Climate Change or Climate Hoax? Skeptics and Activists | Us & Them | DW Documentary

Sep 29, 2024 | Climate change is real, and it is dangerous. Some people are actively trying to stop it. Others deny or intensify it - or suppress information. Most don’t bother at all and continue to contribute to global warming through their lifestyle.

Anja Windl from Germany is a climate activist with a group called "The Last Generation." They take dramatic action in order to draw attention to climate change. Time and again, they have glued themselves to streets, defaced works of art and private planes, or loudly disrupted events. In Anja's opinion, politicians, business leaders and the majority of citizens in affluent Germany are all failing to do enough to combat climate change. Yet the country is a major contributor to global warming, Anja says.

For Thorsten Alsleben, the activities of climate activists are nonsensical and even dangerous. The managing director of the "Initiative New Social Market Economy" - a lobbying organization founded by German industrial companies - does not deny that climate change exists. However, he warns against governmental policies that stifle Germany's economic strength. In his opinion, the free market and a carbon tax will serve to ensure companies produce in more climate-friendly ways. Moreover, he says, Germany only contributes around 2 percent to greenhouse gas emissions - much less than front-runners China or the US.

Some 9,200 kilometers away from Germany, 38-year-old Anto Purnomo takes his boat through the mangrove forests of Langsa, in the north of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. He makes his living by felling mangroves and selling the wood. Mangroves bind CO2. But more importantly, the plants are key to coastal protection and home to valuable ecological systems, countless fish, and other marine animals. He knows about climate change, but he has to feed his family.

Taufik Hidayat, on the other hand, is trying to stop the deforestation of the mangroves. He knows how important they are for the people and nature of the coastal regions. If sea levels continue to rise due to global warming, the mangroves can at least provide some protection. The 24-year-old works for the NGO Indonesian Coastal Conservation Foundation in Langsa, Aceh. His father, a crab fisherman, already warned him about of the dangers to locals if the mangroves continue to disappear. Taufik is aware that everyone has to fight climate change in their own way. But he also knows that people in the wealthy industrialized countries have a special responsibility.


Melting glaciers force Switzerland and Italy to redraw part of Alpine border: Two countries agree to modifications beneath Matterhorn peak, one of Europe’s highest summits »

‘We’ve Got to Run to Something’: Vivek Ramaswamy on Campaign Message

Sep 19, 2023 | ABC News’ Linsey Davis spoke with GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy about his 2024 campaign, his views on climate change policy, and on race in America.

This guy is nothing if not controversial! – Mark

Heat Wave Grips Portions of South America in the Middle of Winter

THE NEW YORK TIMES: An unusual winter heat wave has brought record high temperatures to cities across Argentina, Chile and Paraguay this week, triggering concerns about the impacts of climate change.

Residents of Buenos Aires were wearing shorts and fanning themselves as they struggled to cope with unusual heat on Tuesday. By Thursday, they were back in the jackets and scarves that they would normally wear at this time of the year.

The sudden change in wardrobe was the result of a heat wave gripping portions of South America, including Argentina, Chile and Paraguay, that are supposed to be experiencing winter.

Argentina’s capital city broke an 81-year-old daily temperature record on Tuesday, when the high reached 86 degrees Fahrenheit (or 30 degrees Celsius), according to the national weather service. Normally, highs in Buenos Aires this time of year are in the 60s.

“Climate change is not a distant scenario,” the service said in a Facebook post on Tuesday. “It is here, and it is urgent to act.”

This week’s heat wave in South America is part of a recent trend of abnormally high temperatures in the middle of the continent’s winter and also comes as countries in the Northern Hemisphere have faced record heat this summer. » | Jesus Jiménez and Natalie Alcoba (Natalie Alcoba reported from Buenos Aires.) | Thursday, August 3, 2023

What Is Supercharging the Global Heat?

Jul 19, 2023 | The planet is being hit with a double whammy of global heating in 2023: on top of the rise in global temperature caused by greenhouse gas emissions is an emerging El Niño.

This sporadic event is the biggest natural influence on year-to-year weather and adds a further spurt of warmth to an already overheating world. The Guardian's environment editor, Damian Carrington, explains what El Niño is and how it affects extreme weather.

Some July Heat: ‘Virtually Impossible’ Without Climate Change, Analysis Finds

THE NEW YORK TIMES: The latest study from World Weather Attribution scientists predicts that extreme heat waves will return more frequently.

Some of the extreme temperatures recorded in the Southwestern United States, southern Europe and northern Mexico at the beginning of the month would have been “virtually impossible” without the influence of human-caused climate change, according to research made public Tuesday.

During the first half of July hundreds of millions of people in North America, Europe and Asia sweltered under intense heat waves. A heat wave in China was made 50 times as likely by climate change, the researchers said.

World Weather Attribution, an international group of scientists who measure how much climate change influences extreme weather events, focused on the worst heat so far during the northern hemisphere summer. In the United States, temperatures in Phoenix have reached 110 degrees Fahrenheit, roughly 43 Celsius, or higher for more than 20 days in a row. Many places in southern Europe are experiencing record-breaking, triple-digit temperatures. A remote township in Xinjiang, China, hit 126 degrees, breaking the national record.

“Without climate change, we wouldn’t see this at all,” said Friederike Otto, a senior lecturer in climate science at Imperial College London and co-founder of World Weather Attribution. “Or it would be so rare that it basically would not be happening.” » | Delger Erdenesanaa | Tuesday, July 25, 2023

Europe Braces for Record Heat as Wildfires Hit Greece | DW News

Jul 18, 2023 | Greece has been especially hard hit by wildfires. The normal summertime dangers are being made worse by a heat wave. Firefighting services are now trying to fight the flames in several different regions while keeping residents and visitors at a safe distance.

"This Is Climate Change and We Just Have to Get Used to It Somehow” | DW News

Jul 14, 2023

Health alerts issued as blistering heat scorches southern Europe: Tourists collapse in Greece and Italy and worker killed near Milan amid heatwave worsened by carbon pollution »

El Niño Planet-warming Weather Phase Begins - BBC News

Jun 8, 2023 | El Niño, a natural weather event, has begun in the Pacific Ocean, likely adding heat to a planet already warming under climate change. US scientists confirmed that El Niño had started. Experts say it will likely make 2024 the world's hottest year. They fear it will help push the world past a key 1.5C warming milestone. It will also affect world weather, potentially bringing drought to Australia, more rain to the southern US, and weakening India's monsoon. The event will likely last until next spring, after which its impacts will recede.

Met Office Forecasts 2023 Will Be Hotter Than 2022

Read the article here.

Climate Change: Europe's First Heat Officer | DW Documentary

Aug 8, 2022 Eleni Myrivili has the mammoth task of ensuring the survival of Athens. As the city's newly appointed "chief heat officer," she is working on ways to prepare the Greek capital for the consequences of climate change. That's no small feat: The city has 3 million residents — and is almost unbearable in summer.

One possible solution to the heat problem dates all the way back to antiquity: Hadrian's Aqueduct, a subterranean tunnel constructed under Roman rule stretches nearly 20 kilometers (12 miles) under Athens. Water from this tunnel will be used to irrigate parks across the city, creating a cool green corridor. But Eleni Myrivili's tasks are not limited to city planning. She is also responsible for providing emergency aid for people directly affected by the heat. Despite the ever-worsening situation, she has observed a worrying trend: Many people in Athens still accept the heat and climate change as fate. Can Myrivili change people's perceptions? A report by Gunnar Köhne.

UK Heatwave This Week Will Last Longer Than July’s but with Lower Temperatures

THE GUARDIAN: Peaks of about 35C expected on Friday or Saturday amid warnings of fire risk

Britain is braced for another heatwave that will last longer than July’s record-breaking hot spell, with highs of up to 35C expected over the next week, forecasters have said.

Temperatures over the coming days will remain lower than the 40.3C reached in July, the hottest temperature on record, but the heatwave will continue over a “prolonged period”, the Met Office has said.

People have been urged not to have barbecues in the tinder-dry conditions after people from 15 homes were evacuated after a garden fire that spread out of control in Essex. » | PA Media | Monday, August 8, 2022

The Town That Burned Down in a Day

Feb 3, 2022 • This year, Canada had a record heatwave which scientists say was impossible without climate change. Wildfires engulfed Patrick Michell’s hometown of Lytton after it reached 49.5°C. Now he and his community must plan for an uncertain future. Meanwhile, an environmental protest against the logging industry becomes the largest act of civil disobedience Canada’s ever seen.

First Fires, Then Floods: Climate Extremes Batter Australia

THE NEW YORK TIMES: Many of the same areas that suffered through horrific bush fires in 2019 and 2020 are now dealing with prodigious rainfall that could leave some people stranded for weeks.

WEE WAA, Australia — Two years ago, the fields outside Christina Southwell’s family home near the cotton capital of Australia looked like a dusty, brown desert as drought-fueled wildfires burned to the north and south.

Last week, after record-breaking rains, muddy floodwaters surrounded her, along with the stench of rotting crops. She had been trapped for days with just her cat, and still didn’t know when the sludge would recede.

“It seems to take for bloody ever to go away,” she said, watching a boat carry food into the town of Wee Waa. “All it leaves behind is this stink, and it’s just going to get worse.”

Life on the land has always been hard in Australia, but the past few years have delivered one extreme after another, demanding new levels of resilience and pointing to the rising costs of a warming planet. For many Australians, moderate weather — a pleasant summer, a year without a state of emergency — increasingly feels like a luxury. » | Damien Cave Photographs and Video by Matthew Abbott | Saturday, December 11, 2021

Arnold Schwarzenegger Calls Leaders 'Liars' over Climate Change - BBC News

Oct 29, 2021 • Actor and former governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, has become a champion of clean air and renewable energy, and speaks powerfully about tackling climate issues. In an interview for BBC Radio 4's '39 Ways to Save the Planet', the Terminator star criticises countries for not doing more to tackle pollution.

G20 Summit in Rome Focuses on Climate Change, Coronavirus | DW News

Oct 30, 2021 • The G20 summit is underway in Rome as leaders from the world's major industrialized nations meet.

Outgoing German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, is among the dignitaries who are in the Italian capital for the two-day gathering. Among the topics being discussed is the coronavirus pandemic - with emergency workers invited to join the leaders for a photo. Tackling global warming is also top of the agenda, ahead of the COP26 climate conference which begins on Sunday. Most of those attending the G20 in Rome will travel onward to Glasgow for that key UN climate summit.

It is Biden's first major European trip to meet world leaders as president. The devout Catholic keeps a photograph of Pope Francis on his desk at the White House. He met with his hero face-to-face at the Vatican.

For more than an hour, the two leaders spoke privately about climate change, the pandemic and poverty. The visit is the prequel of two major summits happening this weekend. In Rome, the G20 and in Glasgow the COP26 climate summit. Back home, Biden suffered a setback for his pricy infrastructure plan, which focuses in part on the environment.

But ahead of the G20, young people are pushing for action on the climate.

Getting more jabs in people's arms in rich and poor countries is also a priority at the first face-to-face summit since the pandemic hit. But before Biden joins in on the global cooperation to tackle monumental problems, he first had a very public Mea Culpa with French President Emmanuel Macron.

Biden apologized for the US's botched handling of a submarine deal with Australia, which cut out France. For his part Macron is ready to move forward. Both sides hope the rebuilding of trust will help bring about the change young people are marching for.

Southern Europe Wildfires: A Climate Threat? | DW News

Aug 3, 2021 • 'We are no longer talking about climate change but about a climate threat' — that's the view of Greece's deputy civil protection minister as the southeast region of the Mediterranean is gripped by an extreme heatwave. Dozens of wildfires have broken out in Greece, Italy and Turkey — forcing residents and tourists to evacuate.

DW's correspondents in Turkey, Greece and Italy are on the ground following this story.
On Turkey's southern coast, blazes have killed at least eight people. DW's Julia Hahn reports from Manavgat, one of the areas that has been badly affected by the wildfires in Turkey.

In Greece, temperatures are expected to peak at 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) in some parts of the country this week. The prime minister says Greece is experiencing its worst heatwave since 1987. Local authorities are advising households and businesses to conserve electricity especially during afternoon and evening peak times. DW correspondent Florian Schmitz reports from Thessaloniki.

Extreme weather has emergency services on high alert in Italy, too. Heavy rain and floods have hit the north of the country, while wildfires burn in the south. The Italian fire service say they have carried out over 700 operations in the past 24 hours on wildfires burning across the central and southern parts of the country. Jacopo Lentini reports from Palermo.

DW puts the extreme heatwave in southern Europe into perspective with Mojib Latif, a meteorologist at Germany’s Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research, and author of best-selling climate change book 'Hot Times.'

European Floods Are Latest Sign of a Global Warming Crisis

A church and cemetery after flooding in Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, Germany.Credit...Friedemann Vogel/EPA, via Shutterstock
THE NEW YORK TIMES: Floods like these, which have left more than 100 dead, had not been seen in perhaps 1,000 years. For many, the warnings came too late, raising questions about lapses in Germany’s flood alert system.

BERLIN — Days before roiling waters tore through western Germany, a European weather agency issued an “extreme” flood warning after detailed models showed storms that threatened to send rivers surging to levels that a German meteorologist said on Friday had not been seen in 500 or even 1,000 years.

By Friday those predictions proved devastatingly accurate, with more than 100 people dead and 1,300 unaccounted for, as helicopter rescue crews plucked marooned residents from villages inundated sometimes within minutes, raising questions about lapses in Germany’s elaborate flood warning system.

Numerous areas, victims and officials said, were caught unprepared when normally placid brooks and streams turned into torrents that swept away cars, houses and bridges and everything else in their paths.

“It went so fast. You tried to do something, and it was already too late,” a resident of Schuld told Germany’s ARD public television, after the Ahr River swelled its banks, ripping apart tidy wood-framed houses and sending vehicles bobbing like bath toys. Extreme downpours like the ones that occurred in Germany are one of the most visible signs that the climate is changing as a result of warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions. Studies have found that they are now happening more frequently for a simple reason: A warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture, generating more, and more powerful, rainfall. » | Melissa Eddy, Jack Ewing, Megan Specia and Steven Erlanger | Published: Friday, July 16, 2021; Updated: Saturday, July 17, 2021

Climate Change in the Desert | DW Documentary

Jun 30, 2020 • Climate change is leaving its mark on Morocco’s oases, too. Sandstorms are becoming more and more frequent, groundwater levels are sinking and palm trees are shrivelling up and dying. An age-old way of life is in danger.

Halim Sbai says an oasis really is a paradise. But drought and desertification are now taking their toll on oases like M'hamid El Ghizlane in southeastern Morocco where he grew up. The survival of a whole region is at stake. Over hundreds of kilometers between the Anti-Atlas Mountains and the Sahara desert there is one palm-fringed oasis after the next. Close to two million people live in these settlements. Up to now, many earned their living by harvesting dates from the palm trees. But this is proving more and more difficult. Decreasing and irregular rainfall is having a devastating impact on the trees and their yields.

Halim Sbai is planting new palm trees and preserving as much precious water as he can in a bid to keep the oasis of M'hamid El Ghizlane and the region’s traditional way of life alive. Up to now, he has also been supplementing his income with earnings from tourism. Global warming could put an end to all this.

US Pacific North-west Braces for ‘Unprecedented’ Sweltering Heatwave

THE GUARDIAN: Oregon, Washington and Idaho could surpass their all-time heat records for June in unusual weather event

The Pacific north-west is gearing up for a potentially record-setting heatwave this weekend and into next week, with temperatures in some areas expected to heat up to the triple digits and beyond.

The blazing heat is highly unusual in a region typically known for its moderate climate.

“It’s going to be unprecedented,” said Nick Bond, a Washington state climatologist. “Probably both in terms of the maximum temperatures that are reached, especially Sunday and Monday, the minimum temperatures that are going to occur for a few nights like that, and then the duration of extremely high temperatures.”

Last week, the National Weather Service issued excessive heat warnings for Washington, Oregon and Idaho. In a statement Friday, the agency cautioned that “the hot daytime temperatures, combined with warm overnight lows, will result in high heat risk and heat related stress.”

All three states could surpass their all-time heat record for June (113F for Washington and Oregon, and 114F for Idaho), according to the National Weather Service. » | Hallie Golden in Seattle | Friday, June 25, 2021

Western US in Grips of Hottest, Driest Summer in 1000 Years? | DW News

Jun 21, 2021 • It may be the first day of summer in the Northern Hemisphere, but for some 50 million people in the US summer has arrived early and hotter than ever before. In just the last week, high temperature records have been shattered all across the western half of the US. Salt Lake City, Utah, just saw its hottest day since record keeping began in 1870: 107 degrees Fahrenheit. 42 degrees Celsius.

Wyoming also saw new records. In Nevada, Las Vegas continues to flirt with its all-time high of 47 degrees Celsius.

But the US city melting most is Phoenix, Arizona, which just set an all-time record of five consecutive days of 115 degrees or higher. That is 46 degrees Celsius.

The heat is making severe droughts across the western US go from bad to worse. The federal government is already planning to declare an official water shortage at Lake Mead in August. Lake Mead's waters power Hoover Dam. As of last week, Lake Mead's water level is at a record low, and there is no relief in sight.

The Western US is in what scientists describe as a climate-change induced megadrought. Some even say this summer could be the hottest and driest in a millennium. And less water means more fire. 2020 saw a record number of wildfires in California, Oregon and Washington. 2021 is expected to be worse.