Southern Bookman

Globe has six-month opportunity to reduce carbon emissions, IEA chief says

Pandemic recovery plans give the world a last chance to build a green economy, according to the International Energy Agency chief.

Nations must take action to reduce carbon emissions in the next six months or climate change devastation will be unavoidable, IEA Chief Executive Fatih Birol told The Guardian.

Global emissions are rising again with the haphazard reopening from the coronavirus shutdown. In April, emissions fell an average of 17 percent over last year's totals, according to media reports. But in June, CO2 emissions were just 5 percent less than in 2019.

An IEA report said that the world will spend $9 trillion in economic stimulus plans in the next few months. That money should be spent on green jobs to make buildings more energy efficient and on solar and wind power projects, the IEA said.

Spending decisions for the six-month period will determine the economy's structure for the next three years, Birol said. Without major programs now, emissions will keep rising, making climate change inescapable.

 

World hurtling toward environmental disaster, reports indicate

Humanity keeps racing toward destruction beyond the coronavirus pandemic, recent reports say.

The globe's sixth mass extinction rushes forward unabated, according to a recent report from the National Academy of Sciences. The study focused on the alarming loss of vertebrates as their habitat is destroyed by human development. The species extinctions threaten human life, the report warns.

"The ongoing sixth mass extinction may be the most serious environmental threat to the persistence of civilization, because it is irreversible," the study said.

"Thousands of populations of critically endangered vertebrate animal species have been lost in a century, indicating that the sixth mass extinction is human caused and accelerating. The acceleration of the extinction crisis is certain because of the still fast growth in human numbers and consumption rates"

Climate change is also bearing down, another report found.

Carbon dioxide levels in May rose to their highest level in human history, scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego announced last week.

The amount of carbon in the atmosphere rose to a once unfathomable 417 parts per million, as recorded in May by the Mauna Loa Observatory in the Pacific. That's the highest atmospheric level of CO2 in millions of years, the report noted. The world breached the ominous threshold of 400 parts per million in 2014.

Carbon emissions have declined during the pandemic economic shutdown, but not enough to change the amount in the atmosphere.

"The rate of increase during 2020 does not appear to reflect reduction in pollution emissions due to the sharp, worldwide economic slowdown in response to the coronavirus pandemic," the report found. "The reason is that the drop in emissions would need to be large enough to stand out from natural CO2 variability, caused by how plants and soils respond to seasonal and annual variations of temperature, humidity, soil moisture, etc.

"These natural variations are large, and so far the emissions reductions associated with COVID19 do not stand out. If emissions reductions of 20 to 30 percent were sustained for six to 12 months, then the rate of increase of CO2 measured at Mauna Loa would be slowed."

With the United States and the world reopening their economies, emissions will again climb. There are no ventilators for the world.

As scientists sounded their alarm. the Trump administration carried out another assault on environmental laws. Using the coronavirus as a pretext, Trump issued an executive order to halt environmental impact statements for pipelines, highways and other infrastructure projects. Such assessments are the hallmark of the Environmental Policy Act signed by Richard Nixon 50 years ago.

Trump might love Nixon's law and order tactics. But he hates the GOP president's groundbreaking environmental legislation as much as he does Obama's programs.

 

 

 

 

Coronavirus etiquette while watiing for the dermatologist

A crowded doctor's waiting room made social distancing difficult.

The receptionist at the dermatologist's office took my temperature with one of those instruments held to the forehead. I also followed instructions to wash my hands before seeing the doctor, ducking into a small bathroom.

Most people in the waiting room wore face masks. I was amused at the variety of styles; one fellow wore a mask with Georgia Bulldogs insignia, making me wish I had one decorated with the purple and gold of LSU, my alma mater. Alas, I wore a bland white mask, albeit the sturdy N-95 model I'd acquired from my neighborhood pharmacist early in the pandemic shutdown.

We tried to keep six feet away from each other, moving from place to place in a strange game of musical chairs. When called to the doctor, we walked too close to those seated, but courtesy, compassion and a rueful humor ruled.

Over the years, I'd made countless trips to the medical building on one of Peachtree Dunwoody Road's generic suburban corners. Sitting with the others in the waiting room, I felt I was in a different world, its fate not yet known.

 

 

Laurie Garrett's reporting a valuable antidote to coronavirus misinformation

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Laurie Garrett has emerged as one of the most informed, rational voices giving information about the coronavirus pandemic.

Garrett, who predicted such a global outbreak in her best-selling book "The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance," appeared on the shows of CNN's Anderson Cooper and MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell Tuesday night, giving a dose of reality to delusions about rapid development of a Covid-19 vaccine. The Council on Foreign Relations member gave a similar fact-based analysis to The New York Times' Frank Bruni in his Sunday column.

In Bruni's column, Garrett, who won the Pulitzer at Newsday for her reporting on the AIDS outbreak, pointed out how the pandemic has exposed the decline of the Centers for Disease Control under the Trump administration. Like other public health experts, Garrett decried the CDC's inadequate response to the outbreak.

Under Garrett's "best-case scenario," a vaccine could be developed in 36 months and halt the disease globally. But this would require any company that develops the vaccine to forgo profits and share the drug with other manufacturers. Another factor would be whether the vaccine could be given orally or by skin patch, eliminating the need for large quantities of syringes to be produced.

If a vaccine is developed, Garrett believes it should be desseminated throughout the world, even to remote places such as the Himalayas. She also calls for offering the drug to militant groups and countries like Iran. The Trump administration's scorn for international cooperation would prevent such sharing.

Garrett has also called for targeted testing, rather than the diffuse operations taking place throughout the country. She points out that someone who tests negative one day can still be infected the next. Rather than constant widespread retesting, Garrett says that testing of a select group can determine the extent of infections in a larger population, giving necessary information for the reopening of businesses and schools.

With the onslaught of conflicting information about the pandemic, Garrett's clear, rational reporting stands out. Beyond Bruni's column, The New York Times would provide a valuable public service by giving her a frequent forum on its op-ed page.

 

Coronavirus pandemic brings record drop in carbon emissions

Global carbon emissions are projected to decline by a record of nearly 8 percent this year because of the coronavirus pandemic, the International Energy Agency said Thursday.

But the IEA said the world will need to reduce emissions by that percentage each year through 2030 to keep global warming at 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures, the Paris Accords threshold to avoid the worst effects of climate change.

Unfortunately, emissions likely will spike again when the pandemic ends and demand for oil and coal increases. The IEA called upon nations to begin a shift toward renewable energy sources during the pandemic.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has drawn praise for her handling of the coronavirus crisis, has called for economic changes to lower carbon demand.

The United States cut emissions by 9 percent during the first quarter of 2020, the agency said. But the Trump administration has slashed carbon restrictions during the pandemic and boosted the declining oil and coal industries. Trump on Thursday called for a "return to normal," an economy of ever increasing emissions.

Along with economic devastation and a soaring death rate, the coronavirus pandemic has shown the way to significantly reduce emissions and avoid the worst effects of climate change.

 

 

Chastain Park's busy trails make coronavirus seem far away

Walkers, runners and dogs filled Chastain Park's trails Friday morning, a disconnect from the coronavirus pandemic's grim tidings.

The wonderful old North Fulton Golf is open to the public, giving non-golfers hillside views, Nancy Creek pathways and the beauty of sand traps, greens and fairways.

Some who have discovered the WPA-era course are calling for the land to be converted into a general-use park. If the property remains devoted to golf, perhaps it could be open to the general public one day a week, as is the custom with the Old Course at St. Andrews, Scotland.

Old oaks and magnolias beneath a perfect blue sky illuminated how the shutdown has helped the environment. That's good news for climate change; if the world has shown such healing in a month, a longer pause could bring significant emissions reductions. But that would require huge public spending to overcome the severe economic disruptions.

Trump and his GOP followers want to rush back to the "normal" economy. As the shutdown continues, the world could begin analyzing which parts of the pre-pandemic economy should be saved and which jettisoned.

But Trump, in his latest assault on environmental regulations, is slashing mercury-emissions regulations, a boon to the outmoded coal industry. Trump is also aiding the oil and gas business, as the pandemic shows the need to boost "clean" industries.

Social distancing was the rule at Chastain Park, although a couple of joggers hurried past inside of the sweat-spray boundary. A few trail users wore face masks, but most were content with the open air.

With Georgia not expected to reach its Corvid-19 peak until June, I wondered how many of those at the park would be infected and die, including myself. On a gorgeous Friday morning,  the threat seemed far away.

Season's greetings: More bad news on climate change

As the Christmas lights grow more opulent and ubiquitous commercials hawk gas-guzzling autos as gifts, alarming climate change reports mount.

Despite an impassioned plea by Greta Thunberg, Time magazine's Person of the Year and  Donald Trump irritant, the UN's COP 25 conference in Madrid collapsed, torpedoed by the United States, Brazil and Australia. The conference's purpose was to reaffirm carbon-reduction goals set by each country in the 2016 Paris agreement.

New York magazine writer and "Uninhabitable Earth" author David Wallace-Wells in a report on the failed UN conference outlines the folly of Australia denying climate change as wildfires burn, droughts grow worse and coral reefs die.

Trump has pulled the United States from the treaty, making the U.S. the only country refusing to make a commitment to cut carbon emissions. But no country has taken significant action to meet its carbon reduction goals.

Carbon output rose to an all-time high in 2019, breaking the record set in 2018, according to reports.

In a ray of good news, the global increase in fossil fuel emissions fell to 0.2 percent, after a 2 percent rise in 2018, Scientific American said. The reduction came from a 10 percent reduction in U.S. coal use, despite the Trump administration's campaign to revive the coal industry. Much of Europe also had a similar reduction in coal burning, the magazine reported.

But India and China boosted its coal dependency. A rise in natural gas usage also played a part in the emissions increase, although the fuel emits less carbon than coal.

Another message in this season of bad tidings: The ocean off the coast of California is turning acidic much faster than other ocean areas. That's a death knell for the spiny lobster, the market squid, the Dungeness crab, The New York Times reported. Hear the sea lions honking?

As the oceans absorb more carbon dioxide, they are turning more acidic, with the process going faster off the coast of California. And one more ominous report found that the oceans' oxygen levels are declining, raising the threat to sealife, not to mention our own.

Tidings of comfort and joy? Arctic melting accelerates. Greenland's ice disappears, raising sea levels. Soon the carol will be "'I'm dreaming of a white Greenland, just like the one I used to know."

We keep ignoring those urgent wake-up calls.

Still, we must hope, as the Christmas carols say.

 

Leonardo Da Vinci exhbit at Louvre reflects unity of his artistic, scientific work

Leonardo da Vinci's astonishing life unified art and science, which later tragically split into separate realms.

A monumental exhibit at the Louvre in Paris that opened Thursday reflects how Leonardo's art and scientific endeavors reflected each other. The exhibit is a major cultural event, with extensive reviews in The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and other publications.

Marking the 500th anniversary of Leonardo's death, the exhibit gathers 160 drawings, manuscripts, sculptures and paintings organized to trace Leonardo's development from youth to old age.

Adding to the Louvre's collection, major museums from around the world lent works to the exhibit, the result of intense negotiations, as detailed in a recent Wall Street Journal article.

A last minute court ruling in Italy allowed Leonardo's delicate Vitruvian Man diagram to travel from Venice to Paris. Its artistry and scientific precision is on a spectrum with his great paintings such as John the Baptist, the Madonna of the Rocks and the Virgin and Child With St. Anne.

Leonard's most famous painting, the Mona Lisa, remains on another floor of the Louvre. The enigmatic painting receives a throng of visitors, which would make the exhbit's crowds unmanageable.

A portrait of the elderly Leonardo drawn by one of his assistants comes at the close of the exhibit, a testament to Leonardo's humanity.

The Louvre has gathered a bountiful selection of Leonardo's scattered works into a comprehensive whole. As humanity's worst attributes gain prominence, the Leonardo exhibit shows our highest aspirations.

 

 

 

Thinking about climate change at a luxury beach resort

I tried to enjoy our visit to a resort on the Atlantic Ocean last weekend.

Before our trip through Georgia to north Florida, a U.N. report said that the world's oceans are endangered by climate change. The oceans have exhausted their capacity to absorb carbon. As the oceans warm, acidity rises, threatening sealife. Melting ice will raise sea levels, eventually flooding the luxury condos and hotels at places like Amelia Island, where we stayed.

Witnessing the Atlantic's majesty gives the illusion that the ocean is invulnerable to human activity. But Islands of plastic foul the Pacific. The Atlantic is warming. Coral reefs and fish are dying.. Already, cities like Miami experience regular flooding. Unable to break my habit of reading a newspaper, I saw something about right whales dying after hurling themselves onto dry land.

Like the other guests, we enjoyed the ocean, the swimming pools, the restaurants, the luxury shops. We walked along the golf course, which requires gallons of water to stay green.

On a cruise to Cumberland Island, we saw dolphins, a shark, ospreys and other birds, and Cumberland's feral horses. The tour guide said wild shrimp flourish. Long polluted, the Amelia River is now clean, and oyster beds have returned.  Nature seemed fine.

Looking at the waves crash against the beach, I couldn't stop thinking about that U.N. report.  The ocean, from where human life emerged, is in serious trouble.

We kept seeing small children, newborn babies and pregnant women. Congratulating a mother with a 4-week-old infant, I realized that the child likely wil live until 2100. If the world doesn't act soon to stop climate change, the baby during her life will experience a far more desolate world than ours.

I did well enjoying the luxury surroundings until I saw sprinklers spraying an abandoned tennis court, which received more water than the surrounding shrubbery. Gallons of water wasted.

Before heading home, we filled up with gasoline. As we reached Atlanta, the gas tank was almost empty. Along with the others hurtling down the highway, we had sent emissions into the atmosphere. A radio talk show said that a country plans zero carbon emissions by 2050. I said to myself, "2050? We don't have that much time."

The 90-degree days march into October.

 

 

Hospital stay shows benefits of business-based health-care system

Back home after nine days in Piedmont Hospital, I'm grateful for life's daily blessings.

My stay in the Buckhead hospital where my three children were born and received care for a series of childhood scrapes and where my wife and I have undergone several medical procedures made me even more skeptical about Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren's Medicare for All plans.

I'm covered by Medicare, supplemented by the private insurance company I kept when I accepted a buyout from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution now 12 years ago. Piedmont's quality of care strengthened my support for our private-based health-care system.

As David Leonhardt noted in Monday's New York Times, Sanders and Warren's plan to abolish private insurance companies is highly unpopular except for a narrow segment of Democratic supporters. I don't know how a profit-based hospital like Piedmont would fare under the Sanders-Warren plan, but making it a public hospital like Grady would be a mistake.

During my Piedmont stay, I was amazed at the number of people employed by the hospital, from nurses and personal-care attendants to dining service employees, physician's assistants, nurse practitioners and doctors. The Piedmont staff is a microcosm of Atlanta.

Two years ago, I spent a week at Grady because of the same heart condition. Grady's care was excellent, but I found Piedmont's more comprehensive and responsive to my needs. I fear the Sanders-Warren proposals would bring an erosion of care in both hospitals.

Joe Biden's public-private health care system would preserve the strengths of the present system, while enhancing Obamacare's gains. Rather than Medicare for All, a Medicaid expansion would benefit millions. As Leonhardt points out, the Sanders-Warren plan would be disastrous for the Democrats' effort to win back the White House and Senate.

After receiving another up-close view of the American health system, I'm happy to be back home, grateful for the benefits of our health-care system.