[TheClimate.Vote] June 13, 2017 - Daily Global Warming News

Tue Jun 13 09:38:36 EDT 2017

/June 13,  2017/

    *Climate change*drives Valley Fever to soar 800 percent in the US
    Southwest
    <https://thinkprogress.org/valley-fever-soars-climate-change-8b236cf4e9c9>

New research directly links the rise in Valley Fever to the rise in dust 
storms, which in turn is driven by climate change. Valley Fever, which 
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls "a fungal lung 
infection that can be devastating," is caused by inhaling soil-dwelling 
fungus. When the soil dries out and turns to dust, the wind can make the 
fungus airborne.
"Dust storms are found to better correlated with the disease than any 
other known controlling factor," a new study led by NOAA scientists 
concluded.
A 2016 study found that the semi-arid Southwest has begun to enter a 
"drier climate state," which matches findings from a 2015 study 
documenting an expansion of the entire world's dry and semi-arid climate 
regions in recent decades as a result of human-caused climate change.
https://thinkprogress.org/valley-fever-soars-climate-change-8b236cf4e9c9

    Teachers and Parents: Are You Teaching Climate Change?
    <https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/12/climate/formacist-climate-science-curriculum.html>

Last week I wrote about a teacher, James Sutter, who is teaching the 
basics of climate change - the planet is warming and humans are 
primarily responsible - in a Ohio high school where many students are 
raised to believe it is bunk.
Since then, dozens of teachers across the country, including many who 
are New York Times readers, have shared classroom experiences that are 
similar and very different. It seems clear that, as a nation, we are 
still figuring out how, or whether, children should be taught about 
climate change, not to mention how parents and teachers can learn about 
it themselves. I'd like to hear more, from all areas of the country and 
from all points of view.
Teachers, parents and students: Please share your story using the form 
below. 
<https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/12/climate/formacist-climate-science-curriculum.html> 
I'm interested in both stories of conflict and creative resolution at 
home or in the classroom, so feel free to share what's in lesson plans 
and other notable details.
Your name and comments may be published, but your contact information 
will not. I or a colleague might contact you to learn more about your 
story.  at 
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/12/climate/formacist-climate-science-curriculum.html

    (opinion letter) Blaming*global warming* on our 'creator' abdicates
    our responsibility to act
    <http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/readers/2017/06/12/blaming-global-warming-our-creator-abdicates-our-responsibility-act/382718001/>

Max Isaacson's June 7 letter stated that he... can't believe that the 
current situation is a "man made" condition.
His reasoning is to ignore that the current carbon output on this planet 
started with the Industrial Revolution, leading to coal-burning power 
plants, gas-powered automobiles, jet airplanes and modern-powered 
society, none of which existed 12,000 years ago. Since they did not 
exist, they did not cause any climate change in prehistoric times, so 
how could those modern inventions cause it now? This makes no sense.
He continues to say his creator caused these outcomes, but fails to 
state whether we should even try to cure our planet, as one might work 
to be rid of cancer upon a diagnosis. Just attributing calamity, either 
personal or planetary, to a creator without doing anything to reverse 
the disease puts too much blame on the creator, and abdicates our own 
responsibilities to act. - Diane S. Kolmer, West Des Moines
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/readers/2017/06/12/blaming-global-warming-our-creator-abdicates-our-responsibility-act/382718001/

    The Larsen C ice shelf collapse hammers home the reality of*climate
    change*
    <https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2017/jun/12/the-larsen-c-ice-shelf-collapse-hammers-home-the-reality-of-climate-change>

Very soon, a large portion of an ice shelf in Antarctica will break off 
and collapse into the ocean. The name of the ice shelf is Larsen C; it 
is a major extension from of the West Antarctic ice sheet, and its 
health has implications for other ice in the region, and sea levels 
globally.*
*The entire Larsen Ice shelf, which is the fourth largest in Antarctica, 
covers nearly 50,000 square km (20,000 square miles) according to 
reporting at ABC science. The ice on the land upstream of the shelf is 
enough to raise sea level, eventually, by ten centimeters. This is not, 
by itself, a major threat to the world's coastlines, but it reveals the 
path that other, even larger areas are likely to take in the future.
What we are really concerned about isn't just this breaking event that 
will occur quite soon. We are more concerned about the rest of the 
Larsen C ice shelf. Will it disintegrate now that the protective shelf 
is gone? If it does disintegrate, will the ice up-land follow suit, and 
flow into the oceans thereby further increasing sea levels?
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2017/jun/12/the-larsen-c-ice-shelf-collapse-hammers-home-the-reality-of-climate-change*
**

**India's Punishing Heat Waves More Deadly With Warming 
<http://www.climatecentral.org/news/indias-heat-waves-more-deadly-21522>*
Heat waves in India have become more extreme and significantly more 
deadly even with the relatively moderate amount of human-driven warming 
that has occurred over the past few decades, new research shows.
That rising global temperature will lead to more, and more intense, 
extreme heat events is one of the clearest findings of climate science. 
Several studies have already found the fingerprints of the nearly 2°F 
(1°C) of warming over the past century in today's heat waves.
Further warming will only intensify the trend: A 2016 study found that 
heat waves that would typically only happen about once every 20 years 
now could become an annual threat for more than half the world's land 
area if greenhouse gas emissions aren't curtailed.
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/indias-heat-waves-more-deadly-21522

    *Climate Change*Has Made Heat Waves Much More Deadly, Mainly for the
    Poor
    <https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608089/climate-change-has-made-heat-waves-much-more-deadly-mainly-for-the-poor/>

Research on extreme heat in India shows that economic inequality is 
already proving lethal as the world warms.
A study published in Science Advances shows that as average summer 
temperatures in India rose 0.5 oC from 1960 until 2009, the chance of a 
heat wave causing more than 100 deaths more than doubled. As the authors 
write, their work is far from theoretical: heat waves in 2010, 2013, and 
2015 each killed thousands of people across the country. In May 2016, 
the northwestern city of Jaisalmer recorded India's most intense heat 
wave ever, while just last month a city in nearby Pakistan recorded a 
temperature of 53.5 oC (over 128 oF) - the hottest temperature ever 
measured on Earth in the month of May.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608089/climate-change-has-made-heat-waves-much-more-deadly-mainly-for-the-poor/

*What is Fracking? <https://youtu.be/Io8o2nTXhb0>*
<https://youtu.be/Io8o2nTXhb0>BrainStuff - HowStuffWorks
Published on Jan 29, 2015
You've heard of fracking, and you're pretty sure lots of people don't 
like it, but do you know how it actually works?
https://youtu.be/Io8o2nTXhb0

*How Was A Climate Crisis Denier Elected President of The United States? 
<http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3166>*
Only 16% of people surveyed are very worried about climate change.
Here's what we plan to do about it.
The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!
Actually, they're not.
Corporate news is consumed with covering the Trump/Russia affair, but 
whatever the truth of all this turns out to be, it pales in significance 
to the real existential threat that is upon us. Largely due to a lack of 
coverage by corporate television news, there is a dangerous lack of 
public awareness of it.
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3166

    If You Think Fighting *Climate Change*Will Be Expensive, Calculate
    the Cost of Letting It Happen
    <https://hbr.org/2017/06/if-you-think-fighting-climate-change-will-be-expensive-calculate-the-cost-of-letting-it-happen>

For recent examples of what climate disruptions will look like in 
practice, consider Superstorm Sandy, which devastated the Eastern 
Seaboard in 2012, causing $68 billion in damages, making it the second 
most costly weather event in the U.S. after Hurricane Katrina.  Record 
snowfall in Boston of more than 100 inches in the winter of 2015 shut 
down transit systems for weeks and made it difficult, if not impossible, 
for some employees to get to work. The "rain bomb" that imperiled the 
Oroville Dam in California earlier this year threatened the displacement 
of more than 250,000 downstream residents.  A similar rain bomb 
effectively destroyed historic downtown Ellicott City in 2016, just 
outside of Washington D.C.  Air quality and smog red alerts and the 
complete bans on vehicle traffic in major cities around the world 
highlight how traditional commerce and supply chains can and do grind to 
a halt because of climate risks. Record flooding in Thailand in 2011 
severely impacted air travel, tourism, and one of the major regional 
airports in Asia.
https://hbr.org/2017/06/if-you-think-fighting-climate-change-will-be-expensive-calculate-the-cost-of-letting-it-happen

*This Day in Climate History June 13, 1993, 
<http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1993-06-13/news/1993164025_1_btu-tax-energy-tax-gasoline-tax> 
2001 <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB992378085878375783.html?dsk=y> -  
from D.R. Tucker*

    June 13, 1993: The Baltimore Sun reports on the well-financed effort
    by libertarian activists and fossil-fuel industry lobbyists to stop
    the BTU tax.
    http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1993-06-13/news/1993164025_1_btu-tax-energy-tax-gasoline-tax

    June 13, 2001: The Wall Street Journal reports on the coal
    industry's extensive efforts to get George W. Bush elected President.
    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB992378085878375783.html?dsk=y

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