[TheClimate.Vote] December 30, 2017 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/December 30, 2017
/
[theguardian.com]
*China's 'sponge cities' are turning streets green to combat flooding 
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/28/chinas-sponge-cities-are-turning-streets-green-to-combat-flooding>*
Replacing concrete pavements with wetlands, green rooftops and rain 
gardens means stormwater is absorbed back into the land, making water 
work for the city instead of against it...
Rapid concrete development in China has often blocked the natural flow 
of water with hard, impervious surfaces; to reverse this, the sponge 
city concept focuses on green infrastructure, such as wetland areas, 
rooftop plants and rain gardens.
"In the natural environment, most precipitation infiltrates the ground 
or is received by surface water, but this is disrupted when there are 
large-scale hard pavements," says Wen Mei Dubbelaar, director of water 
management China at Arcadis. "Now, only about 20-30% of rainwater 
infiltrates the ground in urban areas, so it breaks the natural water 
circulation and causes waterlogging and surface water pollution."..
"In the past, humans have taken the land away from the water; now we 
need to give the land back."...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/28/chinas-sponge-cities-are-turning-streets-green-to-combat-flooding


[Washington Post]
*To round out a year of rollbacks, the Trump administration just 
repealed key regulations on fracking 
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/12/29/to-round-out-a-year-of-rollbacks-the-trump-administration-just-repealed-key-regulations-on-fracking/>*
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/12/29/to-round-out-a-year-of-rollbacks-the-trump-administration-just-repealed-key-regulations-on-fracking/


[New York Time$]
*How Climate Change Deniers Rise to the Top in Google Searches 
<https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/29/climate/google-search-climate-change.html>*
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/29/climate/google-search-climate-change.html


[Peter Sinclair]
*Jess Phoenix: Why a Scientist for Congress? 
<https://climatecrocks.com/2017/12/29/jess-phoenix-why-a-scientist-for-congress/>*
Geologist and House candidate Jess Phoenix 
<https://twitter.com/jessphoenix2018/status/946230474594140160> posted a 
tweet thread the other day explaining why scientists in congress is a 
good idea <https://www.crowdpac.com/campaigns/348143/jess-phoenix>.

    One question I hear a lot is "why should we send a scientist to
    Congress since you don't know anything about making laws?" Our
    soundbite century shows its flaws here for 2 reasons. 1) scientists
    would kick ass at making laws, and 2) I'm much more than "just a
    scientist.

    All scientists are by definition trained in the scientific method.
    It's the process of using data gained through observations to remove
    uncertainties around a hypothesis in an effort to ascertain the
    truth. In other words, we use facts to understand our world.

    In addition, field scientists like me are not white-coated lab
    dwellers (although I do love lab work & my lab-based friends). My
    work is done in the most extreme, dangerous conditions on the
    planet. Literally. Active volcanoes, remote mountains, scorching
    deserts, etc.

    I lead expeditions of people who've never even camped before. It's
    my job to keep them safe & do good science. Creative problem solving
    is the key to field research. I've fixed a blown tire sidewall with
    bubblegum, a ball point pen, and duct tape. Other scientists have too.

    Scientists are adaptable, creative, and logical. We are trained to
    look at all available facts to work towards eliminating
    uncertainties. It's our job, and it's the job of a field scientist
    to find information that will save lives. Sounds like a good
    skillset for Congress to me...

https://climatecrocks.com/2017/12/29/jess-phoenix-why-a-scientist-for-congress/
-
*Rise Up and Send an Earth Scientist to Congress 
<https://www.crowdpac.com/campaigns/348143/jess-phoenix>*
https://www.crowdpac.com/campaigns/348143/jess-phoenix
https://twitter.com/jessphoenix2018


[Media Matters for America (blog)]
*The 10 most ridiculous things media figures said about climate change 
and the environment in 2017 
<https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2017/12/28/10-most-ridiculous-things-media-figures-said-about-climate-change-and-environment-2017/218869>*
The Daily Mail claimed government researchers "duped" world leaders with 
"manipulated global warming data." Daily Mail reporter David Rose 
alleged that climate scientists "rushed" to publish an "exaggerated" 
paper in an attempt to convince leaders to support the Paris agreement 
and spend billions ...
*1. Breitbart's James Delingpole claimed 400 new scientific papers show 
global warming is a myth.*
The fact-checking website Snopes roundly debunked 
<https://www.snopes.com/400-papers-published-in-2017-prove-that-global-warming-is-myth/> 
Delingpole's article, giving it a "False" verdict after speaking with 
authors of some of the cited papers who said their work was grossly 
misinterpreted or misrepresented.
*2. The Daily Mail claimed government researchers "duped" world leaders 
with "manipulated global warming data."*
Independent Press Standards Organization (IPSO), an independent media 
regulator in the U.K., issued a ruling 
<https://www.ipso.co.uk/rulings-and-resolution-statements/ruling/?id=01032-17> 
that "the newspaper had failed to take care over the accuracy of the 
article ... and had then failed to correct ... significantly misleading 
statements." The Daily Mail was required to publish IPSO's reprimand 
<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4891046/IPSO-adjudication-upheld-against-MoS-climatesciencearticle.html>.
*3. Radio host Rush Limbaugh said he was "leery" of hurricane forecasts 
because they advance a "climate change agenda."*
As Hurricane Irma barrelled toward Florida, Limbaugh spun conspiracy 
theories 
<https://www.mediamatters.org/video/2017/09/06/rush-limbaugh-doubles-down-his-hurricane-conspiracy-theories/217854>and 
told his listeners that hurricane warnings are part of a scheme to 
benefit retailers, the media, and people like Al Gore who want to 
"advance this climate change agenda."
*4. New York Times columnist Bret Stephens argued that because political 
operatives were wrong in predicting Hillary Clinton would win the 
election, people should be skeptical of climate science.*
*5. Conservative media commentator Stephen Moore claimed that Trump 
created tens of thousands of coal jobs in the first few months of his 
presidency.*
Had Moore bothered to look at the actual coal mining jobs category, he 
would have seen that it had only grown by approximately 200 
<https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2017/05/05/white-house-spokesperson-echoes-cnn-s-misfire-manufacturing-jobs-growth/216316> 
jobs through April, barely moving 
<https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=dGWP> since Election Day.
*6. Radio host Hugh Hewitt recommended appointing Rush Limbaugh to a 
national commission to study climate change.*
Limbaugh has repeatedly called climate change a hoax 
<https://www.mediamatters.org/research/2011/12/19/rush-limbaugh-climate-change-misinformer-of-the/185495>...
*7. Fox hosts attacked a journalist and called him "stupid" for asking a 
Trump official about the links between hurricanes and climate change.**
**8. Rush Limbaugh argued that the historic BP oil spill caused no 
environmental damage.*
*9. Fox News' Jesse Watters claimed, "No one is dying from climate change."*
But an independent report commissioned by 20 governments in 2012 
concluded that climate change already kills more people 
<https://newrepublic.com/article/121032/map-climate-change-kills-more-people-worldwide-terrorism> 
than terrorism, with an estimated 400,000 deaths linked to climate 
change each year.
*10. Radio host Alex Jones said it was "suspicious" that Hurricane Irma 
came along shortly before the release of a climate disaster movie.*
Here it is, Geostorm." The action movie Geostorm 
<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1981128/> featured satellites that 
controlled the global climate. Jones' speculation about the film is just 
one of the countless conspiracy theories 
<https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2017/12/04/video-conspiracy-theories-alex-jones-and-infowars/218732> 
he has promoted over the years...
tps://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2017/12/28/10-most-ridiculous-things-media-figures-said-about-climate-change-and-environment-2017/218869


[ARCTIC CHAR]
*Let it go: The Arctic will never be frozen again 
<http://grist.org/article/let-it-go-the-arctic-will-never-be-frozen-again/>*
By Eric Holthaus on Dec 18, 2017...
That the Arctic is now a relic of a time gone by  -  the first major 
part of the planet on a countdown clock  -  should shock us. It's one of 
those facts that those of us who closely follow climate change knew was 
coming. And with its arrival, it is devastating in its totality.
The loss of the Old Arctic is as close as humanity has come so far to 
irreversibly transforming its planet into something fundamentally 
different than what has given rise to civilization over the past 10,000 
years. This is a terrifying transition, and one worth mourning. But it's 
also a reminder that our path as individuals and as a society is not 
fixed...
If the Arctic can change this quickly, then so must we.
http://grist.org/article/let-it-go-the-arctic-will-never-be-frozen-again/


[Wired.com]
*Adam Rogers: Fighting climate change, and building a world to withstand 
it <https://www.wired.com/story/planning-climate-change/>*
The past year was one of the worst on record for natural disasters. 
Blame greenhouse gases, and start planning for a hotter future....
Transnational corporations and the most powerful militaries on Earth are 
already building to prepare for higher sea levels and more extreme 
weather. The FIRE complex - finance, insurance, and real estate - knows 
exactly what 2017 cost them (natural and human-made disasters: $306 
billion and 11,000 lives), and can calculate more of the same in 2018. 
They know that the radical alteration of Earth's climate isn't just 
something that's going to happen in 100 years if we're not careful, or 
in 50 years if we don't change our economy and moonshot the crap out of 
science and technology. It's here. Now. It happened. Look behind you...
Let me rephrase: Absent any changes, by 2050 Earth will be a couple 
degrees hotter overall. Sea levels will be a foot higher. Now, 2050 
seems as impossibly far away to me as 2017 did when I was 12 years old. 
I live in the future! And I like a lot of it. I like the magic glass 
slab in my pocket and the gene therapy and the robots. I mention this 
because in 2050, my oldest child will be the same age I am today, and I 
have given him a broken world...
In short: Change, but also adapt. Fire season in the West is now a 
permanent condition; don't build buildings that burn so easily in places 
that burn every year....
https://www.wired.com/story/planning-climate-change/
-
[1957 research paper]
*The Human Being in Disasters: A Research Perspective 
<http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/000271625730900107>*
Charles E. Fritz, Harry B. Williams
Abstract
Many groups and agencies have a vital need of accurate informa tion on 
how people behave during disasters. This article presents information 
which seems to have particular pertinence for disaster preparedness, 
control, and amelioration. Among the subjects discussed are the problem 
of how to make disaster warnings effective, behavior during disasters 
and in the subsequent emergency period, the problem of people's flocking 
into the area, the need and difficulties of co-ordination and control of 
rescue and relief activities, the traumatic effects of disaster on its 
victims, and the sources of possible conflicts between rescue and relief 
agencies and their clients.
read online (free) 
<https://www.jstor.org/stable/1031933?item_view=read_online> 
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1031933?item_view=read_online
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/000271625730900107


[Yale.edu]
*Algae on Greenland Ice Sheet significantly hasten its melting 
<http://e360.yale.edu/digest/algae-on-greenland-ice-sheet-significantly-hasten-its-melting>*
Naturally occurring algae on Greenland's massive ice sheet absorb large 
amounts of the sun's energy and speed up the melting of the ice sheet 
<https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/12/171220122035.htm>even 
more than black carbon and mineral dust, according to a new study. 
<http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2017GL075958/full>
An international team of scientists found that algal darkening of 
Greenland's ice is responsible for 5 to 10 percent of the total ice 
sheet melt each summer, and the researchers said that rapidly warming 
temperatures in Greenland could increase algal growth in the future. The 
Greenland Ice Sheet is losing an estimated 270 billion tons 
<https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/05/climate/greenland-ice-melting.html>of 
ice each year.
"The novel aspect of our study is that we discovered biological 
processes play an important role in ice sheet behavior," said Marek 
Stibal, a cryosphere ecologist at Charles University in Prague.
http://e360.yale.edu/digest/algae-on-greenland-ice-sheet-significantly-hasten-its-melting
-*
**Algae Drive Enhanced Darkening of Bare Ice on the Greenland Ice Sheet 
<http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2017GL075958/full>*
Plain Language Summary
Melting of the Greenland ice sheet is enhanced by surface darkening 
caused by various impurities. We quantified the contribution of dark 
pigment-producing algae to the ice sheet surface darkening, based on 
field measurements in the southwestern part of the ice sheet during the 
2014 melt season. Our analysis reveals that the impact of algae on bare 
(snow-free) ice darkening was greater than that of other impurities and, 
therefore, that algal growth was a crucial control of bare ice darkening 
in the study area. Incorporating the darkening effect of algal growth is 
expected to improve future projections of the Greenland ice sheet melting.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2017GL075958/full


[old comic strip]
*2017 Reposting: You'll Be Amazed that Dilbert doesn't Get Climate 
Change 
<https://climatecrocks.com/2017/12/29/2017-reposting-youll-be-amazed-that-dilbert-doesnt-get-climate-change/>*
Climate Science: Data Trumps Models
Video https://youtu.be/ZY-pO_zTVvU
Critics withstanding, scientists point to data and evidence rather than 
to models as key to concerns.
https://climatecrocks.com/2017/12/29/2017-reposting-youll-be-amazed-that-dilbert-doesnt-get-climate-change/


*This Day in Climate History December 30, 2014 
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/delaware-sized-gas-plume-over-west-illustrates-the-cost-of-leaking-methane/2014/12/29/d34c3e6e-8d1f-11e4-a085-34e9b9f09a58_story.html> 
   -  from D.R. Tucker*
December 30, 2014:   The Washington Post reports:

    "The methane that leaks from 40,000 gas wells near this desert trading
    post may be colorless and odorless, but it’s not invisible. It can be
    seen from space.
    "Satellites that sweep over energy-rich northern New Mexico can spot
    the gas as it escapes from drilling rigs, compressors and miles of
    pipeline snaking across the badlands. In the air it forms a giant
    plume: a permanent, Delaware-sized methane cloud, so vast that
    scientists questioned their own data when they first studied it three
    years ago. 'We couldn’t be sure that the signal was real,' said NASA
    researcher Christian Frankenberg.

    "The country’s biggest methane “hot spot,” verified by NASA and
    University of Michigan scientists in October, is only the most
    dramatic example of what scientists describe as a $2 billion leak
    problem: the loss of methane from energy production sites across the
    country. When oil, gas or coal are taken from the ground, a little
    methane — the main ingredient in natural gas — often escapes along
    with it, drifting into the atmosphere, where it contributes to the
    warming of the Earth.

    "Methane accounts for about 9 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas
    emissions, and the biggest single source of it — nearly 30 percent —
    is the oil and gas industry, government figures show. All told, oil
    and gas producers lose 8 million metric tons of methane a year, enough
    to provide power to every household in the District of Columbia,
    Maryland and Virginia.

    "As early as next month, the Obama administration will announce new
    measures to shrink New Mexico’s methane cloud while cracking down
    nationally on a phenomenon that officials say erodes tax revenue and
    contributes to climate change. The details are not publicly known, but
    already a fight is shaping up between the White House and industry
    supporters in Congress over how intrusive the restrictions will be.

    "Republican leaders who will take control of the Senate next month
    have vowed to block measures that they say could throttle domestic
    energy production at a time when plummeting oil prices are cutting
    deeply into company profits. Industry officials say they have a strong
    financial incentive to curb leaks, and companies are moving rapidly to
    upgrade their equipment.

    "But environmentalists say relatively modest government restrictions
    on gas leaks could reap substantial rewards for taxpayers and the
    planet. Because methane is such a powerful greenhouse gas — with up to
    80 times as much heat-trapping potency per pound as carbon dioxide
    over the short term — the leaks must be controlled if the United
    States is to have any chance of meeting its goals for cutting the
    emissions responsible for climate change, said David Doniger, who
    heads the climate policy program at the Natural Resources Defense
    Council, an environmental group.

    "'This is the most significant, most cost-effective thing the
    administration can do to tackle climate change pollution that it
    hasn’t already committed to do,' Doniger said."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/delaware-sized-gas-plume-over-west-illustrates-the-cost-of-leaking-methane/2014/12/29/d34c3e6e-8d1f-11e4-a085-34e9b9f09a58_story.html
/
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