[TheClimate.Vote] December 29, 2017 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

Richard Pauli richard at theclimate.vote
Fri Dec 29 09:56:04 EST 2017 

/December 29, 2017
/
[USA Today]
*It's cold outside, but that doesn't mean climate change isn't real 
<https://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2017/12/28/its-cold-outside-but-doesnt-mean-climate-change-isnt-real/987948001/>*
Even as the world gets hotter on average, winter isn't going away, and 
there will still be extremely cold spells, climate scientists say. And 
even now, most of the world outside North America is warmer than usual 
for this time of year. In the Arctic and Alaska, recent temperatures 
have averaged 10-25 degrees above normal, said Zack Labe, a doctoral 
candidate studying Earth systems science at the University of 
California, Irvine.
"Climate change will not occur evenly from place-to-place. While your 
backyard may be having an intense cold snap, others may be having 
unseasonably warm temperatures. Climate is all about long-term trends," 
Labe said in an email.
President Trump suggested late Thursday that this week's cold weather 
undermines the science of climate change. Trump tweeted: "In the East, 
it could be the COLDEST New Year's Eve on record. Perhaps we could use a 
little bit of that good old Global Warming."
Since modern record-keeping began in 1880, the 10 hottest years ever 
measured have all been since 1998, according to the National Oceanic and 
Atmospheric Administration. The three hottest years on record are 2016, 
2015 and 2014, in that order. Scientists at NOAA and NASA have said 2017 
is likely to snag the second or third spot on the list.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2017/12/28/its-cold-outside-but-doesnt-mean-climate-change-isnt-real/987948001/


[BBC audio]
*Prince Charles: 'Technology won't solve climate change' 
<http://www.bbc.com/news/av/science-environment-42494961/prince-charles-technology-won-t-solve-climate-change>*
The Prince of Wales has said technology is not the answer to tackling 
climate change.
Prince Charles said it would help but that we need to deal with the 
symptoms. He says the problem is we have "abandoned our connection with 
nature".
He was speaking with Prince Harry on the occasion of his son's guest 
editorship of the Today Programme
You can download a podcast of the full interview 
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02nrtvg/episodes/downloads>
http://www.bbc.com/news/av/science-environment-42494961/prince-charles-technology-won-t-solve-climate-change


[Futurism]
*Climate Change Is Going to Drive Thousands of Refugees to Cooler 
Countries 
<https://futurism.com/climate-change-going-drive-thousands-refugees-cooler-countries/>*
By the end of the century, climate change may drive 660,000 additional 
asylum seekers per year toward Europe. Growing mass migration is only 
one of the social and environmental consequences of increasing temperatures.
Climate change doesn't just warm the air and melt glaciers. It acts as a 
"threat multiplier," playing on the vulnerabilities of ecosystems and 
communities in ways that we are yet to fully understand 
<https://futurism.com/videos/delicate-ecosystems-are-disrupted-by-climate-change/>.
Migration is a case in point: the way it's changing, and is projected to 
change in the future, highlights how the impacts of climate change on 
one place spill over to other parts of the world. A new study in Science 
<http://science.sciencemag.org/content/358/6370/1610> finds that as 
crops fail in agricultural regions of the world, more people will seek 
asylum 
<https://futurism.com/new-zealand-wants-to-create-visas-for-people-displaced-by-climate-change/>in 
Europe in the coming decades. If the current warming trends were to 
continue, the research predicts that by 2100 Europe will receive around 
660,000 extra applicants each year.
As mass migration is already causing tensions 
<https://futurism.com/innovative-refugee-project-wins-major-award-for-its-blockchain-solution/> 
all over the world, leaders will have to find new strategies to manage 
<https://futurism.com/former-nasa-climate-chief-warns-that-earth-could-become-practically-ungovernable/> 
the growing nomad communities of the future.
https://futurism.com/climate-change-going-drive-thousands-refugees-cooler-countries/


[climate migration]
*How climate change could drive immigration to the United States from 
Mexico 
<http://www.king5.com/article/news/nation-now/how-climate-change-could-drive-immigration-to-the-united-states-from-mexico/465-d42f03e2-beb6-4ffa-b524-b8307a53d76f>*
A 2010 study co-authored by Oppenheimer found that up to 6.7 million 
people could come to the United States from Mexico as a result of global 
warming by 2080. A study last year from researchers at the University of 
California Davis projected just 41,000 additional immigrants over the 
next 50 years as a result of climate change.
What those studies and others have in common is a finding that high 
temperatures and reduced rainfall — conditions that are becoming more 
common with climate change — have contributed to past waves of migration 
from Mexico to the United States.
http://www.king5.com/article/news/nation-now/how-climate-change-could-drive-immigration-to-the-united-states-from-mexico/465-d42f03e2-beb6-4ffa-b524-b8307a53d76f


[Ethics and Climate]
*Why Overcoming Instrumental Rationality In Climate Change Policy 
Controversies Is a First Order Problem Preventing Ethical Principles 
 From Getting Traction to Guide Climate Change Policy Formation 
<https://ethicsandclimate.org/2017/12/28/why-overcoming-instrumental-rationality-in-climate-change-policy-controversies-is-a-first-order-problem-preventing-ethical-principles-from-getting-traction-to-guide-climate-change-policy-formation/>*
As we have explained frequently on Ethicsandclimate.org, climate change 
is a problem with features that particularly require that it be seen and 
responded to as an ethical problem even more than other environmental 
problems...
[C]limate change is a problem about which many of its greatest victims 
can do little to protect themselves by petitioning their governments for 
protection. The victims' best hope is that the those high-emitting 
nations and people causing the problem will see that they have duties to 
climate change victims to avoid harming them.
The ethical dimensions of climate change are important to understand 
because unless those nations and individuals that are emitting high 
levels of greenhouse gases (GHGs) reduce their emissions in accordance 
with their ethical obligations, climate change will eventually cause 
great harm to all but particularly to those who are most vulnerable to 
climate change impacts and who usually have done little to cause the 
great harm.
Governments around the world have agreed...
- to adopt national climate change policies on the basis of several 
ethical principles
- to apply the precautionary principle that prohibits nations from using 
scientific uncertainty as an excuse for not taking action
- and to enact policies that limit warming to between 1.5 to 2.0 degrees C
In addition there are numerous other non-controversial ethical norms...
- including the "no harm principle" which obligates nations to prevent 
people or entities within their jurisdiction from harming people and 
nations outside their borders
- and  the "polluter pays principle" which requires those nations 
causing harm from pollution to pay for the damages they cause
Yet most nations are completely ignoring these ethical obligations...
An understanding the ethical problems with instrumental rationality 
leads to an understanding of why nations often ignore even 
well-established ethical principles in policy formation such as the 
ethical principle that no nation should harm others outside their 
jurisdiction on the basis of national economic interest.
For this reason, a first-order problem on the road to a world which 
formulates policies guided by ethical principles is to open policy 
formation controversies to express consideration of ethical issues. This 
goal requires that those engaged in policy formation spot and identify 
the ethical issues frequently hidden in economic and scientific 
arguments against proposed policies that currently dominate policy 
formation controversies on environmental issues around the world...
Unfortunately most professionals engaged in environmental policy 
formation have no training that would help them identify the hidden 
ethical issues embedded in arguments made against environmental and 
sustainable development policies. Nor do those NGOs who participate in  
controversies about these issues have the training to spot ethical 
problems made by opponents of proposed policies that are derived from 
various forms of instrumental rationality.
https://ethicsandclimate.org/2017/12/28/why-overcoming-instrumental-rationality-in-climate-change-policy-controversies-is-a-first-order-problem-preventing-ethical-principles-from-getting-traction-to-guide-climate-change-policy-formation/


[EXISTENTIAL CRISIS]
*We need to talk about "ecoanxiety": Climate change is causing PTSD, 
anxiety, and depression on a mass scale 
<https://qz.com/948909/ecoanxiety-the-american-psychological-association-says-climate-change-is-causing-ptsd-anxiety-and-depression-on-a-mass-scale/>*
Zoe Schlanger
Depression, anxiety, grief, despair, stress—even suicide: The damage of 
unfolding climate change isn't only counted in water shortages and 
wildfires, it's likely eroding mental health on a mass scale, too, 
reports the American Psychological Association, the preeminent 
organization of American mental health professionals.
Direct, acute experience with a changing climate—the trauma of losing a 
home or a loved one to a flood or hurricane, for example—can bring 
mental health consequences that are sudden and severe. After Hurricane 
Katrina, for example, suicide and suicidal ideation among residents of 
areas affected by the disaster more than doubled according to a paper 
led by Harvard Medical School 
<https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2556982/>, while one in 
six met the criteria for PTSD, according to a Columbia University-led 
paper <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3904670/>. Elevated 
PTSD levels have also been found among people who live through wildfires 
<https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24852323> and extreme storms 
<https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25068940>, sometimes lasting 
several years.
But slower disasters like the "unrelenting day-by-day despair" of a 
prolonged drought, or more insidious changes like food shortages, rising 
sea levels, and the gradual loss of natural environments, will "cause 
some of the most resounding chronic psychological consequences," the APA 
writes in its 69-page review of existing scientific literature 
<http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2017/03/mental-health-climate.pdf>, 
co-authored by Climate for Health and EcoAmerica, both environmental 
organizations. "Gradual, long-term changes in climate can also surface a 
number of different emotions, including fear, anger, feelings of 
powerlessness, or exhaustion."...
For people not yet living directly in the path of climate change, mental 
health problems can also be triggered indirectly, from "watching the 
slow and seemingly irrevocable impacts of climate change unfold, and 
worrying about the future for oneself, children, and later generations." 
Such existential anxiety, in other words, can touch anyone grappling 
with the larger-than-life impacts of a warming planet. Psychologists and 
researchers are beginning to call this condition "ecoanxiety," a term 
that's been popping up in research papers in recent years...
Treating patients for psychological distress about a changing 
environment is not exactly new—but it is niche. In 2011, a New York 
Times article highlighted an organization called the International 
Community for Ecopsychology, which currently has a modest directory of 
31 therapists specializing in environment-related distress. At the time, 
a spokesperson for the American Psychological Association told the paper 
the APA was neutral towards the new field, but was "certainly watching it."
Now the APA is throwing its full weight behind it, urging broad 
recognition of the connection between mental health and climate change: 
That the changing environment is a legitimate source of distress already 
affecting many people, and it has the potential to be psychologically 
destabilizing.
"To compound the issue, the psychological responses to climate change, 
such as conflict avoidance, fatalism, fear, helplessness, and 
resignation are growing," the APA notes. "These responses are keeping 
us, and our nation, from properly addressing the core causes of and 
solutions for our changing climate, and from building and supporting 
psychological resiliency."
https://qz.com/948909/ecoanxiety-the-american-psychological-association-says-climate-change-is-causing-ptsd-anxiety-and-depression-on-a-mass-scale/


[register for Jan 31]
*Sound Science and Sound Journalism in an Era of Fake News 
<https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/4703054722158057219>*
Wed, Jan 31, 2018 1:15 PM - 2:15 PM EST
REGISTER AT http://bit.ly/2Dv9Q5X
Join Island Press and the Security and Sustainability Forum in a sixty 
minute discussion about how journalists conduct their research and 
investigations, confirm facts, ferret out false information and maintain 
a sound basis for their reporting.
Island Press in partnership with the Security and Sustainability Forum 
has set a date for our upcoming webinar featuring Carey Gillam, veteran 
journalist and author of Whitewash: The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer, 
and the Corruption of Science. On January 31 at 1:15 PM EST Carey will 
be joined by Dr. Dana Barr, Environmental Health Professor at Emory's 
Rollins School of Public Health for a a conversation on sound science 
and sound journalism in an era of fake news. The discussion will be 
moderated by journalist Paul Thacker and will be followed by a question 
and answer session.
https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/4703054722158057219


*Global Warming Is a Slow-moving Civilization-ending Catastrophe 
<https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/global-warming-is-a-slow-moving-civilization-ending_us_5a42a196e4b0d86c803c7396>*
Robert Jay Lifton calls a swerve for alternatives to fossil fuels.
Lifton, a 90-year-old psychiatrist and a 60-year veteran critic of 
nukes, imagines the swerve like a life-changing decision, a change of 
heart that pictures "our evolving awareness of our predicament."..
Lifton wisely put his considerable experience and wisdom in his latest 
timely and important book: "The Climate Swerve: Reflections on Mind, 
Hope, and Survival" (The New Press, 2017).
Coming out of this nuclear reality of the twentieth century, Lifton 
grasped at global warming as another encompassing reality interacting 
with nuclear weapons "in the darkness of that apocalyptic category." He 
connects the 2015 UN Paris Climate Conference with a "dark vision of 
massive death and violence."..
In fact, all countries know, or suspect, the future will be unforgiving. 
The apocalyptic twins are surrounding the Earth. Nuclear states maintain 
thousands of nukes on the ready to commit global mayhem. Climate change, 
says Lifton, is "rampant, irreversible, and more powerful than any 
antidote we may bring to it."
Lifton also sees the absurdity of global warming. No need to fight a 
war. Just keep the fossil fuels in business: "We needn't do anything - 
other than what we are already doing - to endanger the future of our 
species," he writes.
Lifton praises Pope Francis for his 2015 encyclical urging the 
"ecological conversion" of all people. That's wonderful. But if the Pope 
were serious, he would excommunicate the CEOs of fossil fuel companies. 
Excommunication is a weapon of tremendous power, especially in these 
times when Trump and his oil company cronies think nothing of lighting 
more fire under the hot Earth.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/global-warming-is-a-slow-moving-civilization-ending_us_5a42a196e4b0d86c803c7396
-
*The Climate Swerve: Reflections on Mind, Hope, and Survival - Robert 
Jay Lifton 
<https://www.amazon.com/Climate-Swerve-Reflections-Mind-Survival/dp/1620973472/ref=sr_1_1>*
 From "one of the world's foremost thinkers" (Bill Moyers), a profound, 
hopeful, and timely call for an emerging new collective consciousness to 
combat climate change
https://www.amazon.com/Climate-Swerve-Reflections-Mind-Survival/dp/1620973472/ref=sr_1_1?


  [The Guardian]
*US government climate report looks at how the oceans are buffering 
climate change 
<https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2017/dec/26/us-government-climate-report-looks-at-how-the-oceans-are-buffering-climate-change>*
A key chapter of the US Global Change Research Program Report 
<https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2017/nov/27/american-leaders-should-read-their-official-climate-science-report> 
deals with how the oceans are being impacted by human carbon pollution..
In the recently released US Global Change Research Program Report, one 
of the chapters I was most interested in was about the changes we've 
observed in the world's oceans. The oceans are really the key to the 
climate change issue, whether that be in quantifying how fast it's 
happening or how much will happen in the future. As humans emit 
greenhouse gases (particularly carbon dioxide), we see some major 
changes that cannot be explained naturally.
The oceans are important because they act as a buffer; that is, they 
absorb much of the effects of greenhouse gases. In fact, the oceans 
absorb a lot of human carbon pollution. This is a big help for us 
because without the oceans, the climate would change much faster.
But in a certain way, the oceans are hurting us too. Since the oceans 
absorb so much of our carbon pollution and the resulting heat (93% of 
the extra heat), they turn a short-term problem into a long-term problem...
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2017/dec/26/us-government-climate-report-looks-at-how-the-oceans-are-buffering-climate-change


[Classic essay]
*'Hope is a​n embrace of the unknown​': Rebecca Solnit on living in dark 
times 
<https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jul/15/rebecca-solnit-hope-in-the-dark-new-essay-embrace-unknown>*
We may be living through times of unprecedented change, but in 
uncertainty lies the power to influence the future. Now is not the time 
to despair, but to act
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jul/15/rebecca-solnit-hope-in-the-dark-new-essay-embrace-unknown


*This Day in Climate History December 29,   - from D.R. Tucker*
December 29, 2009: Washington Post writer Ezra Klein excoriates members 
of the
US Senate who have developed cold feet about addressing global warming:

    "Amidst all this, conservative Senate Democrats are waving off the
    idea of serious action in 2010. But not because they're opposed. Oh,
    heavens no! It's because of abstract concerns over the political
    difficulties the problem presents. Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), for
    instance, avers that 'climate change in an election year has very poor
    prospects.' That's undoubtedly true, though it is odd to say that the
    American system of governance can only solve problems every other
    year. Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) says that 'we need to deal with the
    phenomena of global warming,' but wants to wait until the economy is
    fixed.

    "Rather than commenting abstractly on the difficulty of doing this,
    Conrad and Bayh and others could make it easier by saying things like
    'we simply have to do this, it's our moral obligation as legislators,'
    and trying to persuade reporters to write stories about how even
    moderates such as Conrad and Byah are determined to do this. They
    could schedule meetings with other senators begging them to take this
    seriously, leveraging the credibility and goodwill built over decades
    in the Senate. They could spend money on TV ads in their state,
    talking directly into the camera, explaining to their constituents
    that they don't like having to face this problem, but see no choice.
    That effort might fail - probably will, in fact - but it's got a
    better chance of success than not trying. And this is, well, pretty
    important."

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/12/climate_change_is_bad_but_the.html

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