Climate crisis is “hitting harder and sooner” than forecast, warn scientists

Countercurrents | September 23, 2019

Arctic summer sea ice has declined at a rate of 12 percent per decade over the past four decades: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution: Matt Osman

A new report – United in Science – published ahead of key UN climate talks has warned the world is falling drastically behind in the race to avert climate disaster, with the five-year period ending in 2019 the hottest on record.

The report comes in the wake of Friday’s global climate strike, which saw millions of people, mostly students, across the globe hit the streets to demand more action against climate crisis.

Climate Crisis: Warming could accelerate and water may be scarce for power plants in Asia, suggest studies

A Journal of People report

The rate of global warming could increase in the future while over-tapped waterways could leave developing parts of Asia without enough water to cool power plants in the near future, warns new studies. Another study finds direct link between surface melting and short bursts of glacier acceleration in Antarctica.

Accelerated warming

The rate at which the planet warms in response to the ongoing buildup of heat-trapping carbon dioxide gas could increase in the future, according to new simulations of a comparable warm period more than 50 million years ago, said Jiang Zhu, Christopher J. Poulsen and Jessica E. Tierney in their report — “Simulation of Eocene extreme warmth and high climate sensitivity through cloud feedbacks” — published in on September 18 in the journal Science Advances (2019, 5:9)

Potential economic benefits is 4-5 times the size of investments in energy system to address climate crisis

A Journal of People report

New research suggests that over the next few decades, acting to reduce climate crisis is expected to cost much less than the damage otherwise inflicted by climate change on people, infrastructure and ecosystems, and “potential economic benefits arising from limiting warming to 1.5°C may be at least four or five times the size of the investments needed in the energy system until 2050.”

According to the study by O. Hoegh-Guldberg, D. Jacob, M. Taylor, T. Guillén Bolaños, M. Bindi, S. Brown, I. A. Camilloni, A. Diedhiou, R. Djalante, K. Ebi, F. Engelbrecht, J. Guiot, Y. Hijioka, S. Mehrotra, C. W. Hope, A. J. Payne, H.-O. Pörtner, S. I. Seneviratne, A. Thomas, R. Warren and G. Zhou – The human imperative of stabilizing global climate change at 1.5°C – published in Science on September 19, 2019, reducing the magnitude of climate crisis is also a good investment.

The scientists conducting the research have urgently called on world leaders to accelerate efforts to tackle climate crisis.

The Quiet Disappearance of Birds in North America

Though the continent has 3 billion fewer birds than it did in 1970, those losses are hard to glean because it’s the commonest species that have been hit hardest.

by Ed Yong

The Atlantic | September 19, 2019

In the early afternoon of September 1, 1914, Martha the passenger pigeon, the last of her kind in the world, passed away, and her entire species disappeared with her. But before that instant of extinction, there had been decades of decline, as hunters killed what was once the most common bird in the world. Billions of passenger pigeons became millions, thousands, and then hundreds, until eventually one became none. Few people took note of this decline as it happened: There still seemed to be a lot of pigeons, and their abundance obscured their downfall.

History is now repeating itself—across the entire avian world.

Cuba presents report on impact of U.S. blockade this past year

Granma | September 20, 2019

Photo: Cubaminrex

Cuba’s Foreign Minister, Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, offers a press conference today to present the country’s report to the General Assembly outlining the full impact of the U.S. blockade over this last year

The meeting with national and foreign media is being broadcast live on the Ministry’s YouTube channel and the Cubaminrex Facebook page.The resolution entitled “The need to end the economic, commercial, and financial blockade imposed by the United States of America against Cuba” will be presented for the 28th time to the United Nations General Assembly, where the international community has repeatedly expressed its support for the island and condemnation of the hostile U.S. policy.

We are not entering a new Special Period

Granma | September 16, 2019

by Yudy Castro Morales , Alejandra García,  Yisel Martínez García,  Ana Laura Palomino García,  Mauro Díaz, Elena Godínez

Photo: Cubaminrex

ALTHOUGH the energy situation the country is facing, along with other limitations, could suggest the emergence of a new Special Period in Peacetime, as enemies of the Revolution would like us to believe, Cuba is far from returning to such a state of affairs.

This view has been emphasized and substantiated by Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez.

Humanity and solidarity require us to defy US sanctions against Cuba and other countries

by Karen Lee

Morning Star | September 22, 2019

Karen Lee is Labour MP for Lincoln

THE Labour movement has a proud history of international solidarity and chairing the Latin America fringe is an event I look forward to at Labour Party conference each year. Conference will once again send a clear message to Donald Trump: no more blockades and sanctions.

The US blockade against Cuba has now been in place for more than 56 years and has cost the Cuban economy over $933 billion. The economic sanctions are an infringement of universal rights, a unilateral violation of international law, and a barrier to the development of Cuba and its people.

Intellectuals join forces to denounce U.S. attacks on Venezuela

by Madeleine Sautié

Granma | September 20, 2019

“Your disease is chronic.” Photo: Osval

“Heroic, Bolivarian, revolutionary Venezuela calls upon our sister peoples of the continent and the world,” said Ernesto Villegas, minister of People’s Power for Culture in the nation, during an event held at the Venezuelan embassy in Havana, by the Cuban chapter of the Network of Intellectuals, Artists and Social Movements in Defense of Humanity (REDH) to support a letter from Venezuelans to UN General Secretary António Guterres and the peoples of the world, which has been co-signed by millions. The campaign is being promoted with the hashtag #noMoretrump.

Europe: The cracks are beginning to show

by Frank Lee

The Greanville Post | September 21, 2019

THE NATO BUILD-UP

2014: The expansion of NATO in the late 20th and early 21st centuries had posed a serious strategic threat to Russia’s security. In 1999 the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland joined NATO. In 2004 they were followed by the Baltics, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Slovenia; Albania and Croatia joined in 2009.

This influx was in addition to most of the western European states which had been members of NATO since the ‘Iron Curtain’ came down soon after hostilities had ceased in Europe in 1945. In all, 28 countries are now members of the alliance. Non-NATO members including, Sweden, Finland, were brought into line with EU/NATO policy after their accession to the Lisbon Treaty. Thus economically, politically and militarily the West had arrived at Russia’s western borders.