In the next three decades cooling a warmer world will bring soaring demand for equipment to bring the mercury down. The appetite for energy to fuel air-conditioning, cold stores, refrigerated transport and medical “cold chains” that preserve vital vaccines could rise nearly five-fold. So, paradoxically, humans will raise the planetary average temperatures even higher in the effort to keep cool. A new study calculates that, between now and 2050, an estimated 19 cooling appliances will be sold every second, and to meet global demand three decades on the number of cooling appliances in use worldwide must reach 14 billion. And even then, many lives will be exposed to dangerous levels of temperature and humidity during extreme summer heat.
Climate News Network 16th July 2018 read more »
The government’s official climate change adviser says politicians and policymakers are failing to rise to the challenge of a rapidly warming planet and will be judged harshly by future generations unless they act now. Lord Deben, chair of the UK’s Climate Change Committee (CCC), said “anyone who read the news” could see mounting evidence of alarming trends – from melting polar ice to record heatwaves and rising sea levels. He called on politicians to “make the connections” between these events and act with more urgency. “The thing that I want to bring home to policymakers is that this is increasingly urgent and that these things will be laid at your door if you don’t recognise that and act accordingly.” Deben compared the threat posed by climate change to the black death, adding: “With the black death, where one in three of the population died, we did not know how it happened, how it spread, so we were not responsible. “With climate change we do know and so we are responsible. So it is no good saying ‘oh well, it will all work out one way or another’. We are responsible, and if we don’t take on that responsibility we are shoving it on to our children and no parent should do that in any circumstances.”
Guardian 16th July 2018 read more »
Underground internet cables criss-crossing coastal regions will be inundated by rising seas within the next 15 years, according to a new study. Thousands of miles of fibre optic cables are under threat in US cities like New York, Seattle and Miami, and could soon be out of action unless steps are taken to protect them. The report, presented at a meeting of internet network researchers in Montreal, is among the first to reveal the damage a changing climate will cause for the network of cables and data centres that underpins so much of modern life. What shocked computer scientist Professor Paul Barford and his colleagues most when they investigated the effect of risi ng tides on US cities was the speed at which the internet will be compromised.
Independent 16th July 2018 read more »