[TheClimate.Vote] March 28, 2017 - Daily Global Warming News for All - Phoenix building boom heats up, Peru floods, Tornadoes, Heartland to Trump, Geo-Engineering

Tue Mar 28 09:47:33 EDT 2017

/March 28, 2017      Phoenix boom heats up, Peru floods, Tornadoes, 
Heartland to Trump, Geo-Engineering/

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-phoenix-climate-adapt-20170327-story.html

    A building boom and*climate change *create an even hotter, drier
    Phoenix
    <http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-phoenix-climate-adapt-20170327-story.html>

Los Angeles Times 	 -‎6 hours ago‎ 	

    Today, Phoenix is a horizon of asphalt, air conditioning and
    historic indifference to the pitfalls of putting 1.5 million people
    in a place that gets just 8 inches of rain a year and where the
    temperature routinely exceeds 100 degrees.
    Now, however, the city faces a reckoning. It is called climate
    change, and it is expected to further expose the glaring gap between
    how the city lives and what it can sustain. The future, scientists
    say, will be even hotter and drier, the monsoons more mercurial.
    Summertime highs could reach 130 degrees before the end of the
    century — think Death Valley, but with subdivisions.
    As President Trump rolls back the country's commitments on climate
    change, Phoenix is one of many cities facing daunting predictions of
    what lies ahead, and most have few resources with which to prepare.
    Public health and economic prosperity are both at risk.
    The average high here in August now exceeds 104 degrees, but 110 is
    not uncommon, and the temperature has hit 120 more than once. In
    summer 2016, a study by Climate Central and the Weather Channel
    found that the average temperature in Phoenix had increased 1.12
    degrees over the previous half a century. No major city saw
    temperatures rise more — and, of course, no major city regularly
    reached such scorching highs in the first place.
    The political climate is brutal as well. Many state leaders do not
    accept climate science. The Republican-controlled Legislature is so
    resistant that it fights local action. Last year, it passed a law to
    prevent cities from requiring businesses to report how much energy
    they use, though such systems are mandatory in some cities in other
    states.

https://climatecrocks.com/2017/03/27/peru-latest-example-of-climate-fueled-extremes/
*Peru Latest Example of Climate Fueled Extremes*

    The world's costliest flood disaster of 2017 is still unfolding
    across parts of coastal Peru, where extreme rainfall atop normally
    dry terrain has led to episodes of major flooding over the last few
    weeks. More than 110,000 people have been displaced by flooding
    since December, according to Reuters, and more than 80 deaths have
    been reported.
    "We came as close as one can to demonstrating a direct link between
    climate change and a large family of extreme recent weather events,"
    said Michael Mann, distinguished professor of atmospheric science
    and director, Earth System Science Center, Penn State. "Short of
    actually identifying the events in the climate models."
    *(video)Weather, or Climate Change?
    <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABcG-QCBr6k>*
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABcG-QCBr6k
    In the video above, scientists connect extreme events to first order
    physics, i.e., warmer air holds more moisture.
    Recent research dives deeper, making stronger connections between
    climate caused changes in the jet stream, and more extreme events.

http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/can-we-slow-global-warming-and-still-grow

    Can We Slow *Global Warming* and Still Grow?
    <http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/can-we-slow-global-warming-and-still-grow>

The New Yorker 	 -‎5 hours ago‎ 	

    March 17th, the International Energy Agency announced that 2016
    marked the third year in a row that global carbon emissions had
    stayed at the same level while the world's economy grew. ...
      The global economy has now grown nearly ten per cent without any
    increase in the annual CO2 emissions that are the principal human
    contribution to climate change. In the parlance of sustainability,
    growth and emissions appear to have "decoupled."
    Few climate scientists believe that we’ve reached peak emissions.
    The Chinese government has reserved the right to increase its carbon
    pollution until 2030 as it plays developmental catch-up with North
    America and Europe. In the U.S., Trump's anticipated policy shifts
    aren't the only concern; so is the Trump Bump—an outbreak of
    investor-class optimism that could accelerate growth to a point that
    puts emissions back on an upward trajectory.
    "We didn't seem to be able to have high growth without growing
    emissions, which suggests it’s hard, at the very least, to get very
    major reductions in emissions without some change in the scale of
    the economy," Richard York, an environmental sociologist at the
    University of Oregon who studies resource consumption and pollution,
    told me. We seem to have found a painless way to slow the increase
    in emissions; now we only need to find a similar solution for growth
    itself.

http://www.mlive.com/weather/index.ssf/2017/03/tornadoes_striking_at_record_p.html

    Tornadoes striking at record pace in US so far this year
    <http://www.mlive.com/weather/index.ssf/2017/03/tornadoes_striking_at_record_p.html>

MLive.com 	 -‎50 minutes ago‎ 	

The number of tornadoes in the U.S. so far in 2017 is climbing at a 
record pace. The storm systems hitting the West Coast and then turning 
into the central and eastern U.S.

https://phys.org/news/2017-03-extreme-weather-events-linked-climate.html
*Extreme weather events linked to climate change impact on the jet 
stream 
<https://phys.org/news/2017-03-extreme-weather-events-linked-climate.html>*

    Unprecedented summer warmth and flooding, forest fires, drought and
    torrential rain—extreme weather events are occurring more and more
    often, but now an international team of climate scientists has found
    a connection between many extreme weather events and the impact
    climate change is having on the jet stream.
    "We came as close as one can to demonstrating a direct link between
    climate change and a large family of extreme recent weather events,"
    said Michael Mann, distinguished professor of atmospheric science
    and director, Earth System Science Center, Penn State. "Short of
    actually identifying the events in the climate models."
    The unusual weather events that piqued the researchers' interest are
    things such as the 2003 European heat wave, the 2010 Pakistan flood
    and Russian heatwave, the 2011 Texas and Oklahoma heat wave and
    drought and the 2015 California wildfires.
    The researchers looked at a combination of roughly 50 climate models
    from around the world that are part of the Coupled Model
    Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5), which is part of the World
    Climate Research Programme. These models are run using specific
    scenarios and producing simulated data that can be evaluated across
    the different models. However, while the models are useful for
    examining large-scale climate patterns and how they are likely to
    evolve over time, they cannot be relied on for an accurate depiction
    of extreme weather events. That is where actual observations prove
    critical.
    The researchers looked at the historical atmospheric observations to
    document the conditions under which extreme weather patterns form
    and persist. These conditions occur when the jet stream, a global
    atmospheric wave of air that encompasses the Earth, becomes
    stationary and the peaks and troughs remain locked in place.
    "Most stationary jet stream disturbances, however, will dissipate
    over time," said Mann. "Under certain circumstances the wave
    disturbance is effectively constrained by an atmospheric wave guide,
    something similar to the way a coaxial cable guides a television
    signal. Disturbances then cannot easily dissipate, and very large
    amplitude swings in the jet stream north and south can remain in
    place as it rounds the globe."
    This constrained configuration of the jet stream is like a
    rollercoaster with high peaks and valleys, but only forms when there
    are six, seven or eight pairs of peaks and valleys surrounding the
    globe. The jet stream can then behave as if there is a
    waveguide*-*uncrossable barriers in the north and south—and a wave
    with large peaks and valleys can occur.
    "If the same weather persists for weeks on end in one region, then
    sunny days can turn into a serious heat wave and drought, and
    lasting rains can lead to flooding," said Stefan Rahmstorf, Potsdam
    Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Germany.
    The structure of the jet stream relates to its latitude and the
    temperature gradient from north to south.
    Temperatures typically have the steepest gradients in mid-latitudes
    and a strong circumpolar jet stream arises. However, when these
    temperature gradients decrease in just the right way, a weakened
    "double peak" jet stream arises with the strongest jet stream winds
    located to the north and south of the mid-latitudes.
    "The warming of the Arctic, the polar amplification of warming,
    plays a key role here," said Mann. "The surface and lower atmosphere
    are warming more in the Arctic than anywhere else on the globe. That
    pattern projects onto the very temperature gradient profile that we
    identify as supporting atmospheric waveguide conditions."
    Theoretically, standing jet stream waves with large amplitude
    north/south undulations should cause unusual weather events.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/donald-trump-wall-in-the-sky-climate-change-global-warming-chemicals-spray-hack-harvard-university-a7652236.html

    Donald Trump may back dangerous 'wall in the sky' plan to
    fight*climate change*, warns watchdog
    <http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/donald-trump-wall-in-the-sky-climate-change-global-warming-chemicals-spray-hack-harvard-university-a7652236.html>

The Independent 	 -‎3 hours ago‎ 	

    A team of Harvard University scientists led by Professor David Keith
    plans to begin a trial of a so-called 'geoengineering' project next
    year.
    This will involve spraying fine particles of water and various
    materials, such as sulphur dioxide, from a high-altitude balloon.
    Geo-engineering has the potential to destroy as well as preserve
    It is thought doing this on a large scale would cool the planet in a
    similar way to the effect of the lightest debris produced by
    volcanic eruptions.
    However such ideas are controversial with the United Nations
    Convention on Biological Diversity agreeing in December that its
    moratorium on climate geoengineering should remain in place.
    This is partly because such measures could have unintended
    consequences, such as causing drought in the Sahel region of Africa,
    as one scientific study suggested.
    "Worryingly, geoengineering may emerge as this administration's
    preferred approach to global warming.
    "In their view, building a big beautiful wall of sulphate in the sky
    could be a perfect excuse to allow uncontrolled fossil fuel extraction.
    "We need to be focussing on radical emissions cuts, not dangerous
    and unjust technofixes."
    Professor Daniel Schrag, of Harvard, said in a promotional video
    <http://geoengineering.environment.harvard.edu/> about their planned
    trial: "One aspect of the climate problem that people sometimes
    don't appreciate is the timescale – the fact that a large fraction
    of the carbon we are putting in the atmosphere will still be there
    thousands, even tens of thousands, of years from now."
    But switching from fossil fuels to renewables, he claimed, would
    take "many decades and probably much more than a century

http://fordschool.umich.edu/news/2010/techno-fixes-climate-change-not-so-fast
*Techno-fixes for climate change? Not so fast. 
<http://fordschool.umich.edu/news/2010/techno-fixes-climate-change-not-so-fast>*

http://geoengineering.environment.harvard.edu/
*(video summary) Harvard's Solar Geoengineering Research Program 
Launches Spring 2017 <http://geoengineering.environment.harvard.edu/>*
The Forum on U.S. Solar Geoengineering Research
http://geoengineering.environment.harvard.edu/Forum-US-Solar-Geoengineering-Research-DC-March-2017
*Forum on U.S. Solar Geoengineering Research 
<http://geoengineering.environment.harvard.edu/Forum-US-Solar-Geoengineering-Research-DC-March-2017>*
The Conference Center at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Co-hosted by the Solar Geoengineering Research Program at Harvard 
University and the Emmett Center on Climate Change and the Environment 
at the University of California, Los Angeles. Funded through a generous 
grant by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

    *Techno*-fixes: A Critical Guide to*Climate*Change Technologies
    <https://corporatewatch.org/publications/2008/techno-fixes-critical-guide-climate-change-technologies>

*Techno*-fixes: A Critical Guide to*Climate*Change Technologies. £3.00 / 
Free Download / 76 pages / March 2008. This is the crucial time. The 
science is clear; ...
[Search domain corporatewatch.org] 
<https://duckduckgo.com/?q=techno%20fides%20climate+site:corporatewatch.org&t=ha>https://corporatewatch.org/publications/2008/techno-fixes 
<https://corporatewatch.org/publications/2008/techno-fixes-critical-guide-climate-change-technologies>

http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/325883-wealthy-trump-backers-attend-anti-climate-change-event

    Wealthy Trump backers attend anti-*climate change*event
    <http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/325883-wealthy-trump-backers-attend-anti-climate-change-event>

The Hill 	 -‎2 hours ago‎ 	

    President Trump is expected to release executive orders on*climate
    change*by Tuesday that will do away with efforts by the Obama
    administration to lower emissions from coal-burning power plants.
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-mercers-trump-mega-donors-back-group-that-casts-doubt-on-climate-science/2017/03/26/dc1fde86-109b-11e7-9b0d-d27c98455440_story.html
    *The Mercers, Trump mega-donors, back group that casts doubt on
    climate science
    <https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-mercers-trump-mega-donors-back-group-that-casts-doubt-on-climate-science/2017/03/26/dc1fde86-109b-11e7-9b0d-d27c98455440_story.html>*
    /Story  linking Mercer money to Heartland Institute to Trump climate
    agenda.  Probably the best panorama of the Heartland Inst since 2012
    revelations, showing how confident the climate deniers are that they
    won the election and have won the debate and won the war./
    The atmosphere was buoyant at a conference held by the conservative
    Heartland Institute last week at a downtown Washington hotel, where
    speakers denounced climate science as rigged and jubilantly touted
    deep cuts President Trump is seeking to make to the Environmental
    Protection Agency.
    Front and center during the two-day gathering were New York hedge
    fund executive Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah Mercer,
    Republican mega-donors who with their former political adviser
    Stephen K. Bannon helped finance an alternative media ecosystem that
    amplified Trump's populist themes during last year's campaign.
    The Mercers' attendance at the two-day Heartland conference offered
    a telling sign of the low-profile family's priorities: With Trump in
    office, the influential financiers appear intent on putting muscle
    behind the fight to roll back environmental regulations, a central
    focus of the new administration.
    http://www.climateinvestigations.org/who-is-paying-for-heartland-institute-climate-denial-palooza
    *Who is Paying For Heartland Institute Climate Denial-Palooza?*
    <http://www.climateinvestigations.org/who-is-paying-for-heartland-institute-climate-denial-palooza>
    This week the Heartland Institute will be gathering their small
    island of misfit toys in Washington, DC for another of their tedious
    climate Denial-Palooza <http://climateconference.heartland.org/>
    events.  We have followed these events going back to 2008...
    The groups sponsoring the Heartland meeting were all big winners in
    ExxonMobil's climate denial campaign, but Heartland Institute along
    with CEI, (the Koch funded) Cato Institute, CFACT, George Marshall
    Institute (now CO2 Coalition) and virtually every other organization
    represented at this meeting, aside from American Enterprise
    Institute, was dropped by ExxonMobil from 2005-2008, when Exxon was
    embarrassed for being shown to be funding these extremist orgs of
    the anti-environmental movement. In other words, a decade ago,the
    Heartland Institute position on climate was too extreme for even
    Exxon and then CEO Rex Tillerson to stomach...
    Koch foundations also fund most of these groups heavily.  That data
    can be found at Greenpeace, where they recently tabulated that the
    Koch apparatus has now exceeded $100 million in climate denial funding.
    Leak exposes how Heartland Institute works to undermine climate
    science
    <https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/feb/15/leak-exposes-heartland-institute-climate>
    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/feb/15/leak-exposes-heartland-institute-climate

https://newrepublic.com/article/141605/climate-deniers-winningand-getting-greedy
*Climate Deniers Are Winning—and Getting Greedy 
<https://newrepublic.com/article/141605/climate-deniers-winningand-getting-greedy>*

    With Trump in the White House, an anti-environmental conference in
    D.C. should have been a celebration. Instead, there was fear and
    loathing.
    these are glory days for climate deniers. Mick Mulvaney, Office of
    Management and Budget director, opposes funding to combat climate
    change. "We're not spending money on that anymore," he said. And
    Trump is expected to issue a far-reaching executive order on Tuesday
    to gut Obama's efforts to fight climate change. While the order
    reportedly doesn't include many of the items on Heartland attendees'
    wish list, it's more than they dreamed was possible.
    "I know that you guys kind of laugh at us, but we're winning,"
    Milloy said. "We're in the driver's seat right now. And whoever
    thought that would happen? I've been doing this for 25 years. If you
    were to tell me that Steve Milloy would have a chance to fix EPA, I
    would have said you're crazy."

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2017/mar/27/pbs-is-the-only-network-reporting-on-climate-change-trump-wants-to-cut-it

    PBS is the only network reporting on*climate change*. Trump wants to
    cut it
    <https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2017/mar/27/pbs-is-the-only-network-reporting-on-climate-change-trump-wants-to-cut-it>

The Guardian 	 -‎6 hours ago‎ 	

In all of 2016, these news programs spent a combined grand total of 50 
minutes talking about*climate change*. More than half of that come from 
CBS Evening News, which nevertheless only spent half as much time 
talking about*climate change*in 2016 as it ...

http://video.msnbc.msn.com/rachel-maddow/51368428
http://video.msnbc.msn.com/rachel-maddow/51368460
*This Day in Climate History March 28, 2013 
<http://video.msnbc.msn.com/rachel-maddow/51368460> -  from D.R. Tucker*
MSNBC's Rachel Maddow reports on a fracking disaster in Texas, and a 
drilling disaster in the Arctic.

/------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                  S//tay well-informed &  forward this email./

        To subscribe, email: contact at theclimate.vote with subject: 
        subscribe,  To Unsubscribe, subject: unsubscribe
        Also youmay subscribe/unsubscribe at
        https://pairlist10.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/theclimate.vote
        Links and headlines assembled and curated by Richard Paulifor
        http://TheClimate.Vote delivering succinct information for
        citizens and responsible governments of all levels.   List
        membership is confidential and records are scrupulously
        restricted to this mailing list.
        . *** Privacy and Security: * We do NOT collect IP addresses. 
        This is a text-only mailing. It carries no graphics or images
        which may originate from remote servers that routinely track and
        identify IP address. Text-only messages provide greater privacy
        to the receiver and sender.  If you receive a version of this
        document in an email  with a graphics image - even a
        one-pixel-sized image, for optimal privacy from tracking, you
        should not open it. **
        By regulation, the .VOTE top-level domain must be used for
        democratic and election purposes and cannot be used for
        commercial purposes. .

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote/attachments/20170328/b28db46c/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/x-icon
Size: 3234 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote/attachments/20170328/b28db46c/attachment.ico>