By Nicole Leonard, July 21, 2018

It’s official – Ireland has become the world’s first nation to commit to divest fully from fossil fuels! The bill is expected to become law by the end of the year, and Ireland’s €8bn sovereign fund will start ditching all its oil, coal and gas assets.

Big kudos also to Costa Rica — they have banned all fossil fuels in a country that already gets 99% of its energy from renewable sources.

Speaking at the Vatican, Pope Francis called on the climate movement to exert ‘citizen pressure’ ahead of a Global Climate Summit this September. The Pope has called for people power on September 8.

In Ukraine, Zhytomyr became the first Eastern European city to commit to go 100% renewable. Local groups are working closely with the mayor to develop a roadmap and robust plan to get there.

In the Philippines, a parish community came together in a bold stand against coal. They’re powering their church with solar instead.

In Europe, summertime creates opportunities for massive direct action against fossil fuel infrastructure. We know what it’s like taking part for the people at this year’s Czech Republic climate camp, where people came together to block coal infrastructure. And it’s not the only place – climate camps and mass blockades of fracking and pipeline sites are happening across Europe this summer, everywhere from Lancashire in the UK to Poland, Germany and Italy. Resistance is fertile.

Internet Source: http://act.350.org/mailings/view/47975?t=1&akid=47975%2E3252452%2EU7ins7

William H. Schlesinger

Science 23 Mar 2018: Vol. 359, Issue 6382, pp. 1328-1329
DOI: 10.1126/science.aat2305

Summary of Article in Science Magazine

James Watt’s steam engine vaulted coal to its major role as a fuel for the Industrial Revolution. Today, about 40% of the world’s electricity is generated in coal-fired power plants, consuming more than 80% of the coal mined each year.

Because combustion of coal produces carbon dioxide (CO2) and other air pollutants, efforts to combat climate change have now turned to seeking alternatives to coal. Natural gas is cleaner and less expensive but, like coal, returns fossil carbon to the atmosphere.

Recently, attention has focused on woody biomass—a return to firewood—to generate electricity. Trees remove CO2 from the atmosphere, and burning wood returns it. But recent evidence shows that the use of wood as fuel is likely to result in net CO2 emissions and may endanger forest biodiversity.

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6382/1328?utm_campaign=toc_sci-mag_2018-03-22&et_rid=17071267&et_cid=1923453

To say that if we merely reduce emissions fast enough we can keep warming below 1.5 degrees flies in the face of known facts. We are already past one degree, and it’s estimated that the cooling effects of air pollution mostly from India and China add up to a degree–so if we get their emissions cut off, or even clean up their smokestacks a lot as they are no doubt working to do, that adds another degree.

That’s approximately two degrees of warming if we stopped all emissions today. The only way we could possibly remain below two degrees– never mind 1.5– is with a virtual shutoff of emissions followed by negative emissions coming either from reckless experimentation with geoengineering stunts turning out lucky, or the safe natural sequestration from reforestation and changed agricultural practices.

The latter likely can’t bring us down by more than, I would guess maybe half a degree, particularly given the way such practices would conflict with the need to feed the 7 billion of us already here, never mind the 8 or 9 or 10 billion most people see as inevitable.

Realistically, our numbers will never get that high because we’re in overshoot already. Severe impacts from climate change are inevitable. What we’re fighting for is to make catastrophic climate change less likely.

Mary Wildfire, Roane County, WV