DC settles lawsuit over Trump inauguration mass arrests
Mychael Schnell
THE HILL

4/26/2021

The Washington, D.C., government settled two lawsuits on Monday over mass arrests made during former President Trump's inauguration in 2017.

© Greg Nash DC settles lawsuit over Trump inauguration mass arrests

D.C. and the organizations that brought the lawsuits filed court papers stating that the city government will pay $1.6 million to settle both cases, according to a press release from the American Civil Liberties Union's (ACLU) D.C. chapter.

The two lawsuits claimed that more than 200 protesters, many of whom did not violate any laws, were rounded up and detained by officers after a small number of demonstrators vandalized and damaged property.


According to the ACLU of D.C., the individuals detained by police were held for up to 16 hours without access to food, water or restrooms. Police also deployed pepper spray, flash-bang grenades, concussion grenades and stingballs against the protesters.

The lawsuits charged that Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) officers violated the First, Fourth and Fifth amendments in addition to D.C. law.

One of the lawsuits was brought by the ACLU of D.C. on behalf of four demonstrators, including the 10-year-old son of a woman, a photojournalist and a legal observer. The case settled for $605,000.

The other suit was a class-action lawsuit filed by attorney Jeffrey Light on behalf of more than 100 demonstrators, which, subject to final approval by the court, settled for $995,000.

The Hill reached out to D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser's office for comment.

According to The Washington Post, a total of 234 people were arrested in the 2017 Inauguration Day protests near Franklin Square at 12th and L streets NW. Of the group, only 21 pled guilty, which were the only convictions that resulted from the arrests.

The charges against the other individuals were ultimately dropped after prosecutors in initial trials could not connect the defendants to specific damage, the Post reported.

In additional to the financial settlement, as part of the ACLU of D.C.'s case, the MPD will issue a formal directive to modify the procedures for processing arrestees in an effort to avoid having them wait long periods for necessities such as restroom access and water.

"It speaks volumes that the District has chosen to settle rather than defend MPD's obviously unconstitutional actions in court," Light said in a statement.

"Today's settlements provide some measure of compensation for all the people who were unconstitutionally arrested and confined for exercising their rights on Inauguration Day four years ago," he added.

EU
Leaked AI regulation: What it means for the U.S.

Greg Nichols 

ZDNET 4/26/2021


Given the EU's leaked plans for AI regulation, which calls for a ban on specific types of AI systems, such as those that directly track individuals and create social credit scores, the topic of regulation in the U.S. has been on people's minds. AI is coming, so what can regulators do—and what should they absolutely not do—to protect citizens and consumers while also encouraging technological development?

© Provided by ZDNet

For insights I reached out to Haniyeh Mahmoudian, Ph.D., Global AI Ethicist at DataRobot, a Boston-based company that enables customers to create and validate machine learning models from their data. As an AI bias and ethics expert, Haniyeh is well-placed to speak about the new regulations and what they means for the U.S., as well as the risks inherent in unchecked AI and what actions should be taken by regulators going forward.


GN: What are the biggest takeaways from the EU's leaked plans for AI regulation? What surprised you?

Haniyeh Mahmoudian: Speaking on side of practitioners, one thing we really appreciate about leaked draft is the assistance in clearing up some ambiguity. In the absence of legislation, there's been a lot of ambiguity on defining use cases that will impact individuals' lives, or what we call high-risk use cases. Having those high risk use cases defined is really useful, and it's important to call out that they recognize it's an evolving list as technology continues to advance.

The auditing requirement of the regulation was unexpected but not surprising. Here at DataRobot we have implemented frameworks and processes around risk and impact assessment that is applied to the projects we are working on.

GN: Why is the EU getting so serious about regulation? What are the big concerns and the big goals, based on your understanding of the plan?

Haniyeh Mahmoudian: The EU has always been serious about tech regulations and protecting its citizens from data victimization, and already has a strong regulatory foundation in place with GDPR to expand upon into AI. The driving factor is one of protection for citizens, even at the expense of economic prosperity that could be enabled by some of these technologies.

GN: Where is the U.S. with regards to considering AI regulation? Can you briefly explain the range of opinions on the matter from various constituencies/stakeholders?

Haniyeh Mahmoudian: The U.S. is balancing multiple priorities and stakeholders while working towards legislation that ensures the technology is built with our democratic ideals in mind. The U.S. Congress has proposed legislation like the Algorithmic Accountability Act, which would move our current state more towards the EU's regulations—which may be the most robust in the world. There are also institutions like the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center and National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence that have stated that AI is needed as a security concern. Aside from government entities, we also know that organizations see AI as an economic catalyst—which means regulators need to strike the right balance between ensuring ethical, fair, and unbiased AI without stifling innovation.

GN: What should the U.S. take away from the EU plan? Anything U.S. regulators should do differently, in your opinion?

Haniyeh Mahmoudian: It's important that regulations focus on making sure the technology is built with certain societal ideals and ethics in mind, enabling organizations to leverage AI to the world's benefit in an equitable, ethical, and explainable manner. The EU's new regulations show great promise by instantiating a collaborative committee to evaluate the technology and define 'high-risk AI' uses as the technology evolves. As previously stated, the regulations also clear up some ambiguity around what is defined as high risk AI – something that would be very valuable in the U.S. Some may consider the EU regulations to be too prescriptive. Additionally, some of the requirements may hinder small businesses and start-ups. It's certainly a balance we have to strike.

GN: What's at stake if we don't regulate AI soon? What's a realistic timeline for regulation within the U.S.?

Haniyeh Mahmoudian: I do think we need to open our minds to some regulation in the space because of the humanistic impact of these systems. In a company, a biased hiring manager, while unethical, has a limited impact since it is a single person and a single company. However, an AI-enabled system used in the same hiring situation has the potential to really do harm to both the company and the applicants. The same is true for use cases in government or public safety – there's a risk that if we don't regulate, there could be real harm done to people. At the same time, we also have to remember that AI can be used to help with problems facing our very existence—such as food insecurity, climate change, and healthcare. It's certainly a balance to figure out how much regulation is too much or too little.

As mentioned before, the U.S. has already moved towards the regulations and there have been legislations proposed by Congress. We are moving in the right direction but it's important to ensure the technology is built based on our ideals.

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Washington becomes the first state to ensure tenants at risk of eviction have legal representation

asheffey@businessinsider.com (Ayelet Sheffey) 
4/2/2021

© Provided by Business Insider Cars display signs requesting to stop evictions as protesters supporting the rent freeze gather in Chinatown on August 10, 2020 in Los Angeles, California. Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images

Washington became the first state to ensure evicted tenants receive a right to counsel.
Tenants with incomes 200% or below the federal poverty line are eligible to get free legal aid.

Biden extended the eviction ban through June 30, but some courts have overruled it, putting renters at risk.

President Joe Biden extended the ban on evictions through the end of June, but some states' courts have overruled it, and evictions are looming for many renters across the country

Washington just became the first state to ensure that if its residents do get evicted, they will have access to legal aid.

On Thursday, the Seattle Times reported that Washington Gov. Jay Inslee signed a right to counsel guarantee as part of a larger bill aimed at preventing evictions once the moratorium expires. The law ensures that tenants who receive public assistance or who have incomes 200% of the federal poverty level or below - $25,760 annually for individuals - will have free access to public attorneys when faced with eviction.

"In America, 5% or less of tenants have access to a lawyer in eviction proceedings, and that is what is making this whole situation such a problem," John Pollock, coordinator of the advocacy group National Coalition for a Civil Right to Counsel, told Insider. "If every tenant had a lawyer, the landlords would not be trying to do half of the things they're doing."

An Inslee spokesperson told the Seattle Times that there are no plans to issue a new statewide eviction moratorium, and Biden has yet to comment on the matter.

According to the US Census Bureau's Household Pulse Survey, the pandemic has caused 160,000 Washington households to be behind on rent as of March, and 10 million people nationwide are behind on rent payments.

Insider reported on April 8 that since Biden extended the eviction ban, courts in Texas, Ohio, and Tennessee have ruled against it, putting a strain on the Treasury Department to deliver $50 billion in emergency housing aid before courts starting processing evictions again.

Several cities, including Seattle, have already passed right to counsel laws, and Philadelphia enacted a ruling at the end of March that said landlords are required to apply to the city's rental assistance program and enroll in the Eviction Diversion Program before they can file an eviction in court.

Lawmakers are also keeping an eye on evictions. Rep. Maxine Waters of California questioned Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen over the state-court rulings at a hearing in March, and said she wants the Treasury Department to look into how to "straighten out this confusion and to help stabilize this rental assistance."
Read the original article on Business Insider

Ottawa's move to regulate video posts on YouTube and social media called 'assault' on free speech

Anja Karadeglija 

POPSTMEDIA

4/26/2021

The Liberal-dominated House of Commons Heritage committee has cleared the way for the federal government to regulate video content on internet social media, such as YouTube, the same way it regulates national broadcasting, under a new amendment made to a bill updating the Broadcasting Act.

© Provided by National Post Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault.

Critics denounced the move to give the country’s broadcast regulator the ability to oversee user-generated content, and said it amounted to an attack on the free expression of Canadians, particularly in light of Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault’s recent plans to give Ottawa power to order take-downs of online content it deems objectionable.

“Granting a government agency authority over legal user generated content — particularly when backed up by the government’s musings about taking down websites — doesn’t just infringe on free expression, it constitutes a full-blown assault upon it and, through it, the foundations of democracy,” said Peter Menzies, a former commissioner of the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission.

“It’s difficult to contemplate the levels of moral hubris, incompetence or both that would lead people to believe such an infringement of rights is justifiable,” said Menzies.

Last Friday afternoon, MPs on the committee made changes to the government’s bill updating the Broadcasting Act. Bill C-10 was introduced by Guilbeault in November, to clarify the CRTC’s ability to regulate TV and movie streaming services, such as Netflix. The bill doesn’t include details of what that regulation will look like, but once the bill passes the government plans to instruct the CRTC to draft rules requiring online services to contribute to and promote Canadian content.

When the Liberal government introduced C-10, user-generated content, such as an individual Canadian posting a YouTube video or a TikTok clip, was originally exempted. But that exclusion for user content was removed by committee MPs on Friday.

CRTC will have nine months to force Netflix to start contributing to Canadian content

A spokesperson for Guilbeault said the government’s intent behind removing the clause was primarily to allow for better regulation of music streaming on social media platforms, such as playlists of songs posted online. Guilbeault’s press secretary, Camille Gagné-Raynauld, said C-10 “specifically targets professional series, films, and music,” and said there are safeguards in place, including that individual Canadians wouldn’t be considered broadcasters under the legislation.

University of Ottawa professor Michael Geist said even if the bill means Canadian users won’t have to report to the CRTC themselves, their online videos on platforms like TikTok or YouTube “would be treated as a program subject to Canada’s broadcast regulator.”

That is an infringement of Canadians’ rights, Geist said. “In a free, democratic society we don’t subject basic speech to regulation in this way. Of course there are limits to what people can say, but the idea that a broadcast regulator has any role to play in basic speech is, I think, anathema to free and democratic society where freedom of expression is viewed as one of the foundational freedoms.”

The bill is only one piece of a multi-pronged effort by the Liberal government to impose new rules on Big Tech and other online companies. Other Liberal initiatives include a separate bill targeting online hate content set to be introduced shortly. Guilbeault has said the government would consider blocking content as a last-resort option. The government has also proposed blocking websites hosting copyright-infringing content as part of another consultation on updating copyright law.

But critics say that if the government’s amendment to Bill C-10 is really meant to control the online posting of unlicensed music, TV and movies, a copyright approach would be the proper mechanism.

“That is a copyright law issue,” said Emily Laidlaw, Canada research chair in cybersecurity law at the University of Calgary. The way C-10 is worded is also overly broad, she said, because it captures any user-generated “programs.”

If the intent is to use the Broadcasting Act to protect copyrights owned by corporate studios, Geist said “it’s disappointing to see the government prioritize lobbying pressure from the music industry over the free-speech interests of millions of Canadians.”

Conservative MP and heritage critic Alain Rayes put out a statement Monday criticizing the amendment, saying his party would “continue to stand up for the freedoms of Canadians who post their content online and oppose C-10 at every stage of the legislative process.”

Even if the CRTC doesn’t follow through with its new powers and chooses not to implement any regulations covering user-generated content, the fact that the law would now enable the regulator to do so is problematic, said Menzies.

“They would still hold the hammer of legislative power over everyone’s head and that would intimidate free expression. Even without conditions, people would still be speaking with the CRTC’s permission,” Menzies said.

Cara Zwibel, director of the fundamental freedoms programs at the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, said that even if the CRTC isn’t currently interested in putting specific regulations on user-generated content in place, the legislation creates the potential for Ottawa to do so later.

“With legislation when you open up a regulatory door, even if you don’t step though it, you’ve opened up that door for any future governments to step through,” she said.

What It’s Actually Going To Take For Universal Child Care To Happen

Nora Loreto 

CHATELAINE THE CANADIAN JOURNAL FOR FEMINIST HOMEMAKERS

4/26/2021

© Provided by Chatelaine A group of preschool students is sitting with their legs crossed on the floor in their classroom. The mixed-race female teacher is sitting on the floor facing the children. The happy kids are smiling and following the teacher's instructions. They have their arms raised in the air.
(Photo: iStock)

I’ve never purchased a car, but when I registered my 10-month old twins for daycare, I got the rush that must come with buying one. I got out my chequebook, calculated what $90 per day for a year would equal and then divided it by months. It was the instalment plan, but for babies.

Because I live in Quebec, once a spot was available at a publicly-funded daycare, the price dropped from $45 per day per child to just $7.30. It took two years for two public spots to open up, though it usually takes less time to find a spot for a single toddler. But while my kids were in private care, I received several thousand dollars back at tax time thanks to Quebec’s child care tax refunds. Not ideal, but better than in most places in Canada.

Feminists and parents alike have long called for a public child care system in Canada and with Budget 2021, Canada is closer than it ever has been to having one. The Liberals have promised to create a $10 per day public daycare system, where half the cost would be paid for by each province.

The program wouldn’t start for at least five years. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland told CBC’s The Current that the federal government needs time to build a program with the provinces and territories. She’s right to expect that it will take time to convince the provinces to get on board with the Liberals’ plan. Provinces notoriously don’t like being told where to spend their money, even if it’s on a measure that’s as economically necessary and popular as childcare.

But creating a new social program as big as public child care cannot happen without the help of a social movement. It took both decades of organizing by feminists and the right feminist leader in government to build Quebec’s $5 per day (now $8.50 per day) daycare system. It would never have happened if feminists had not created the popular support for the system among Quebecers throughout the 1980s and 1990s, and if former Parti Québécois leader Pauline Marois had not made it her mission to create the system, officially introduced on January 23, 1997 and passed into law later that year.

It’s clear to me that feminism has never been more popular in Canada, but the feminist movement is weak. There are few opportunities for feminists to get involved and push issues forward, and little common understanding about the role that social movement forces play in changing public policy. For Freeland’s child care plan to ever see the light of day, she is going to need a movement that pushes it in every province and territory. Freeland herself also needs to be pushed to go further, both through an oppositional approach alongside the NDP and Green Party, and by placing significant pressure on the Liberals to actually carry through with this promise.

This means, first and foremost, creating a united network of social support for this program, province by province—an undertaking nearly as immense as public child care itself. To do so requires events and demonstrations, letters to the editor and public education sessions. It also requires that local organizing committees understand their local context: what are average child care fees, how will this new program improve life for new parents, and what will this system look like when implemented? These groups will also need to push hard on provincial governments, to secure their commitment and cooperation to fund half the program. Without their support, this program cannot be implemented.

Then, there is the pressure that must be sustained on all political parties. The Conservatives and each of their provincial branches need to feel like if they don’t support this, they will lose the next election. The Liberals need to be forced to do what they promise and not kick this plan down the road, turning it into an election promise alone. And the NDP and Greens need to be pushed to promise to take this idea further. Rather than $10 per day, these parties need to call for free child care, in the same way that children aged four to 18 are educated for free.

This will require advocacy from a coalition that currently does not exist in Canada. Sure, there are organizations that have long fought for child care, but there needs to be a ‘rapport des forces,’ something that brings together groups and individuals who are ready to fight to make this program a reality.

I look to the migrant justice movement for an example of how to bring together groups doing similar work, all across Canada, as an example to coordinate collective action. Through the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, dozens of support groups, unions, collectives and migrant workers themselves come together to act in a united voice at the federal level. Each group continues to do the service and advocacy work that they have always done, while they are able to coordinate their demands to put concerted pressure on the federal government.

This coordination has made the migrant justice movement one of the most effective and organized in Canada. It is not a coincidence that of all the injustices experienced during this pandemic, it’s been migrant workers’ rights who have seen some of the biggest victories, like priority COVID testing for seasonal migrant workers and changes to permanent residence that will expand who is eligible to apply (and yes, there is far more still to do).

To pressure the Liberals to make this child care promise a reality, feminists should look to this model and organize under a federated structure with the specific goal of bringing the promise to life. Whether anchored by an organization like the Canadian Child Care Federation, or spearheaded by a group of child care leaders, it’s the only way it can happen. Without it, Freeland’s budget will go the way of all the other child care promises before: score some quick political points while in the long-run, families find themselves paying for a Honda Civic just to make sure that their kids have somewhere to go during the day.

Could the World Ever Run Entirely on Renewable Energy?

Daniel Kolitz 

4/26/2021


This week’s question—could the world ever run entirely on renewable energy?—is shadowed by a much larger one: Namely, will politicians and powerful forces of delay like Big Oil ever allow the world to run entirely on renewable energy? For the most part, we have put that larger question aside for this installment; the experts below are interested primarily in whether it’s feasible.

Could the World Ever Run Entirely on Renewable Energy?

To not switch to renewables in the very near future would, we know, summon a host of awful consequences. Unchecked carbon emissions would make vast swaths of the planet uninhabitable by century’s end; survivors of the heat-apocalypse would spend their days fortifying little hutments, or surgically excising mold from rotten squirrel meat. This is not the future we want—which is why planning for a renewable transition, and ensuring we bring it off, is so important. Hard as it might be, it’s worth setting aside your doomy visions of the future to consider, for a moment, what we can actually achieve. For this week’s Giz Asks, we’ve assembled a panel of experts to discuss whether the world could ever run entirely on renewable energy—and what it would take to get there.

Mark Z. Jacobson

Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Director of the Atmosphere/Energy Program, Stanford University, and the author of 100% Clean, Renewable Energy and Storage for Everything


My team and I have been studying whether the world can run entirely on clean renewable energy since about 2008, and we’ve concluded, in over a dozen studies, that it is absolutely possible. And when I say clean renewable energy, I mean just wind and water and solar power—onshore and offshore wind, solar panels on rooftops, concentrated solar power, geothermal power, etc. We don’t include biomass or bioenergy or any type of biofuel, because it’s not clean—you burn it, and it usually takes up large amounts of land. We also don’t include fossil fuels, or carbon capture, or direct air capture, or nuclear power, as we consider all of these things to have opportunity costs. We’ve done calculations in 143 countries representing 99.7% of all emissions worldwide, and we’ve found that it is possible to power all of these countries with just wind, water and solar, plus storage electricity, heat storage, cold storage and hydrogen storage. The idea, really, is to electrify everything, and to combine the electricity with wind, water and solar.

There are four major energy sectors: electricity, transportation, buildings, and industry. For transportation, we’d go with electrical vehicles, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. For buildings, all heating and cooling would be done with electric heat pumps; water heating would be done with electric heat pumps; stoves would be induction cooktops. It turns out that when you do this, you reduce power demand worldwide by about 57%, because of the efficiency of electricity over combustion. When you electrify everything, you reduce demand, but you’re also eliminating all of the energy that goes into mining, transporting, and refining fossil fuels and uranium, which make up 12% of all energy worldwide. You end up eliminating up to 7 million air pollution deaths per year that are linked to fossil fuel and biofuel combustion; you eliminate the emissions associated with global warming; and you provide energy security and stability. Because you’re using 57% less energy, your costs go down at least 57%, but in fact go down much more, because wind and solar, the cheapest forms of electricity today, are half the cost of gas. Cost per energy unit, accordingly, goes down by over 60%. And that’s not to mention money saved on health costs and climate costs. Factoring that in, expenditure goes down about 90% compared with business as usual, which is mostly fossil fuels.

The bottom line is that we’re confident that, with current technologies, we can transition the world to solve these problems. It does take political will, but it’s feasible pretty much everywhere and is already starting to happen—61 countries now have 100% renewable; energy laws; 13 states in the U.S. have laws or executive orders; 180 U.S. cities and 300 worldwide have laws. It’s a growing movement. A lot more needs to be done, but the public is behind it. We have popular support for costs coming down through renewables.

“...it is absolutely possible.”
Emily Grubert

Assistant Professor of Environmental Engineering, Construction and Infrastructure Systems Engineering, and Sustainable Communities, Georgia Tech


I think the answer is yes, but we have to design the systems to make that possible. Right now, we don’t have a system that’s designed to be fully renewable energy, so we often see weaknesses in that system, because we haven’t had to assume that it’s purely renewable. But we can absolutely design systems that will allow us to run full renewable energy.

At some level, if you really think about human existence historically, we were running on renewable energy for a very long time. The question is: What do we want from our energy systems? Mostly, we have to think about how the supply and demand sides of an energy system fit together, and then we need to think carefully about some of the parameters we want our system to deliver. What should it look like in terms of reliability? What should it look like in terms of cost? What should it look like in terms of environmental characteristics? You probably can’t always get the lowest possible cost for the highest possible social/environmental standards, or the highest possible reliability standards, so there can be some tradeoffs—but that’s true of the fossil-based system as well.

I think we will eventually get there, and that we need to be very thoughtful about how we push ourselves in that direction. What we need is a shared social understanding of what our overall priorities are. Is that ‘we need to avoid climate change?’ Is it ‘we need to actually make sure that we’re providing safe energy systems to ourselves?’ But in terms of what happens on the ground, I think a lot of this comes down to regulators, national standards, international agreements, that sort of thing.

“At some level, if you really think about human existence historically, we were running on renewable energy for a very long time.”
Sarah Johnston

Assistant Professor, Agriculture and Applied Economics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, whose research interests include industrial organization and energy and environmental economics


Yes, but we will still need some technological advancement to get there. We already have the technology to cost-effectively produce massive amounts of electricity from renewable resources. Yet, we currently do not have much ability to store this electricity for times when it is not sunny or windy. Current battery storage systems are improving, but can only provide electricity for hours, not days. So I think technological advancement in terms of storage will be key. Another option is to figure out how to economically transform electricity from renewables into other forms of energy that can be stored. We can use electrolysis to convert it into hydrogen, but this is still expensive, so that’s another margin on which technological progress could help. Looking at the progress in the last 20 years, I am optimistic that we will get there.

I think another interesting question is, should 100% be the goal? A key principle of economics is increasing marginal costs. In transitioning away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy, we will (hopefully) make the lowest cost changes first. Currently, this means transitioning electricity generation from fossil fuel sources to renewables. Next, it might mean replacing gas-powered vehicles with electric vehicles. As we are using fossil fuels less and less, the actions we must take to replace them with renewables will get more costly. For example, to replace natural gas heat with electric heat for homes in cold climates, we would have to pay to retrofit tens of millions of homes with electric heat pump systems that currently cost far more to purchase and install than a natural gas furnace. So while the impact on climate change of going from 99% renewable energy to 100% renewable energy may be similar to the impact of going from 50% to 51%, the incremental cost could be orders of magnitude greater. I think this logic makes it important not to get too fixated on 100% targets.

“Yes, but we will still need some technological advancement to get there.”
Steven Davis

Professor of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine


Yes, it’s possible we’ll meet all our energy demands with renewable sources, but there are still some techno-economic challenges if the share of variable sources like wind and solar gets really high, like say >80%. That’s because those sources keep their own schedules that don’t always align with the timing of our demands, and we haven’t figured out a sufficiently cheap and scalable way of storing really large quantities of energy. Other renewable sources of energy like hydroelectricity, geothermal, or biomass may help, but often face their own, different challenges of sustainability. I therefore think making renewable fuels could be a key to affording an all-renewable energy system. For example, some of our recent work shows that even though current technologies for converting renewable electricity to fuel and back are expensive, they’d already make an otherwise-all-solar-and-wind electricity system cheaper.

Brian Kahn contributed reporting for this story.

Do you have a burning question for Giz Asks? Email us at tipbox@gizmodo.com.

Avoiding 'carbon colonialism': Developing nations can't pay the price for pollution

Laura J. Martin, opinion contributor 

4/26/2021

The Biden administration has pledged to put the country on a path to net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050. Last fall, China announced a carbon neutrality date of 2060. The U.S. and China are not alone.

© Getty Images Avoiding 'carbon colonialism': Developing nations can't pay the price for pollution

A recent survey found that 124 countries, 155 cities and 417 companies have made some form of commitment to net-zero emissions, including Amazon, American Airlines and Disney. Importantly, net-zero proposals are not the same as ending emissions. Rather, these proposals imagine that emissions generated in one location can be "offset" by removing GHGs from the atmosphere somewhere else, through tree-planting, say, or underground carbon storage. The concept rests on the idea that emissions are fungible: that as far as climate change is concerned, a ton of carbon dioxide is a ton of carbon dioxide regardless of where it is produced. The stakes are high; if emissions continue on their current trajectory, the global average temperature will rise 3 degrees Celsius this century; coastal cities will drown; and extreme weather events will become the norm.


Today, trees are one of the most common technologies of carbon offsetting. In 2019, forestry and land use offsets represented the greatest share of transactions in the voluntary offset market (56.4 percent), followed by renewable energy projects (21.3 percent) and household device projects (8.8 percent). Proponents of forestry-based carbon offsetting often describe these projects as "win-win-win": they combat climate change; protect forests; and offer development opportunities for local communities. But in reality, carbon offsetting projects can fail catastrophically and violently on all three counts.

The global carbon market incentivizes the privatization and commodification of land and forest resources in developing regions. Governments, organizations, corporations and individuals from developed countries purchase offsets, while developing countries usually supply the offsets. At present the greatest number of voluntary carbon credit buyers are the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Germany and Switzerland. The major offset producing countries include Peru, Brazil, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Bolivia, Indonesia and Cambodia. It is not difficult to see forest and land-use based carbon offsetting as a mode of appropriating land in the Global South for the alleged "universal" environmental end of solving climate change. In the emerging carbon economy, the Global North continues to pollute, while communities in the Global South lose land and sovereignty.

The establishment of carbon offsetting sites routinely involves the exclusion of local inhabitants from land and resources that were previously under public or shared jurisdiction. A 2011 study by Oxfam, for example, estimates that at least 22,500 people were evicted from their homes in the creation of timber plantations in Uganda that the UK-registered New Forests Company refashioned to generate carbon offsets. In some cases, experts have framed such displacement as an infringement on human rights. In a number of cases, offsetting projects have enabled a state or foreign company to seize control of land. Those purchasing carbon offsets are looking for guarantees that the carbon stock will remain stable into the future: an incentive for consolidated single-entity ownership.



Video: If fundamentals change, you can seriously impact CO2 levels: Expert (CNBC)

Carbon offsetting projects also stand to erode food and resource security. Sociologists found this to be the case when a private Norwegian company planted stands of pine and eucalyptus in the shrubland of the Kachung Forest Reserve in Uganda. Prior to the establishment of the plantation, community members had possessed long-standing access and use rights, including for animal grazing, fishing and the collection of water, firewood and medicinal herbs. With the establishment of the plantation, however, villagers were vilified and sometimes arrested as "illegal encroachers" and "trespassers" on license areas by both the government and the company's staff. Community members reported the destruction of crops, housing and trading centers alongside the arrival of the company's plantation activities by a collection of state, police and private sector actors. Such projects, conducted in the name of carbon sequestration and afforestation, result in something entirely different than the positive "community development" claimed by proponents of "win-win-win" offsetting. They are carbon colonialism.

Those who defend global markets argue that carbon is cheaper in the Global South - and therefore it is a global good to buy more of it from those places, rather than to invest in local offsetting projects, because it takes more GHG out of the atmosphere. But local offsetting projects offer two benefits that cannot be understated. First, they allow for localized oversight and accountability. Second, they maintain the geographic link between environmental harm and remediation. Carbon sequestration should be expensive, and something we are willing to pay for, if a higher price ensures that offsets do not involve land dispossession and other human rights violations.

Many Americans currently support domestic environmental policy that emphasizes "just transitions" - interventions to secure workers' rights and livelihoods when economies shift to sustainable production. Acknowledging that in the United States, communities of color and poor communities are disproportionately harmed by pollution, the Biden administration has promised to focus on domestic environmental justice. It is crucial that American environmentalists and policy makers apply a justice framework outside the borders of the country, rather than outsourcing harm. Environmentalists must ensure that carbon sequestration does not become a pathway or even a justification for social oppression.

Carbon offsetting may sound like a good thing, but it imperils particular places and communities in favor of global exchange value. It is a form of climate injustice under the guise of a climate solution.

Laura J. Martin, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of environmental studies at Williams College who researches conservation and climate change. Follow her on Twitter @Laura_J_Martin.

 An Introduction to Social Ecology and Communalism

What is Social Ecology?

Nature and Society

Social Hierarchy and Domination

The Idea of Dominating Nature

“Grow or Die”

An Ecological Society

Radical Politics in an Era of Advanced Capitalism

Marxism, Capitalism, and the Public Sphere

Society, Politics, and the State

The Rise of the Public Domain

The Importance of the Municipality and the Confederation

The Need for a New Politics

The Role of Social Ecology in a Period of Reaction

The Struggle for a Rational Society

The Relevance of Social Ecology

The Communalist Project

Capitalism, Classes, and Hierarchies

Marxism, Anarchism and Syndicalism

Communalism and Libertarian Municipalism

The Need for Organization and Education

Creating a New Left

After Murray Bookchin

Social Ecology and Communalism | The Anarchist Library

Whale Killed by Ship Fifth To Wash Up in San Francisco Waters in a Month

Ed Browne 

NEWSWEEK

4/26/2021

An endangered whale that washed up on a San Francisco shore last week probably died after being hit by a ship, researchers have concluded. It was the fifth whale death in the area in the past month.

© Justin Sullivan/Getty Barbie Halaska, necropsy manager with The Marine Mammal Center, with a dead juvenile gray whale on May 25, 2019 in Point Reyes Station, California. California is home to important feeding and breeding grounds for multiple whale species.

The dead fin whale was first spotted at sea on Friday, April 23, by the U.S. Coast Guard. It landed near Fort Funston later that evening.


The cause of death was not immediately clear, but researchers from The Marine Mammal Center at the California Academy of Sciences and U.C. Santa Cruz said over the weekend the animal had suffered trauma to the neck, including bruising and bleeding to the muscle surrounding neck vertebrae, according to CBS Local.

Barbie Halaska, necropsy manager for The Marine Mammal Center, said in a statement: "Ship strikes are the biggest threat fin whales face, so this investigation helps us understand the challenges these animals face and inform decision-makers so we can safely share the ocean with marine wildlife."

Halaska added that by investigating whale deaths, researchers can learn more about how humans are impacting the lives of the animals.

The center has already investigated four other whale deaths around the Bay Area in April alone. All of those four were gray whales.

Dr. Pádraig Duignan, director of pathology at The Marine Mammal Center, said in an earlier press release: "It's alarming to respond to four dead gray whales in just over a week because it really puts into perspective the current challenges faced by this species."

Ship strikes are the number one threat facing the fin whale today, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The species is listed as endangered by the U.S. Endangered Species Act.

The fin whale is the second-largest animal in the world. It can grow to a length of 85 feet, weigh up to 80 tons, and live as long as 90 years. They are often found in social groups of between two and seven individuals.

Their numbers plummeted during the mid-1900s due to whaling as hunters wanted their oil, bone, and fat. Around 725,000 were killed in the southern hemisphere alone during this time.

Today, there are thought to be around 82,000 left in the southern hemisphere, and just 3,200 in the waters off of California, Oregon, and Washington.

The California coast is home to four major shipping ports—San Diego, Long Beach, Los Angeles, and Oakland—but it is also home to important feeding and breeding grounds for several species of large whale.

Some efforts have been made in the past to curb the number of whale strikes, such as adjusting shipping lanes. Deaths still take place, however.

In addition, earlier this year Aarhus University in Denmark reported there had been several sightings of gray whales that appeared emaciated and starving as they migrated south toward California from their feeding grounds further north.

There had also been 378 confirmed gray whale fatalities reported since 2019 in what scientists have called an unusual mortality event (UME). Research has suggested a decline in their survival and reproductive rates during the UME is being caused by starvation.

The cause is unclear, but global warming could have led to a decline in the whales' main food source of amphipods.

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Climate tipping points may have been reached already, experts say

Through decades of research, and now lived experience, it has become clear that the impacts of climate change will have drastic and far-reaching consequences on our planet. And while some of those consequences are predictable — like more extreme weather, sea-level rise and loss of biodiversity — the pace at which these unfold and their eventual severity hinge on what happens with key linchpins in the climate system, called tipping points.

© Getty Images Scientists Study Ice Melt On The Wolverine Glacier In Alas

A tipping point is a threshold or point of no return in the climate system that once passed can no longer be reversed. Passing a tipping point does not necessarily mean immediate, drastic consequences, but it does mean those consequences become unavoidable, and over time the impacts may be dramatic.

In a 2019 paper, Professor Timothy Lenton, a global leader on the subject, identified nine climate tipping points, from melting permafrost in the Arctic to the loss of tropical coral reefs. Here we will focus on what he deems the three most critical tipping points: the Amazon rainforest, the West Antarctic ice sheet and the Gulf Stream system.

Lenton highlights these three because the West Antarctic ice sheet may have already passed a tipping point; the Amazon because it is a crucial crucible of biodiversity and for its warehouse of carbon; and the Gulf Stream system because of its potential for profound changes with connected ramifications all around the planet.

CBS News spoke to Lenton and several other scientists about the state of climate tipping points. While they have different areas of expertise, ranging from oceans to atmosphere to biosphere, their message was unanimous: Changes are happening faster than what was expected and the chance of hitting tipping points in the climate system, which just a decade ago appeared remote and far off, now seems much more likely and more immediate.

"This is why I have been raising the alarm," Lenton said. "In just a decade the risk level has gone up markedly — that should be triggering urgent action."
The Amazon rainforest

For 55 million years the Amazon rainforest has weathered all of nature's ups and downs, but just one century of human negligence — a geological blink of an eye — threatens to be the nail in the coffin for this ancient forest.

The Amazon is huge — almost the size of the contiguous United States. Home to an estimated 3 million species, about 10% of the Earth's known biodiversity, and half of the planet's remaining rainforest, the Amazon is among the most diverse places on Earth. But many experts believe the Amazon may have already entered tipping point territory.

Having studied the Amazon for 56 years and visited hundreds of times, Dr. Thomas Lovejoy is one of those experts.

"We are really right at that tipping point. We see the signs in longer dry seasons, hotter dry seasons, tree species that prefer drier conditions gaining dominance over those that prefer wet conditions," explains Lovejoy, a professor at George Mason University and founder of the Amazon Biodiversity Center. "So we know that it's right there at the tipping point right now."

When Lovejoy started studying the Amazon in the 1960s, 10 million people lived there and the forest was 97% intact. Now there are 30 million people living there and deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is at 20% — the critical level at which scientists believe the Amazon starts to tip towards the point of no return, where it no longer survives as a lush wet rainforest and transitions into an arid savanna.

Lovejoy says this transition from rainforest to savanna could happen as fast as a mortgage cycle. "I would say it's a matter of something that happens on the timescale of decades like 10, 20, 30 years, not centuries. So, a lot of the people alive today would actually get to see that negative consequence."

© Provided by CBS News Some experts believe most of the Amazon rainforest could transition to drier savanna in just a few decades if we keep deforesting and warming. / Credit: CBS News

Lenton is less sure. "I wish I knew how close we are to a tipping point," he said. But he agrees the signs are pointing in that direction.

"We have work submitted showing early warning signs that the whole forest is losing resilience. I'd say that for the drier southeast side of the Amazon it is already under serious risk of fire-amplified loss."

A rainforest is only a rainforest because it is a rain-making machine — generating 50% of its own rainfall. That phenomenon is made possible as the leaves that make up the canopy of trees exhale moisture upward (a process called evapotranspiration), condensing in the cooler air above and forming a river of clouds that rains the moisture back down.

"Just by watching what happens after a rainfall in the Amazon and afterwards you see plumes of moisture coming up out of the canopy of the forest and that all moves westward to become rainfall once again, " explains Lovejoy.

© Provided by CBS News A river of clouds forms over the Amazon as water vapor evaporates from the canopy of trees and condenses above. / Credit: CBS News

But as the trees disappear and the forest becomes fractured, so does the moisture. Lovejoy says this destruction is due to fires and deforestation from small landowners grabbing land and to large corporations engaged in industrial agriculture, mainly growing soybeans and supporting livestock.

In 2020, fires reached their highest number in a decade in the Brazilian Amazon and deforestation in the Amazon surged to its highest point in 12 years. Critics blame Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro for looking the other way on enforcement of environmental regulations and even encouraging agriculture and mining activities, which undermine the health of the forest.

Since the 1980s, NASA has observed a significant increase in something called the vapor pressure deficit (VPD) over the Amazon rainforest. The VPD is the difference, or gap, between the amount of moisture in the air and the amount it can hold. That gap is widening, which represents a drop in relative humidity, due to an increase in greenhouse warming from human-caused climate change and aerosols from biomass burning.

© Provided by CBS News NASA measures more vapor pressure deficit increasing in the Amazon Basin over recent decades which means the atmosphere trend is toward a lower relative humidity. Overall it is an indicator of drying. / Credit: NASA

When the atmosphere is less humid, it has room for more moisture and it becomes more thirsty, pulling that moisture out of the ground and making the vegetation drier. This leads to more drought and is very similar to what is happening in California, which is making wildfires worse. Over the past century temperatures in the Amazon have risen by over 2 degrees Fahrenheit and in the past 50 years the dry season has expanded by a month.

Lovejoy says the impacts of a transition of the Amazon rainforest to a more arid savanna would be devastating both locally and globally. Locally, the 30 million people who live there, many of them Indigenous, depend on the reliable rainfall produced by the rainforest. Significant loss of rain means an escalation of drought that may be devastating to agriculture. A drier Amazon would also mean a significant loss in biodiversity — the extinction of unique creatures which only exist in that one region.

Globally, the Amazon rainforest is a tremendous repository for the planet's carbon, but if it becomes a savanna much of that carbon will be unleashed, magnifying climate change, "It does matter in a very, very big way in terms of the global carbon cycle and climate change," says Lovejoy.

He estimates the forest contains a staggering 100 billion tons of carbon in its lush vegetation and soils — equivalent to about three times the amount of greenhouse gases emitted from the burning of fossil fuels each year. If the Amazon crosses the tipping point, "It not only absorbs a lot less, but all the forest that is being replaced by grassland, all that carbon ends up in the atmosphere," Lovejoy warns.

Lovejoy says there is still hope we could stop this from happening, but the task is urgent. He says the nations which make up this unique ecosystem must cooperate and immediately work to reforest the Amazon.

"There is a very urgent priority to move to a point where we are actually collectively managing the Amazon as a sustainable system," he said.
West Antarctic ice sheet

Of all the threats posed by climate change, sea level rise is arguably the biggest. That's because with billions of people living along the world's coastlines, rapid sea-level rise will force massive disruption. Given the immense amount of heat already absorbed in the ocean system due to human-caused climate change, there's no doubt several feet — and likely much more — of sea level rise is already locked in, but the question is how fast will it happen?

The latest research finds that global warming thresholds that would trigger tipping points on both the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are not that far away. The authors of a 2018 study find that these tipping points will likely occur between 1.5 and 2 degrees Celsius of global warming above pre-industrial levels — the level at which the Paris Climate Agreement aims to halt warming. The Earth has already warmed by 1.2 degrees, and 1.5 degrees of warming may be less than 15 years away.

Because of the complexity of ice sheet dynamics, it is hard to know exactly when a tipping point will be reached, but Lenton warns we may already be there: "It is plausible we are already past a tipping point."

With ice more than a mile thick and a size almost double the contiguous United States, the Antarctic landmass holds enough ice to raise sea levels by 200 feet. For decades it was assumed the frigid Antarctic ice sheet was fairly stable, so most glacier headlines were focused on the other massive ice sheet in Greenland.

But in just the past few years, researchers have become alarmed at several areas in Antarctica which are showing signs of instability due to a warming climate and shifting ocean and atmosphere currents.

The most pressing concern appears to be in West Antarctica — namely the Pine Island and Thwaites Glaciers. A paper published this past fall uncovered the rapid development over just the past decade of damage areas on the ice shelves of these two glaciers causing structural weakening which the authors say "preconditions these ice shelves for disintegration."

© Provided by CBS News In West Antarctica, the Pine Island Glacier and Thwaites Glacier are becoming more unstable, shedding more ice to the sea, indicated in red. / Credit: NASA

Ice shelves are giant walls of ice floating on the oceans that act as dams on the edge of the glaciers, holding the land ice (ice sheets) behind them in place. If the ice shelves break apart, it's like pulling the cork out of a wine bottle: the ice behind it flows freely into the sea, raising sea levels

.

© Provided by CBS News Warm water undercut the ice shelf, breaking up the ice, allowing the ice sheet sheet behind it to become unstable and flow into the sea. / Credit: CBS News

What makes the situation at Pine Island Glacier, and especially Thwaites Glacier, so precarious is that the ice shelves float far out over the sea. Warm water, about 2 degrees Celsius above the historical average, is now undercutting the marine ice. That is destabilizing the base of the ice shelf where it is propped up on land (called the grounding line) and accelerating its retreat.

If and when the base of the glacier lifts off the ocean floor, it will no longer be supported by land and thus will become floating ice. Just like adding ice cubes to a glass, this raises the water level. Because Thwaites, also known as the Doomsday Glacier, is below sea-level, that means much more ice is vulnerable to warming seas.

© Provided by CBS News Pine Island and Thwaites Glaciers have significant ice shelves which float on the sea. Lately, warmer water is getting underneath, breaking up the ice shelf and eating away at the grounding line. As that happens, more of the ice floats off the sea bed and then adds to sea level rise. Since the backside of the glacier is below sea level, as the grounding line retreats, an increasingly thicker portion of the ice floats, adding even more to sea level rise. / Credit: Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center NSIDC, NASA

A study published last month found early warning indicators of the onset of marine ice sheet instability, and thus the authors were able to identify distinct tipping points on Thwaites and Pine Island, but they did not give a timeline. If Thwaites Glacier collapses, sea levels would rise by 1.5 feet. If that collapse destabilized its neighbor Pine Island, sea level would rise 4 feet. And if the whole West Antarctic ice sheet collapsed, 10 feet of sea level rise would follow.

While most scientists agree this is likely to unfold over centuries, not decades, increasingly ice experts are warning that higher-end estimates of sea-level rise are becoming more likely. In 2017, NOAA projected sea levels could rise 5 to 8 feet by 2100.

Lenton agrees that if we are indeed in the midst of, or near, a tipping point, "It opens up the possibility that we could get greater than 1 meter (and perhaps up to 2 meters) of sea-level rise from all sources this century which would already have huge impacts." This kind of sea-level rise, over such a short time span, would threaten or displace hundreds of millions of people who live near rising waters, and the ramifications would ripple through much of human civilization

"On the longer term it could mean a commitment has already been made to multi-meter sea level rise that will pose major challenges to future generations," warns Lenton.

The fact that sea levels will rise dramatically is not a matter of scientific controversy and is all but assured. About 125,000 years ago, before the last Ice Age, sea level was likely at least 20 feet higher than it is today. At that time global temperatures were just a couple of degrees warmer than today.

Three million years ago sea levels were 75 feet higher than today in a climate that was 4 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than now. So, over centuries and millennia, these types of sea-level rise are not just possible, they are probable.

Even if humans were able to stop warming in the next few decades, temperatures equivalent to that last interglacial will likely be equaled. That's why experts say at least 20 feet of sea-level rise is inevitable. The critical question is will it happen gradually over many centuries, or will coastal regions be swallowed up in just decades?

Oceanographer John Englander, author of the new book "Moving to Higher Ground," says this is a tough question to answer because sudden geophysical events, like the collapse of glaciers, are not accurately predictable — much like an earthquake, mudslide or avalanche. That's why Englander says we must look to history as a guide for what is possible.

Since the last Ice Age, sea-level rise has not been linear and predictable. To the contrary, Englander explains, it has occurred in fits and starts, at times stable and at other times rising abruptly.

"11,000 years ago, the last time that sea-level rise was rising quickly, it rose at about 15 feet per century. That's amazing, more than a foot a decade of sea level rise," Englander warns. "Now, there was more ice on the planet back then, but we are warming a lot faster now. So, in terms of looking for real-world historical rates, we could be looking at a foot a decade."

© Provided by CBS News Since the last Ice Age peaked about 20,000 years ago, sea level has risen hundreds of feet. But sea-level rise is not linear; it can happen abruptly. 11,000 years ago sea level rose as much as 15 feet in one century. For our future, this is evidence sea level can rise fast again. / Credit: John Englander

Right now, sea levels are rising at nowhere near those rates, only at about 2 inches per decade, but rates are doubling every decade. To help illustrate the power of doubling, in his book Englander uses the analogy of how long it would take to fill a soccer stadium with water if you started with a single drop of water and doubled it every minute. The answer is shocking: only 47 minutes!

Englander says the point is that small changes in sea-level rise today will mount quickly over the decades, and if tipping points are crossed, society should be prepared for abrupt changes. That's why he says it would be wise for nations to invest in preparation now and not wait for the inevitable water to come.
The Gulf Stream system

Lenton described a potential tipping point in the Gulf Stream system as "profound." That's because the Atlantic Ocean circulation is a linchpin in Earth's climate system. It is the driving force behind the Global Ocean Conveyor Belt (pictured below) and transports 20% of the excess heat which accumulates at the Equator towards the Northern Hemisphere polar regions. This is how Earth attempts to balance out unequal heating from the sun, and the flux of heat is a big factor controlling weather patterns.

What concerns scientists is that this current is slowing down. In fact, a new study found it is moving the slowest it has in at least 1,600 years and may decrease speed by up to 45% by 2100, possibly tipping the circulation into collapse.

© Provided by CBS News / Credit: WMO

Before we go any further, it is worth mentioning that the Gulf Stream system is a newly popularized nickname for the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC for short). One look at that name and it's clear why the Gulf Stream system may be preferable.

But in that AMOC name there are some clues as to why this current system is so important. "Meridional" means transport in a north-to-south or south-to-north direction. And "overturning" implies that the current moves vertically as well. So this current is the engine that propels ocean heat to the ends of the Earth.

© Provided by CBS News / Credit: CBS News

Being that it takes any one water parcel around 1,000 years to complete a full journey, anything we do today lingers in the system for a great many generations. We have already done a lot. Each year ocean heat content hits a new record high because 93% of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gases is stored in the ocean. That's equivalent to 5 Hiroshima atomic bombs worth of heat per second. This is a big reason why ice melt has already locked in 20 feet or more of future sea-level rise.

But this ice melt poses another problem, because everything is connected. Accelerated meltwater from Greenland ice is rushing into the North Atlantic. That combined with heavier rainfall is likely responsible for a slowdown of the AMOC by 15% since 1950.

Here's how it works. In the North Atlantic, east of Greenland, water is cold, salty and dense. Therefore it sinks. That vertical movement of the AMOC is the driving force, the momentum which keeps the whole system moving. But the water is changing in this region. That's because, according to NASA, a warmer climate is melting ice at 6 times the rate of the 1990s. That is pumping a layer of fresh water — which is not as heavy — into the North Atlantic, resulting in a decreased ability to sink, slowing down the overturning

.

© Provided by CBS News / Credit: CBS News

Michael Mann, a distinguished professor of atmospheric science at Penn State, authored the 2015 paper which found the 15% slowdown in the AMOC, which he calls "unprecedented" in recent history.

"The Greenland ice sheet appears to be disintegrating decades ahead of schedule and so that fresh water, as that ice melts, runs off into the North Atlantic earlier than we expected it to," Mann explains.

Mann says some of the evidence for the impact this is having in the North Atlantic is right there in plain sight. While the vast majority of Earth is warming, a big "cold blob" near Greenland sticks out like a sore thumb — as seen in the maps below.

© Provided by CBS News Top: Areas that have warmed since 1950 are shaded in red. Notice the blue hole south of Greenland, evidence of the slowing of the AMOC. Bottom: Shows temperature changes relative to other regions. The red is the fastest warming areas. The blue are the areas warming less fast, or even cooling. Particularly apparent is the cold blob south of Greenland. / Credit: Dr. Ed Hawkins

Mann says this colder region is a "fingerprint" for the slowdown of the AMOC. It's a result of a decrease in heat transfer northbound due to the slowing of the Gulf Stream. And Mann warns this is all happening much faster than projected.

"The observations tell us we are about 50 years, or more, ahead of where the climate models say we should be at this point," he said.

The mounting evidence, and the speed at which changes are taking place, lead Mann to believe that a collapse of the current is possible.

"It's hard to rule out the scenario of a full on collapse sometime in the next few decades. We have continued to be surprised by how fast some of these processes appear to be playing out."

Lenton agrees and says while he may not be alive to see it, the next generation could be. "A collapse this century can't be ruled out (so within my kids lifetimes)," he said.

Given the major amount of heat displaced by the AMOC, if the current slows dramatically or stops, weather patterns would be thrown off-kilter in the Northern Hemisphere and extreme weather would escalate. In addition, Mann says it would have a direct effect on the Atlantic Ocean, pushing sea level up by a foot along the U.S. Eastern Seaboard and impacting fish stocks in the North Atlantic.

Lenton believes the impacts would be profound. "Western Europe would have to try and adapt to a completely different climate. Major monsoons could shift, in a bad way, e.g. in India and West Africa."

To put it simply, Lenton says, "It would change the world."

While some of these tipping points are now only decades away, or perhaps even upon us, scientists say we can still avert worse disaster if we act now. This argument is bolstered by new research from the University of Exeter which shows the disastrous consequences of climate "tipping points" could be averted if global warming was reversed quickly enough — concluding that thresholds could be "temporarily exceeded" without prompting permanent shifts.

We may still pass some of these tipping points, but the less we warm the Earth, the slower the impacts will unfold, and the more time our children and grandchildren will have to adapt to the changes.