State of Climate 2024 Report signals worse is coming – like very nearly now

This is my Wednesday blog post on a Thursday, given that I spent yesterday dealing with Australia’s latest CPI data release. So today I consider a range of topics in less detail, which is my usual Wednesday practice. Today, I comment on the latest ‘State of Climate 2024’ Report just released in Australia. I also consider the view that underneath all the regional wars at present where war lords fight to gain control of failed states is a voracious surplus extraction system we just happen to call Capitalism. And then some other items that have interested me this week. And a music segment.

State of the Climate 2024

In Kyoto at present it is regularly 10 degrees above average for this time of year.

While that is pleasant and better than the much colder weather that is normal around now, the ‘pleasant’ days portend global disaster.

The latest extreme weather event in Spain is causing chaos.

The ABC Report (October 31, 2024) – What is DANA, the weather system that brought Spain a year’s worth of rain in one day and its worst natural disaster in modern history? – attributes the floods and extreme rain to the “warming planet” and concludes that:

… extreme weather events are occurring more frequently and in much greater strength than ever before.

Yesterday’s Australian CPI release reported that ‘insurance’ costs are rising fast as a result of climate risk factors increasing.

Some coastal areas in Australia are now no longer insurable, which means that people who have spent hundreds of thousands on a house are left with a stranded asset because the banks will not loan to anyone who wants to buy, so the turnover market evaporates.

You would think our politicians would be doing everything possible to fast track changes.

But like Nero, our decision makers are mostly ignoring the issue as the planet burns.

Australia is now in the bushfire season, which is coming earlier and earlier each year and regularly causes massive damage.

I spoke to one house builder recently who predicted the supply of timber in Australia will evaporate over time as sequential bushfires wipe out the plantations.

He is researching house printing solutions using bio products – this is an emerging field but not yet viable for large-scale application.

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) released their latest – State of the Climate 2024 – which is a comprehensive analysis of the latest scientific evidence regarding climate change.

The Report is written in collaboration with the – CSIRO

This is the 8th Biennial report and provides “a synthesis of the science that underpins our understanding of Australia’s climate”.

There are several key points in the Report including:

1. “Australia’s climate has warmed by an average of 1.51 ±0.23 °C since national records began in 1910.”

2. “Sea surface temperatures have increased by an average of 1.08 °C since 1900.”

3. “The warming has led to an increase in the frequency of extreme heat events over land and in the oceans.”

4. “Heavy short-term rainfall events are becoming more intense.”

5. “There has been an increase in extreme fire weather, and a longer fire season, across large parts of the country since the 1950s.”

6. “Snow depth, snow cover and number of snow days have decreased in alpine regions since the late 1950s.”

7. “Oceans around Australia are becoming more acidic, with changes happening faster in recent decades.”

8. “Sea levels are rising around Australia, including more frequent extreme high levels that increase the risk of inundation and damage to coastal infrastructure and communities.”

An ABC news report about the release (October 31, 2024) – – concluded that:

The report has a clear message – the world is sick, it’s addicted to fossil fuels and the only way to bring the temperature down is to get off them.

A couple of graphs in the BOM/CSIRO Report caught my attention.

First, this graph shows the “Frequency of extreme heat events is increasing”.

The second graph relates to the Chapters on ‘Sea Surface Temperature’ and ‘Ocean heat content’.

The Report notes that:

The world’s oceans have taken up more than 90% of the extra energy stored by the planet as a result of enhanced greenhouse gas concentrations … Ocean warming has accelerated since the early 2000s.

Climate variability is directly linked to this trend.

The vertical axis is a ‘zettajoule’ which “is somewhat more than the amount of energy required to heat the Baltic Sea by 1 °C, assuming properties similar to those of pure water.”

The ABC Report notes that these changes “are many standard deviations above the mean over the last couple of years” and that sort of outlying behaviour is very scary.

Capitalism is at the heart of international conflicts and oppression

I read an interesting article in The Japan Times (October 27, 2024) over the weekend – The dark reality of global capitalism and perpetual war – which provides another dimension to the policy crisis facing humanity.

I have long held the view that Capitalism – as a system of production and exchange – is unsustainable from both a human rights perspective and an environmental health perspective.

I consider that approaching calamity will force changes on us which will make it clear that the current way of doing things is not consistent with a sustainable human existence on this planet.

This article tackled one dimension that underlines that reasoning.

It reminds us that while the media is concentrating on Hamas or Netanyahu, or Kim Jong Un or Putin as evil demonstrations of “our brutal age”, the reality is much more horrible than anything those names have delivered.

And don’t get me wrong – what is happening in the Middle East as Israel kills and maims tens of thousands of innocent people and destroys their livelihoods and communities is about as bad as one can conceivably imagine.

The article, written by Slovenian philosopher – Slavoj Žižek – however, reminds us of the shocking events unfolding in Sudan, which he says:

… exposes a global economic logic that has remained obfuscated in other cases.

He documents a plethora of atrocities forced onto the civilians as the “country’s new warlords” struggle for supremacy.

Supporting the massacres and oppression is the “the role of external forces” like the private Wagner Group militia and some nation states (UAE, China) which have been furnishing the rival armies “with military supplies, helicopters and weapons” etc.

One group leader also controls the “abundant gold reserves that allow him to purchase all the weapons he needs”.

The point he makes is:

We are thus reminded of a sad truth facing many developing countries: Natural resources are as likely to be a source of violence and poverty as they are to underpin peace and prosperity.

He suggests that if they had no valuable resources – and he uses the Democratic Republic of Congo as an example, which is also riven by conflict and military struggles:

… it would still be poor, but it might be a happier, more peaceful place to live.

And underpinning all the strife in various nations in the world are:

… the unmistakable contours of global capitalism.

How does he draw that conclusion?

He argues that various warlords use strong arm tactics including murder etc to replace functioning governments and then prosper by maintaining:

… business ties with the foreign corporations that are exploiting the region’s mineral reserves.

In other words, both the war criminals and the corporations prosper while the citizens live in fear and misery.

Further, the corporations love these arrangements because:

… get mining rights without having to pay state taxes and the warlords get money with which to buy arms.

One set of corporations get the mining revenue while another set within the military-industrial complex sell the weapons.

Win-win.

But another dimension to this scandal is the role that you and I play in perpetuating it.

When I was a graduate student at Monash University in Melbourne in the late 1970s, a friend and I ran a series of films that we were able to get free of charge from the Victorian Film Archive.

We called our series a ‘Radical Film Festival’ and screened films from Latin American, Africa and other places where global capitalists were siphoning off real resource bounties at the expense of the local residents.

One film focused on the Tin Miners in Bolivia who were forced to work under shocking conditions that kept them in poverty and caused all sorts of health issues.

We would close the sessions with a discussion with the audience and at the end of that film I recall one of the students who attended (and remember all these students were typically well-heeled from very well-off families) decided to challenge the logic of showing these sorts of movies in Australia.

He said something like “what has all this got to do with life in Australia?”

I responded by asking him whether he or his family ever bought tinned goods like fruit, soups, vegetables.

He said: “Of course, so what?”

And that is the point.

Slavoj Žižek writes that in these war-torn countries:

Many of these minerals then end up in our laptops, mobile phones and other high-tech products. The problem is not the “savage” customs of the local population; it is the foreign companies and the wealthy consumers who buy their products. Remove them from the equation and the entire edifice of ethnic warfare crumbles.

That is, as a result of our mass consumption patterns, we all become part of the problem in the same way that we are part of the climate problem.

He cites many examples of these linkages.

Libya – run by war lords after the US decided to liberate it and deliver ‘freedom’ – who “sell oil directly to foreign customers, reminding us of capitalism’s tenacity in securing a steady supply of cheap raw materials.”

He argues that capital doesn’t care about the morality of the cases involved and the way the mainstream media and politicians frame the problems – as “‘backward’ people who are not ready for democracy” – misses the point entirely.

These devastating conflicts are really:

… about the continuing economic colonization of Africa — not just by the West but also by China, Russia and rich Arab countries.

Which tells us that without a fundamental change in the way resources are allocated and our mass consumption behaviour – not a lot of progress will be made towards peace and improving the human condition.

It is a very bleak assessment.

And just think if the US stopped supplying weapons etc to Israel, how long do you think the slaughter there would continue?

Cultural Boycott

As a published author, I received an invitation this week to join the cultural boycott of Israel – Refusing Complicity in Israel’s Literary Institutions.

You can read the press release – HERE.

I signed along with thousands of other authors and publishers.

I have long been a supporter of the – BDS Movement (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) which aims to “end international support for Israel’s oppression of Palestinians and pressure Israel to comply with international law.”

The cultural boycott is consistent with that aim.

I urge readers to join the long list of people who are calling for this boycott.

There is however polarisation in the literary community about this issue.

The UK Guardian article (October 28, 2024) – Nobel and Pulitzer winners denounce ‘dangerous’ Israel cultural boycott – reports on the criticism of the boycott and claims that “Israel is fighting existential wars against Hamas and Hezbollah”.

I disagree strongly with that characterisation.

42,000 innocent Palestinians were not threatening Israel’s existence.

I remind people of the concerted global pressure on the apartheid government of South Africa during the late 1960s and 1070s which finally – through the sporting boycotts – forced change.

Boycotts work and we should engage in such organised and coordinated activity more often.

Ultimately, capitalism relies on things being sold for a profit.

And the literary community leads the way in influencing ideas in societies.

It cannot be sequestered from what the governments do.

US Presidential Election

I note Bernie Sanders is calling on Americans to vote for Harris even though she has an appalling record with respect the Palestinian situation and pledges to continue supply weapons to Israel.

His reasoning seems to be that Kamala is bad but Donald is worse.

I don’t agree.

Progressives should push their votes towards Jill Stein who is not a perfect candidate but voting for her would send the other two terrible candidates a strong message.

How could anyone with a good conscience vote for Harris?

Smith Family Manga – Next Episode coming November 15, 2024

We were due to release Episode 8 in our – The Smith Family Manga – this coming Friday.

However, we have decided to change the release schedule from fortnightly to monthly for the remainder of Season 2.

We are finding that it is difficult to meet the deadline given the time it takes to create the series – particularly the quite elaborate drawing involved – and the time demands of our ‘real’ jobs.

The Manga Team is small (two persons with some translation help from a third) and we have to do it in our ‘spare’ time.

So the next episode will come out on November 15, 2024.

We will probably delay the launch of Season 3 into the new year so that we can build up a stock of episodes and revert back to our preferred fortnightly release pattern.

Music – Bob Dylan

Last Friday, the band I play with in Kyoto did a gig at the famous – Jittoku Live House – and one of the songs we did was – Knocking on Heaven’s Door – by – Bob Dylan.

Here is the 1973 version as it accompanied the movie – Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.

It is such a simple song in structure (3 chords verse, 3 chords chorus) and lots of harmonic variation possible.

We had a lot of fun playing it.

I will post our live ‘put together’ version when it is edited.

And here is Bob Dylan’s live version which is an extended version of the original.

Either way, a great song.

That is enough for today!

(c) Copyright 2024 William Mitchell. All Rights Reserved