[TheClimate.Vote] July 26, 2017 - Daily Global Warming News
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Wed Jul 26 07:42:01 EDT 2017
/July 26, 2017/
*
UK bypasses Donald Trump to discuss climate change with US city mayors
directly
<http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/uk-donald-trump-climate-change-us-city-mayors-talk-direct-paris-agreement-houston-sylvester-turner-a7859291.html>*
Claire Perry, the Climate Change Minister, says British Government is
now speaking to 'other players' in US about how to fight global
warming..The UK has started bypassing Donald Trump over climate change
talking directly to city mayors and other officials committed to trying
to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the new Climate Change Minister has
revealed.
Claire Perry, who was appointed to the post after the general election
last month, said that British ministers had not "missed an opportunity"
to tell the US President that they were disappointed he had decided to
withdraw from the Paris Agreement on climate change, the news service
Bloomberg reported.
She said she had been speaking to "other players" in the US, including
the mayor of Houston, Sylvester Turner, who visited the UK last week.../
//http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/uk-donald-trump-climate-change-us-city-mayors-talk-direct-paris-agreement-houston-sylvester-turner-a7859291.html/
*U.K. Seeking to Fill Climate Leadership Void Left by Trump
<https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-24/u-k-seeking-to-fill-climate-leadership-void-left-by-trump>*
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-24/u-k-seeking-to-fill-climate-leadership-void-left-by-trump
*Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs on Climate Instability and Political
Instability <http://wp.me/p1t6fZ-3Iv>*
During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on July 18, 2017, the
Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Paul J. Selva, gave
a detailed description of the impact he understands climate cinstability
has (and will have) on the global operating environment in which the
armed services operate, and the need for the Department of Defense to be
prepared for the threat. Of particular note, he stated: "It will also
cause us to have to focus on places where climate instability might
cause actual political instability in regions of the world we hadn't
previously had to pay attention to." That inspires us to shamelessly
plug our recent report, "Epicenters of Climate and Security: The New
Geostrategic Landscape of the Anthropocene," which explores a number of
possible hot spots of the kind the General is referring to.
Below is both a full transcript of his comments, and a video of the
exchange:
Transcript Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Paul J.
Selva, USAF:
The dynamics that are happening in our climate will drive
uncertainty and will drive conflict. And I'll just provide one
example of how that can happen and this is a man-made problem. The
dams along the Nile River control the flow of water into what was
the Fertile Crescent of Egypt, and any change to that water flow
causes the Egyptians to become more hostile to their neighbors who
are putting dams upstream of the Egyptian stretch of the Nile River.
I could build that argument in a variety of countries around the
world, and those are man-made problems not directly related to
climate change but related to how we as humans change our
environment. If you extend that argument to the kinds of things that
might happen if we see tidal rises, if we see increasing weather
patterns of drought and flood and forest fires and other natural
events that happen inside of our environment, then we're gonna have
to be prepared for what that means in terms of the potential for
instability in regions of the country where those impacts happen.
Particularly today where there's massive food instability. The Sahel
in Africa is a classic example, where a small drought over a limited
period of time can decimate the crops and cause instability and make
that an area fertile for recruitment of extremists because they see
no other way. Similarly you could look at the decimation of the
fisheries off Somalia that contributed to piracy because the
fishermen couldn't make their livelihood by doing what they do best,
which is fishing on the fishing grounds off of Somalia. So I think
we need to be prepared for those. It will cause us to have to
address questions like humanitarian disaster relief. It will also
cause us to have to focus on places where climate instability might
cause actual political instability in regions of the world we hadn't
previously had to pay attention to.
Video 5:51 Senator Warren Asks About Climate Change as a National
Security Threat <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NlanagAyfc> --Vice
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Paul J. Selva. Senate Armed
Services Committee Hearing, July 18, 2017.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NlanagAyfc
http://wp.me/p1t6fZ-3Iv
*Utilities Knew: Documenting Electric Utilities' Early Knowledge and
Ongoing Deception on Climate Change From 1968-2017
<http://www.energyandpolicy.org/utilities-knew-about-climate-change/>*
Scientists had begun to warn electric utilities about climate change by
1968, and by 1988 the industry's official research and development
organization had acknowledged that, "There is growing consensus in the
scientific community that the greenhouse effect is real."
Despite this early knowledge about climate change, electric utilities
have continued to invest heavily in fossil fuel power generation over
the past half a century, and since 1988 some have engaged in ongoing
efforts to sow doubt about climate science and block legal limits on
carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.
The Energy and Policy Institute's new report provides a first look into
the electric utility industry's nearly 50-year long relationship with
climate science, based largely on original research that reviewed scores
of industry documents:
*- The electric utility industry was warned about climate change in 1968
**- Utilities sponsored climate change research during the 1970s and 1980s*
*- Utilities knew long ago that climate change concerns could warrant a
shift away from fossil fuels
- Some utility interests responded to the "growing consensus" on
climate change with disinformation
**- Some utilities continue to mislead on climate change in 2017
*Download report
Utilities Knew: Documenting Electric Utilities' Early Knowledge and
Ongoing Deception on Climate Change From 1968-2017
<https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8l-rYonMke-NG5ONVZkZVVJMG8>*
*Nearly 50 years after scientists began to warn the electric utility
industry about climate change, some utilities continue to stand in the
way of real progress in addressing the problem. It is a story with
striking parallels to the investigations into ExxonMobil's early
knowledge and ongoing deception on climate change. Research has shown
that electric utilities could face serious financial repercussions if
ever held liable for the climate change damages incurred by their power
plant emissions.
http://www.energyandpolicy.org/utilities-knew-about-climate-change/
*Global Food Assistance Outlook Brief (July 2017)
<https://youtu.be/b08YDAX5D_I>*
FEWS NET
Published on Jul 24, 2017
This month's overview summarizes FEWS NET's most forward-looking
analysis of projected emergency food assistance needs in FEWS NET
coverage countries, including East Africa, West Africa, Southern Africa,
and Latin America and the Caribbean. Large needs will persist in parts
of Yemen, Nigeria, South Sudan, Ethiopia, and Somalia where conflict,
and the impacts of drought on pastoralists will continue to drive acute
food insecurity.
A confirmed presence of fall armyworm in parts of West, East, and
Southern Africa is likely to affect crop production. FEWS NET will
continue to monitor the situation in the coming months.
An El Nino is no longer anticipated to occur in the coming months and
seasonal forecasts indicate average to above-average rainfall in parts
of the Horn of Africa during both the June-September and
October-December rainy seasons. This should have positive implications
for livestock production, agricultural production, and
livestock-to-cereals terms of trade. However, in pastoral areas where
significant livestock sales and deaths occurred due to drought, several
consecutive good rainy seasons are needed before herd sizes return to
normal and food access improves.
https://youtu.be/b08YDAX5D_I
*House Science Chair Came Back From the Arctic Thinking Global Warming
Is A Good Thing
<http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2017/07/lamar-smith-says-climate-change-is-good/>*
"The benefits of a changing climate are often ignored and under-researched."
CHRIS D'ANGELO
Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) - who has spent his career cozying up to
fossil fuel interests, dismissing the threat of climate change and
harassing federal climate scientists - is now arguing that pumping the
atmosphere full of carbon dioxide is "beneficial" to global trade, crop
production and the lushness of the planet.
Rather than buying into "hysteria," Americans should be celebrating the
plus sides of a changing climate, Smith argues in an op-ed published
Tuesday in The Daily Signal, a news website published by the
conservative Heritage Foundation.
Smith - who has used his power as chairman of the House Committee on
Science, Space and Technology to push his anti-science views - kicks off
his op-ed by claiming Americans' perception of the phenomenon is "too
often determined by their hearing just one side of the story."
"The benefits of a changing climate are often ignored and
under-researched," Smith said. "Our climate is too complex and the
consequences of misguided policies too harsh to discount the positive
effects of carbon enrichment."
Increased carbon dioxide, Smith writes, promotes photosynthesis,
resulting in a "greater volume of food production and better quality
food" and "lush vegetation" that "assists in controlling water runoff,
provides more habitats for many animal species, and even aids in climate
stabilization, as more vegetation absorbs more carbon dioxide." Warmer
temperatures, he notes, results in longer growing seasons
Smith goes as far as to make a case for why a rapidly melting Arctic,
which scientists warn could cost tens of trillions of dollars by the end
of this century, is a positive thing.
"Also, as the Earth warms, we are seeing beneficial changes to the
earth's geography," he writes. "For instance, Arctic sea ice is
decreasing. This development will create new commercial shipping lanes
that provide faster, more convenient, and less costly routes between
ports in Asia, Europe, and eastern North America. This will increase
international trade and strengthen the world economy."
The op-ed comes roughly two months after Smith led a group of lawmakers
on what BuzzFeed described as a "secret tour of the melting Arctic." The
unpublicized, weeklong, multi-stop outing included meeting with climate
scientists and learning about how they track the levels of carbon
dioxide and other greenhouse gases, according to BuzzFeed.
While Smith reportedly canceled an interview with BuzzFeed to discuss
the trip, Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-Calif.) told the publication that he
and Smith had productive discussions about the climate.
Monday's op-ed would suggest that, while Smith may have accepted the
reality of the threat, he's opted for the
when-life-gives-you-lemons-make-lemonade approach.
Michael Mann, a climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University who
sparred with Smith during a March hearing on climate science, told
HuffPost via email that "it is clear" Smith is "slowly advancing through
the stages of denial … having apparently now moved from 'it's not
happening,' to 'ok-it's happening, but IT WILL BE GOOD FOR US!"
"One step at a time I suppose," Mann wrote, "but at least there is some
apparent progress toward the truth (that climate change is real,
human-caused, and already a problem)."
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2017/07/lamar-smith-says-climate-change-is-good/
<http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/convention2004/algore2004dnc.htm>*This
Day in Climate History July 26, 2004
<http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/convention2004/algore2004dnc.htm><http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/convention2004/algore2004dnc.htm>
- from D.R. Tucker*
July 26, 2004: • At the Democratic National Convention in Boston,
Massachusetts, former Vice President Al Gore states:
"And I also ask tonight for the consideration and the help of those who
supported a third party candidate in 2000. I urge you to ask yourselves
this question: Do you still believe that there was no difference between
the candidates? Are you troubled by the erosion of America’s most basic
civil liberties? Are you worried that our environmental laws are being
weakened and dismantled to allow vast increases in pollution that are
contributing to a global climate crisis? No matter how you voted in the
last election, these are profound problems that all voters must take
into account this November 2."
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/convention2004/algore2004dnc.htm
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