a temperature increase between 2 C and C by the end of this century. This does not take into account the most pessimistic greenhouse gas emissions scenario, which is now considered improbable by most experts. Read more 5 things to watch for in the latest IPCC report on climate science This warming, however, is not geographically uniform. On the whole, southern Ontario and Québec are warming twice as rapidly as the rest of the world. Northern regions are warming three times as fast. The faster warming is mainly because of the ice–albedo feedback loop that is linked to the progressive loss of snow cover. This process means, among other things, that solar radiation, which is normally reflected by the snow, will be absorbed instead. We should therefore anticipate an average annual warming of 3 C to 6 C over southern Québec by the end of the century. Swimmers bob in the wave pool for the Super Aqua Club in Pointe-Calumet. The Montréal region had its warmest August on record. The Canadian Press/Ryan Remiorz However, the warming will not be evenly distributed across the seasons. Winters will warm significantly more than summer. This means future winters will be C warmer, with less snow cover and a decrease in spring flooding from melting. Changes in extreme events Rising temperatures have several other adverse effects, including changes in extreme events. The evidence that these are due to human activity has strengthened since the IPCC’s Fifth Report. It is now well established that human-induced greenhouse gas emissions have led to an overall increase in the frequency and/or intensity of some extreme weather and climate events since the pre-industrial era. Future projections on a global scale are consistent with this trend. At the regional scale, the magnitude of change varies according to local factors related to changes in land use, such as urbanization or an increase in the area used for agriculture, aerosol emissions into the atmosphere via industrial activity and feedback mechanisms, such as ice-albedo feedback. Read more Scientists moor ship in Arctic ice for a year to better understand climate change The report provides little detail about heat waves on a regional scale. That said, for North America, an increase in frequency and intensity is expected by the end of the century. All North American regions will also experience an increase in the intensity and frequency of warm extremes and a decrease in the frequency and intensity of cold extremes. Rainfall and flooding The projected increases in rainfall extremes will depend on a number of factors, including the duration of rainfall events and their rarity. Short-duration rainfall extremes that occur infrequently once every 10 years or more will become more intense. But a good portion of the existing water management infrastructure, which has a long life span, will adapt poorly to these increases. Floods from spring snow melt will likely decrease, due to the decrease in snow cover. But there may be a large increase in “flash floods,” caused by extreme summer and autumn rainfall. These are particularly likely to affect small rural catchments and urbanized areas. Firefighters make their way down a flooded street in Ste-Marthe-sur-la-Lac, in May 2019. With climate change, there will be a potentially large increase in flooding from extreme summer and fall rains. The Canadian Press/Ryan Remiorz The IPCC analyzed other indicators, including extreme heat, drought and winter conditions. Using these indicators, a number of conclusions can be drawn for southern Ontario and Québec. By the end of the century, the maximum daily temperature could regularly exceed 35 C during the summer months. Read more Extreme heat waves are putting lakes and rivers in hot water this summer Only the most pessimistic emissions scenario points to an increase in the severity of droughts. For the other scenarios, no clear signals emerge, which means further studies are clearly needed. The snow season is expected to shorten by the end of the century compared to 1995-2014. A shorter frost season is also expected. Adapting to climate change Ontario and Québec are warming and are not immune to the effects of anthropogenic climate change. While efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions must be pursued, it is essential to implement adequate adaptation measures to face an uncertain future climate. This first volume of the IPCC’s sixth report mentions the need to strengthen climate services, which is encouraging. These services are provided by a variety of organizations around the world. They are aimed at providing climate information to support decision-making, by linking science and data production with communication and application by citizens and decision makers. More details will be provided in the second volume of the report.
Public concern about the environment has soared to record levels in the UK since the visit of Greta Thunberg to parliament and the Extinction Rebellion protests in environment is now cited by people as the third most pressing issue facing the nation in tracking data from the polling company YouGov that began in 2010. Environment was ranked after Brexit and health, but is ahead of the economy, crime and people rate environmental problems such as the climate crisis and global annihilation of wildlife even higher, placing them second behind Brexit. Almost half of 18- to 24-year-olds chose environmental issues as one of the nation’s three most pressing concerns, compared with 27% of the general for YouGov poll on what people think are most pressing issues for UKA similar surge in public anxiety has taken place in Germany, where the Green party performed particularly well in the European parliament elections last the EU, the number of Green MEPs increased by 40% to 69, making them the fourth-largest grouping. In the UK, the number of Green MEPs rose from three to seven and the party won more votes than the the Swedish teenager whose solo school strike for climate action helped create a global movement, told MPs in April that the UK government’s active support for fossil fuels and airport expansion was “beyond absurd”.She added “This ongoing irresponsible behaviour will no doubt be remembered in history as one of the greatest failures of humankind.”Extinction Rebellion activists also mounted a week of high-profile protests, mainly in the capital, in which roads were blocked and more than 1,000 people were arrested. On 1 May, MPs endorsed a Labour motion to declare a formal climate and environment previous record high for the environment in the YouGov tracking data was 23% in February 2014, following extreme winter storms and flooding in Somerset Levels and other parts of the south of England. But the concern did not outlast the poor weather, with the number of people worried about the environment falling by half within two Bartley, the co-leader of the Green party, said “Nearly half of the young people of the UK are putting the environment among their top concerns, and no wonder. They can see governments making decisions about their future that take no account of our climate emergency.“In sounding the alarm about the state of our environment, we are the party on the right side of history. Now we are aiming to step up to lead the action in this national emergency.”
concern for the environment is now at the