Dana Malcolm

Staff Writer

#Dubai, May 23, 2023 – A Dubai based architectural company has unveiled plans for the world’s largest man made reef called Dubai Reefs. The massive project, which is yet to be approved, comes as the effects of climate change continue to highlight the desperate need to secure the survival of the natural environment.

If built, Dubai Reefs, which is described as a sustainable floating community, will house more than 1 billion coral and 100 million mangroves.

It will do all of this via the creation of artificial reefs spanning 200 square kilometers, powered by solar and wave energy. It’s an effort, representatives say, to protect the rich oceans and ocean life and promote sustainable interactions with our environment.

“The health of our cities is intrinsically tied to the health of our oceans. The ocean is the source of life controlling everything. Given that everything on our planet is connected, a healthy ocean is a healthy city. Our ocean will be entirely different by the end of the century if we don’t take action today,” said Baharash Bagherian, CEO of URB.

They hope that the project described as a sustainable model, and which will also host hotels and introduce more eco tourism will be replicated.

“Beyond creating a unique resilient destination for ecotourism & marine research, Dubai Reefs aims to become a blueprint for ocean living, whilst mitigating the impacts of climate change,” Bagherian said.

The company says it is a significant step for all coastal cities at risk of sea rise.

If successfully built, the project could be a game changer for not only coastal cities but Small Island Developing States (SIDS) who are losing their reefs and shoreline to ocean warming and sea level rise, and are also exposed to dangerous hurricanes in the Atlantic and typhoons in the Pacific each year.

Dana Malcolm

Staff Writer

May 23, 2023 – Airline workers in North America are disgruntled with their working hours and pay, resulting in more and more strikes and they’re hitting where it hurts, grinding operations to a halt on the eve of holidays and travel heavy weekends to drive their frustration home. Canada is the home of the latest set of fed up workers; this time it was WestJet/Swoop pilots who gave a 72 hour strike notice protesting, once again, poor working conditions and low pay.

The notice came on May 16th, and Pilots would have begun their strike on May 19th, just before the long Victoria Day Weekend costing WestJet millions of dollars in profit. An all out shutdown was only narrowly avoided when the airline scrambled to give the pilots what they asked for hours before the industrial action was to begin. More than 200 flights had to be cancelled anyway.

WestJet said the pilots, represented by the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), were being unreasonable as they had expectations of closing in towards U.S.–like wages, despite living and working in Canada.

According to reports, the Pilots got a 4 year contract with not only a raise in the low realm of US Pilots but better working conditions. The pilots had been negotiating for 9 months before deciding to strike, and only then were they afforded the contract, details of which have not yet been made public.

Airline Workers have been on repeated strikes in the US recently and the UK has had its own share of near shutdowns over wages as well.

By Rashaed Esson

Staff Writer

May 23, 2023 – It’s about get even hotter as the UN agency says scientists have warned that the world may experience rising temperatures above the 1.5 Celsius threshold, due to El Niño and human induced climate breakdown, which could have serious consequences putting us into uncharted territory, even though it was initially predicted that the chances of temperature rise above the 1.5C was zero.

This would be failing to keep the promise made by countries in 2015 under the Paris Climate Agreement to keep global temperatures lower than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels (1850 to 1900), following advice from scientists that warming beyond the superior level could be catastrophic resulting in irremediable outcomes.

The report published on Wednesday, May 17th, 2023, by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), highlighted that there is a 66 percent chance of exceeding the 1.5 Celsius mark at least one year between 2023 and 2027.

However, according to Professor Petteri Taalas, Secretary General of WMO, the rise in temperature will not be permanent.

“This report does not mean that we will permanently exceed the 1.5C specified in the Paris agreement, which refers to long-term warming over many years. However, WMO is sounding the alarm that we will breach the 1.5C level on a temporary basis with increasing frequency.”

Climate breakdown from human activity and the development of the El Niño weather system, as La Niña ends, creates heat waves across the globe.

The La Niña phase, which the world was in for the past three years, had diminished high temperatures around the world.  Now with El Niño, which is expected to develop in the coming months, there is a 98 percent chance that at least one of the next five years will be the hottest ever recorded, scientists say.

It is predicted that each year from 2023 to 2027, the global near-surface temperature will be between 1.1C and 1.8C, above the highlighted pre-industrial levels.

Despite the fact that this rise in temperature is said to be temporary, the effects should not be taken lightly, especially since the world is already seeing negative impacts of warming.

Rising temperatures can lead to serious outcomes, such as death by heatwaves, which from 2016 to 2021, were above the five-year average in every heat-period, with a total of 12,598 excess deaths (9.3% above average, 119 average excess deaths per day; longer droughts; wildfires; shrinking of glaciers and ice sheets; wind intensity and rainfall from tropical cyclones, as well as other serious effects.

Additionally, there will likely be less rainfall in the Amazon, Central America, Australia and Indonesia, according to the report.

For the Amazon, this poses a threat to the region’s rainforest which is what it’s known for. Scientists fear the warming and human deforestation could destroy the region, turning it into more of a savanna.

November of this year will see the meeting of   governments for the Cop28 UN climate summit, where progress towards meeting the goals of the Paris agreement will be examined. The “global stock take”, as the assessment is called, will likely highlight that the world is not close to  reducing greenhouse gas emissions by the stipulated  43 percent this decade that is required to have a good chance of limiting temperature rises to 1.5C.