A squadron of planes flies overhead, releasing trails of sulfur and other aerosols into the air. A fleet of ships traverses the ocean, spraying plumes of saltwater mist into the air. A wall of fans gently hums between grassy hills in the Icelandic countryside.
These images are not from a movie, they are very real concepts and technologies put forth by scientists in Apocalypse Plan B, a documentary from The Nature of Things.
We have entered a new era of combating climate change — with carbon capture and geoengineering technologies — where science fiction is becoming science fact.
Carbon and climate events
More than half of humanity’s CO2 emissions have been released into the atmosphere since 1990. Each year, more than 34 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide are pumped into the atmosphere — almost three gigatonnes a month, which amounts to enough carbon to fill New York’s Central Park with a mass of coal half a kilometre high.
As our carbon output continues, global temperatures increase, which disrupts weather patterns and results in higher temperatures, more intense storms, increased drought and warming oceans. These events have a cascading effect, leading to species loss, poverty and displacement.
Though we’re already witnessing some of these problems, climate scientist Michael Mann says we still have time. “The science tells us that it’s not too late to prevent the worst impacts of climate change if we reduce carbon emissions by 50 per cent within this decade,” he says. “It’s a tough task, but we can do it.”
Scientists are racing to find solutions to pull carbon from the atmosphere. Some have taken the more controversial approach of using human intervention to cool the planet, although this solution doesn’t come without consequences.
Climate change and inequality
David Keith, a Harvard University physicist, is in favour of intentionally increasing Earth’s reflectivity. His proposal involves a fleet of aircraft spraying sulfur and other aerosols into the atmosphere, where they would divert sunlight away, effectively cooling the planet. It’s a concept known as solar geoengineering.
Dimming the sun by adding more gas to the atmosphere | Apocalypse Plan B
This scientist has a proposal to fight climate change: intentionally release tonnes of sulphur gas into the stratosphere using aircraft, to dim the sun’s rays.
However, this strategy could affect Earth’s natural systems, disrupting plant productivity, ocean currents and atmospheric wind patterns, which could have an outsized impact on populations that depend on these systems for their livelihoods.
Climate inequality is a concern as temperatures continue to rise. Populations in low-income countries are more likely to experience consequences from climate change and the costs of mitigating it, namely by reducing emissions. These disproportionate impacts can further increase poverty in these communities.
But Keith insists climate justice is the basis for his idea, and that the reduction in temperatures would benefit those living in hot countries the most. But Indian scientist and environmental activist Vandana Shiva disagrees.
“You block the sun, what you’re basically doing is you’re cursing the 80 per cent of humanity and all the beings on this Earth who depend on the green leaf for their survival,” she says.
Shiva believes climate justice is about listening to those whose livelihoods depend on the natural environment rather than imposing solutions on them.
“We have not forgotten that colonialism began with the excuse of the white man’s burden,” she says.
Human intervention is only one of the ways scientists are exploring to cool the planet. Some researchers think the solution is not to fight our natural systems, but to work with them.
Natural options
The first mangrove forest that Lola Fatoyinbo ever visited as a graduate student was in Everglades National Park, Florida. “It’s actually one of my favorite sites in the whole world,” she says.
Fatoyinbo is an environmental scientist who likes looking at forests — a lot of forests.
Working with a team from NASA, she uses a combination of 3D scanning and satellite imagery to determine the density of forests around the world and their carbon content.
Fatoyinbo is one of the scientists who sees the planet’s natural systems as a solution for removing carbon from the atmosphere. During the spring and summer months in the Northern Hemisphere, carbon dioxide is pulled from the atmosphere as the Earth’s forests turn green once more, removing a significant amount of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.
When considering carbon-storage solutions, Fatoyinbo stresses the importance of these forests — especially mangrove forests.
“One of the really big advantages of mangroves is that they have a really high carbon-storage capacity,” she says. “Mangroves store about three to five times more carbon than a tropical rainforest. That’s really a huge amount of carbon, and this is just in the first metre of soil.”
As climate events worsen, Fatoyinbo is seeing the depletion of these carbon stores. Mangroves, which historically have been able to withstand storms and the rising sea level, are not able to tolerate the intensity and frequency of storms resulting from climate change, as they have less time to recuperate. Some become “ghost forests” — a haunting name for these ecosystems when they haven’t been able to recover and die.
“There’s no way to see what we’re seeing and not worry,” she says.
For Fatoyinbo, the protection of these forests is an essential step for removing carbon from the atmosphere. “[The] restoration of mangroves, forests and wetlands — these are really important mechanisms that are part of the fight,” she says.
Every spring and summer, toxic rivers of CO2 are removed from our atmosphere – thanks to trees and plants | Apocalypse Plan B
Lola Fatoyinbo is a NASA research scientist who studies forest ecosystems from space. Using data gathered from instruments on the space station, she’s able to map the world’s forests, and the effect they have on our planet.
British environmental writer and activist George Monbiot agrees with Fatoyinbo’s approach.
“Our chances of getting through this century — let alone those that follow — depend to a very large extent on whether we can restore many of the world’s wild ecosystems,” he says.
According to Monbiot, the fastest way of removing carbon from the atmosphere is to turn it into solid carbon in the form of trees, wetlands and other ecosystems. However, this requires an understanding of how land is used, or rather misused.
Half of the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture, and Monbiot points out, “twenty-eight per cent of the planet’s terrestrial surface is used for keeping grazing livestock,” he says. “That extraordinary area … is used to produce just one per cent of the world’s protein. This is a phenomenally wasteful way of producing our food.”
Despite the bleakness, Monbiot feels there’s still time to change.
“It really is not too late because social change can happen at great speed,” he says.
Moving forward
Against a backdrop of extreme climate events, carbon buildup and indecision, time is running out, and these scientists know it. Whether by radical human intervention or protection of natural systems, they all agree that action is needed to slow the damage caused by climate change.
Mann wryly sums up the urgency of the situation: “The good thing is that if we screw up this planet, we’ve got another one to go to — Oh no, wait. No, we don’t. Do we?”
It’s a dinosaur that roamed Alberta’s badlands more than 70 million years ago, sporting a big, bumpy, bony head the size of a baby elephant.
On Wednesday, paleontologists near Grande Prairie pulled its 272-kilogram skull from the ground.
They call it “Big Sam.”
The adult Pachyrhinosaurus is the second plant-eating dinosaur to be unearthed from a dense bonebed belonging to a herd that died together on the edge of a valley that now sits 450 kilometres northwest of Edmonton.
It didn’t die alone.
“We have hundreds of juvenile bones in the bonebed, so we know that there are many babies and some adults among all of the big adults,” Emily Bamforth, a paleontologist with the nearby Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum, said in an interview on the way to the dig site.
She described the horned Pachyrhinosaurus as “the smaller, older cousin of the triceratops.”
“This species of dinosaur is endemic to the Grand Prairie area, so it’s found here and nowhere else in the world. They are … kind of about the size of an Indian elephant and a rhino,” she added.
The head alone, she said, is about the size of a baby elephant.
The discovery was a long time coming.
The bonebed was first discovered by a high school teacher out for a walk about 50 years ago. It took the teacher a decade to get anyone from southern Alberta to come to take a look.
“At the time, sort of in the ’70s and ’80s, paleontology in northern Alberta was virtually unknown,” said Bamforth.
When paleontogists eventually got to the site, Bamforth said, they learned “it’s actually one of the densest dinosaur bonebeds in North America.”
“It contains about 100 to 300 bones per square metre,” she said.
Paleontologists have been at the site sporadically ever since, combing through bones belonging to turtles, dinosaurs and lizards. Sixteen years ago, they discovered a large skull of an approximately 30-year-old Pachyrhinosaurus, which is now at the museum.
About a year ago, they found the second adult: Big Sam.
Bamforth said both dinosaurs are believed to have been the elders in the herd.
“Their distinguishing feature is that, instead of having a horn on their nose like a triceratops, they had this big, bony bump called a boss. And they have big, bony bumps over their eyes as well,” she said.
“It makes them look a little strange. It’s the one dinosaur that if you find it, it’s the only possible thing it can be.”
The genders of the two adults are unknown.
Bamforth said the extraction was difficult because Big Sam was intertwined in a cluster of about 300 other bones.
The skull was found upside down, “as if the animal was lying on its back,” but was well preserved, she said.
She said the excavation process involved putting plaster on the skull and wooden planks around if for stability. From there, it was lifted out — very carefully — with a crane, and was to be shipped on a trolley to the museum for study.
“I have extracted skulls in the past. This is probably the biggest one I’ve ever done though,” said Bamforth.
“It’s pretty exciting.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 25, 2024.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
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