[TheClimate.Vote] December 25, 2017 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Mon Dec 25 10:32:22 EST 2017
/December 25, 2017
/
[Santa]
*Santa is Moving To South Pole
<http://www.horizons.gc.ca/en/content/santa-is-moving-to-the-south-pole>*
*What? *
Thanks to rising global temperatures, rapidly melting Arctic ice and
growing human operations in the North, Santa Claus has signed an
agreement with the International community to relocate his village next
year to operate in an exclusive zone in the South Pole.
*So What? *
Santa's relocation agreement marks the first time that the international
community agrees on a common legal definition of climate change that
includes refugees as corporations, as well as individuals. This deal is
expected to lead to the deployment of a global climate change refugee
visa system that in the near future could help to more easily relocate
individuals and corporations facing the impacts of climate change.
*Who We Are
*Policy Horizons Canada, also referred to as Horizons, is an
organization within the federal public service that conducts strategic
foresight on cross-cutting issues that informs public servants today
about the possible public policy implications over the next 10-15 years.
http://www.horizons.gc.ca/en/content/santa-is-moving-to-the-south-pole
[movie]
*Downsizing' Presents A Comic Attempt To Solve Climate Change
<https://www.npr.org/2017/12/24/573333354/-downsizing-presents-a-comic-attempt-to-solve-climate-change>*
Hong Chau, star of the movie Downsizing, discusses her role and her
background, which she said prepared her for a career in acting...
Shrink the people, shrink the human footprint on the planet, save
humankind. What starts as a noble idea ends up kitschy and
commercialized, a way for people to escape the big problems of the big
world and live in perfect opulent dollhouse-like leisure communities
where luxury items are a fraction of the price because they're a
fraction of the size...
https://www.npr.org/2017/12/24/573333354/-downsizing-presents-a-comic-attempt-to-solve-climate-change
[suck out CO2]
*Can We Suck Enough CO2 From The Air To Save The Climate?
<https://www.fastcompany.com/40510680/can-we-suck-enough-co2-from-the-air-to-save-the-climate>*
If humans stopped emitting greenhouse gases tomorrow, we'd still have a
problem: Since the industrial revolution, fossil fuels and industry have
already emitted more than 1.5 trillion tons of carbon dioxide; another
600 billion tons have come from changing land use...
To have any chance of avoiding catastrophic climate change... we'll also
likely need to use technology to begin sucking large quantities of
carbon dioxide directly from the air. Trees alone probably can't do the
job. It poses a question: Can the fledgling "direct air capture"
industry scale up quickly enough?
...and to pull enough carbon dioxide from the air to attempt to preserve
a safe climate, we may need, by one estimate, tens of millions of
shipping-container-sized units similar to the one now in use in
Switzerland...
"Once you get onto a learning curve and start increasing capacity, costs
start to drop," says the company's CTO, Peter Eisenberger, who predicts
that their Machines that suck carbon–at rates 1,000 times more
efficiently than trees–will probably also be necessary.
"It's not mitigation or capture, it's and," cost will drop from $100 per
ton to $50 per ton...
Certainly, a carbon price, whatever form it comes in, would be very
helpful...
https://www.fastcompany.com/40510680/can-we-suck-enough-co2-from-the-air-to-save-the-climate
[UN Comic book contest]
*The Indian artist behind a climate change warrior
<http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-42436745>*
23 December 2017
A 21-year-old artist from Chennai (formerly Madras) in southern India is
the winner of the first ever Unicef Climate Comic Contest for creating a
character that is half-human and half-tree.
Sathvigha Sridhar, a fresh graduate in visual arts, hadn't really
considered producing a comic book. But when her sister found a call out
for the contest on Instagram and encouraged Ms Sridhar to apply, she
knew she had to do it.
The contest, created by Unicef and its partner Comics Uniting Nations,
received nearly 2,900 submissions by young people from 99 different
countries. More than 21,000 votes were cast to determine the winner.
"The tremendous level of engagement sends a loud message to world
leaders that young people take the threat of climate change seriously,"
said Unicef communications director Paloma Escudero in a press release.
"I submitted my application twenty minutes before the deadline, and
hoped that what I had was enough," Ms Sridhar told the BBC, adding that
she was "very excited by the superheroes theme".
Her creation, which goes by the name Light, will come to life in a comic
that will be published and released early next year.
[
https://ichef-1.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/F1CD/production/_99310916_cc2.png
]
The story is set in 2025, by which time "man has burnt through all the
oil reserves, the ice caps have melted and islands are getting
submerged," she said.
A rogue scientist decides to do something about it, and injects an
embryo with DNA from a plant. And this is how the superhero Light is
born, whose powers include the ability to breathe in carbon dioxide and
breathe out oxygen.
"Essentially, he can mimic the process of photosynthesis." This, she
said, allows the character to empathise with and form a connection to
nature.
When she began sketching out her idea, she drew inspiration from recent
environmental calamities in India and wanted a superhero that
represented a creative solution. "Chennai has seen its share of climate
change problems," she said.
"We are still dealing with the effects of floods and cyclones that have
destroyed so many lives and trees in the past few weeks."
In the past, Chennai has experienced frequent disarray due to flooding
and heavy rain fall. Earlier this month, Cyclone Ockhi swept across
southern states in India, and hundreds of fishermen remain missing in
the aftermath of the storm. And devastating rainfall in Chennai two
years ago killed over a hundred, and brought the city to a standstill.
Ms Sridhar doesn't think a cartoon is going to solve these problems but
she hopes that her character sparks further dialogue around the issue,
especially among children and younger people.
"The choice to make him half-human and half-tree was important," she
said, adding that "in a sense, this allows him to see both sides of the
human development versus natural resources argument when it comes to
climate change."
She hopes that once the comic is published next year, it can be
distributed to classrooms. "I want it to be accessible to children - I
think it's an issue that is often heavy to understand, and so maybe in a
comic, it can be fun and interesting," Ms Sridhar said.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-42436745
[Reindeer]
*Climate change in Lapland: The impact of global warming in the land of
Santa Claus
<http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change-lapland-santa-claus-father-christmas-reindeer-global-warming-a8113041.html>*
The Independent
Lapland occupies a happy space in the popular imagination as a winter
wonderland, occupied by reindeer, elves and Father Christmas. The real
life Lapland, however, is increasingly facing up to the grim reality of
global warming. Besides being the name of Swedish and Finnish provinces,
Lapland is ...
The entire Sami culture circulates around nature and the reindeer," said
Jannie Staffansson, an environmental chemist and indigenous rights
activist at the Saami Council. "We are herders, fishers, gatherers and
hunters."
Sami society has always revolved around reindeer, but today Ms
Staffansson estimates only 10 per cent of Sami people are still reindeer
herders or owners.
"It's extremely difficult work to do, both physically and mentally,
because you are so challenged keeping the reindeer safe and happy, and
trying to combat climate change at the same time," says Ms Staffansson...
Reindeer, which typically feed by digging into the snow and grazing on
lichen, are unable to either smell food under the ice or dig to access it.
"You can have herds starving to death just because they didn't dig for
food," said Ms Staffansson.
She emphasised the role that reindeer have in shaping everything from
the Sami language to their handcrafting traditions, which rely on
products like reindeer skin and antlers.
"It's an entire culture that would disappear with the reindeer," she said.
The Sami are not the only people of Lapland affected by climate change.
In northern Finland, tourism is a cornerstone of the regional economy,
but warming temperatures are beginning to threaten its "winter
wonderland" image.
With Santa Claus Village attracting 300,000 visitors annually, Rovaniemi
can ill afford to lose its tourism, but according to Dr Tervo-Kankare
this is a possibility for popular Lapland tourist destinations.
"Tourists may head further north or east, where snow security is
higher," she said.
"The image may suffer to the extent where Lapland is no longer
recognised as a Christmas destination."
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change-lapland-santa-claus-father-christmas-reindeer-global-warming-a8113041.html
[misinformation]
*How Big Oil Lost Control of Its Climate Misinformation Machine
<https://insideclimatenews.org/news/22122017/big-oil-heartland-climate-science-misinformation-campaign-koch-api-trump-infographic>*
One of the longest and most consequential campaigns against science in
modern history is becoming more extreme - and turning against its
originators.
By Neela Banerjee
...Hundreds of millions of dollars from corporations such as ExxonMobil
and wealthy individuals such as the billionaires Charles and David Koch
have supported the development of a sprawling network, which includes
Heartland and other think tanks, advocacy groups and political
operatives. They have cast doubt on consensus science, confused public
opinion and forestalled passage of laws and regulations that would
address the global environmental crisis. It is one of the largest,
longest and most consequential misinformation efforts mounted against
mainstream science by an industry. Climate denial
<https://insideclimatenews.org/tags/climate-denial>, thanks to the
network's influence, has become a core message of the Republican Party,
now in control of the White House and Congress....
But now, just like the Republican upstarts that threaten the party
establishment, Heartland is taking climate denial farther than many
fossil fuel companies can support. While ExxonMobil today publicly
accepts the reality of human-caused climate change and the need to
address the problem, Heartland argues for the benefits of a warming
world. The group is pushing the EPA to overturn its official
conclusion—known as the endangerment finding—that excessive carbon
dioxide is a danger to human health and welfare. The finding, affirmed
by the Supreme Court, is what empowers the agency to regulate carbon
dioxide and other greenhouse gases....
This rift was on display at a recent meeting of the American Legislative
Exchange Council, a group that influences state governments to adopt
conservative priorities. Heartland wanted ALEC to approve a resolution
calling on the EPA to withdraw the endangerment finding. But ExxonMobil,
once at the forefront of climate denial, was among several corporations
and utilities that convinced ALEC to shelve a vote on the resolution...
ExxonMobil had become just another member of "the discredited and
anti-energy global warming movement," complained Heartland's president,
Tim Huelskamp, a former Republican congressman from Kansas. "They've put
their profits and 'green' virtue signaling above sound science."
ExxonMobil is among an early group of donors that slowed or ended its
funding of climate denial. But the misinformation apparatus the
corporations helped create is now so independent and robust, it no
longer needs—or trusts—them...Social scientists are still trying to
gauge the full breadth of spending on climate denial because of the
large number of players involved, the growth of money from secretive
sources, and the wide range of public relations tactics fossil fuel
companies use to delay action, according to Robert Brulle, professor of
sociology at Drexel University....
Doubts about climate change were echoed by think tanks that the
corporations nurtured with donations starting in the 1990s. Boosted by a
grant from Exxon, the Competitive Enterprise Institute organized the
Cooler Heads Coalition in 1998, which over time has brought together
more than 30 conservative groups into an influential echo chamber of
climate denial. The group still exists...
Halting climate action has been a leading priority of this coalition and
its allies, not reluctant to promote questionable information if it
supports their cause...
"The basic parameters of the long-term threat posed by climate change
were well described and known by 1979," Brulle of Drexel said, referring
to a major report on climate change issued by the National Academy of
Sciences. "But here we are, coming up on nearly 40 years, and there
still is confusion and a lack of willingness to act. So I guess in that
sense, the effort to stop climate action has won, as if this is a
winning position in any sense of the term."
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/22122017/big-oil-heartland-climate-science-misinformation-campaign-koch-api-trump-infographic
[Movie review - Studio 360 PRI radio - audio and text]
*Alexander Payne sizes up the world in 'Downsizing'
<https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-12-21/alexander-payne-sizes-world-downsizing>
*Director Alexander Payne is best known for his satirical, razor-sharp
comedies like "Citizen Ruth" and "Election," as well as his humanist
character studies like "Sideways" and "The Descendants." Payne combined
those elements to create the new sci-fi film "Downsizing."...*
*video *Downsizing (2017) - Official Trailer #2 - Paramount Pictures
<https://youtu.be/_POpCkJToEQ>*https://youtu.be/_POpCkJToEQ
https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-12-21/alexander-payne-sizes-world-downsizing*
*
*This Day in Climate History December 25, 2008
<http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2008-12-25/news/36892488_1_climate-change-ice-sheets-sea-level-rise>
- from D.R. Tucker*
December 25, 2008: The Washington Post reports:
> By Juliet Eilperin
> Washington Post Staff Writer
> Thursday, December 25, 2008
>
> The United States faces the possibility of much more rapid climate
> change by the end of the century than previous studies have suggested,
> according to a new report led by the U.S. Geological Survey.
>
> The survey - which was commissioned by the U.S. Climate Change Science
> Program and issued this month - expands on the 2007 findings of the
> United Nations Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change. Looking at
> factors such as rapid sea ice loss in the Arctic and prolonged drought
> in the Southwest, the new assessment suggests that earlier projections
> may have underestimated the climatic shifts that could take place by
> 2100.
>
> However, the assessment also suggests that some other feared effects
> of global warming are not likely to occur by the end of the century,
> such as an abrupt release of methane from the seabed and permafrost or
> a shutdown of the Atlantic Ocean circulation system that brings warm
> water north and colder water south. But the report projects an amount
> of potential sea level rise during that period that may be greater
> than what other researchers have anticipated, as well as a shift to a
> more arid climate pattern in the Southwest by mid-century.
>
> Thirty-two scientists from federal and non-federal institutions
> contributed to the report, which took nearly two years to complete.
> The Climate Change Science Program, which was established in 1990,
> coordinates the climate research of 13 different federal agencies.
>
> Tom Armstrong, senior adviser for global change programs at USGS, said
> the report "shows how quickly the information is advancing" on
> potential climate shifts. The prospect of abrupt climate change, he
> said, "is one of those things that keeps people up at night, because
> it's a low-probability but high-risk scenario. It's unlikely to happen
> in our lifetimes, but if it were to occur, it would be life-changing."
>
> In one of the report's most worrisome findings, the agency estimates
> that in light of recent ice sheet melting, global sea level rise could
> be as much as four feet by 2100. The IPCC had projected a sea level
> rise of no more than 1.5 feet by that time, but satellite data over
> the past two years show the world's major ice sheets are melting much
> more rapidly than previously thought. The Antarctic and Greenland ice
> sheets are now losing an average of 48 cubic miles of ice a year,
> equivalent to twice the amount of ice that exists in the Alps.
>
> Konrad Steffen, who directs the Cooperative Institute for Research in
> Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder and
> was lead author on the report's chapter on ice sheets, said the models
> the IPCC used did not factor in some of the dynamics that scientists
> now understand about ice sheet melting. Among other things, Steffen
> and his collaborators have identified a process of "lubrication," in
> which warmer ocean water gets in underneath coastal ice sheets and
> accelerates melting.
>
> "This has to be put into models," said Steffen, who organized a
> conference last summer in St. Petersburg, Russia, as part of an effort
> to develop more sophisticated ice sheet models. "What we predicted is
> sea level rise will be higher, but I have to be honest, we cannot
> model it for 2100 yet."
>
> Still, Armstrong said the report "does take a step forward from where
> the IPCC was," especially in terms of ice sheet melting.
>
> Scientists also looked at the prospect of prolonged drought over the
> next 100 years. They said it is impossible to determine yet whether
> human activity is responsible for the drought the Southwestern United
> States has experienced over the past decade, but every indication
> suggests the region will become consistently drier in the next several
> decades. Richard Seager, a senior research scientist at Columbia
> University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, said that nearly all of
> the 24 computer models the group surveyed project the same climatic
> conditions for the North American Southwest, which includes Mexico.
>
> "If the models are correct, it will transition in the coming years and
> decades to a more arid climate, and that transition is already
> underway," Seager said, adding that such conditions would probably
> include prolonged droughts lasting more than a decade.
>
> The current models cover broad swaths of landscape, and Seager said
> scientists need to work on developing versions that can make
> projections on a much smaller scale. "That's what the water managers
> out there really need," he said. Current models "don't give them the
> hard numbers they need."
>
> Armstrong said the need for "downscaled models" is one of the
> challenges facing the federal government, along with better
> coordination among agencies on the issue of climate change. When it
> comes to abrupt climate shifts, he said, "We need to be prepared to
> deal with it in terms of policymaking, keeping in mind it's a
> low-probability, high-risk scenario. That said, there are really no
> policies in place to deal with abrupt climate change."
>
> Richard Moss, who directed the Climate Change Science Program's
> coordination office between 2000 and 2006 and now serves as vice
> president and managing director for climate change at the World
> Wildlife Fund-U.S., welcomed the new report but called it "way overdue."
>
> "There is finally a greater flow of climate science from the
> administration," Moss said, noting that the report was originally
> scheduled to come out in the summer of 2007. "It really is showing the
> potential for abrupt climate change is real."
>
> The report is reassuring, however, on the prospects for some
> potentially drastic effects -- such as a huge release of methane, a
> potent heat-trapping gas, that is now locked deep in the seabed and
> underneath the Arctic permafrost. That is unlikely to occur in the
> near future, the scientists said.
>
> "It's unlikely that we're going to see an abrupt change in methane
> over the next hundred years, but we should worry about it over a
> longer time frame," said Ed Brook, the lead author of the methane
> chapter and a geosciences professor at Oregon State University. "All
> of these places where methane is stored are vulnerable to leaking."
>
> By the end the century, Brook said, the amount of methane escaping
> from natural sources such as the Arctic tundra and waterlogged soils
> in warmer regions "could possibly double," but that would still be
> less than the current level of human-generated methane emissions. Over
> the course of the next thousand years, he added, methane hydrates
> stored deep in the seabed could be released: "Once you start melting
> there, you can't really take it back."
>
> In the near term, Brook said, more precise monitoring of methane
> levels worldwide would give researchers a better sense of the risk of
> a bigger atmospheric release. "We don't know exactly how much methane
> is coming out all over the world," he said. "That's why monitoring is
> important."
>
> While predictions remain uncertain, Steffen said cutting emissions
> linked to global warming represents one of the best strategies for
> averting catastrophic changes.
>
> "We have to act very fast, by understanding better and by reducing our
> greenhouse gas emissions, because it's a large-scale experiment that
> can get out of hand," Steffen said. "So we don't want that to happen."
>
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2008-12-25/news/36892488_1_climate-change-ice-sheets-sea-level-rise
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