[TheClimate.Vote] November 5, 2017 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Sun Nov 5 10:32:41 EST 2017
/November 5, 2017
/
*(audio PRI) Humanity has entered a global warming minefield, climate
scientists say
<https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-11-04/humanity-has-entered-global-warming-minefield-climate-scientists-say&ct=ga&cd=CAEYByoTMTYwNTIxNzQzMzMxNTc4NzIyNzIaYmJhYjdjZDMxNGYyYTdjYTpjb206ZW46VVM&usg=AFQjCNEGuo-1hjkl0e1Bv8aSah4ZQuqP5A>*
*Living on Earth*
This year's deadly hurricanes, record-shattering firestorms and severe
drought are linked to global warming, and the prospect of more
unpleasant surprises seems likely, climate experts warn.
"If we continue on the path that we're on," he says, "there's no reason
not to expect that we will see even more intense hurricanes and more
extreme weather events of the sort we're already starting to see -
unprecedented flooding events [and] unprecedented heat waves, droughts
and wildfire."
Just in the last few years, Mann points out, researchers have measured
record global ocean temperatures, which have led to the strongest
hurricane in the Northern Hemisphere, Hurricane Patricia; the strongest
hurricane in the Southern Hemisphere, Hurricane Winston; and the
strongest storm ever recorded in the open Atlantic, Hurricane Irma.
"It's not a coincidence," Mann says. "As these ocean temperatures
continue to warm, we are going to see the strongest storms get stronger."
Mann takes issue with the widespread notion that "there's some tipping
point - that once we warm the planet enough, once we put enough carbon
into the atmosphere, we sort of go off this metaphorical cliff."
"In reality," he says, "it's much more subtle than that. There isn't one
tipping point. There isn't one cliff that we go off. It's more like
we're stepping out onto a minefield and we don't know exactly where
those mines are, but the farther we step out into the minefield - the
more we warm the planet - the more likely it is that we do set off these
mines, that we do encounter devastating tipping point-like changes in
the climate."
The melting ice sheets in the West Antarctic and Greenland are good
examples of "mines" that could lead to other catastrophic consequences...
Still, flatlining emissions won't be sufficient. "As long as we're flat,
we're still loading the atmosphere with carbon. We've got to bring those
emissions down to zero," he maintains.
For now, the world still has a "carbon budget," Mann says. Nations can
still afford to burn a certain amount of carbon and keep warming below
the dangerous 2 degrees Celsius/3.5 degrees Fahrenheit threshold. "If
that's the goal - and that seems to be the goal that's been agreed upon
by the nations of the world - we can still do it. Our own studies show
that there is a path forward."
https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-11-04/humanity-has-entered-global-warming-minefield-climate-scientists-say
*Lists of Bonn COP-23 Daily news briefings delivered to your emailbox. *
recommendations for a single portal/daily-news/briefing page for COP23
http://unfccc.int/meetings/bonn_nov_2017/meeting/10084/php/view/dailyprogramme.php#c
https://lists.iisd.ca/read/?forum=climate-l
http://enb.iisd.org/climate/cop23/enb/
-
Climate Action Network's daily "ECO" newsletter - source for views and
reactions from a large international network of NGOs every day of the
negotiations: http://climatenetwork.org/eco-newsletters
-
Climate Home News Newsletter:
<http://www.climatechangenews.com/type/newsletter/> Sign up to have
daily briefings from Bonn sent to your inbox
http://www.climatechangenews.com/newsletter-sign-up/
-
*Climate Weekly: Get set for the UN climate talks in Bonn
<http://www.climatechangenews.com/2017/11/03/climate-weekly-get-set-un-climate-talks-bonn/>*
Throughout the year, the global community has projected a sense of calm
determination in response to the US president's contempt.
Unity has been a byword. But on Monday climate negotiators need to get
into rooms and fight out issues with the Paris deal they are determined
not to budge on.
The Paris accord remains a shell. A deal with no rules or framework for
compliance. That means there is still a huge amount for countries to
fight over and just four weeks of major negotiations left until they all
need to be set at the end of 2018.
This week our global reporting team dug into the fault lines.
Poor nations said they need more money to be put on the table in
Bonn. But a leading African official told Mantoe Phakathi that
developing countries needed more than money, they need to experts to use
it. Because right now a lot of cash just bounces back in the pockets of
western consultants.
From the US, observers say that despite the febrility of their
leader, state department negotiators are proceeding as if in a parallel
universe and in Bonn they will quietly push the positions they've had
for years. Sophie Yeo has the story.
We may end up viewing this conference as the first Chinese-led
climate talks. Ever more assertive on the global stage and with climate
change elevated into leader Xi Jinping's major congress speech last
month, the world's biggest country looks like taking charge. But with an
already massive overseas carbon footprint and plans to spend a trillion
dollars growing it, who will keep China in check? Li Jing reports from
Beijing.
Meanwhile, India has laid out its stall. Government sources sent a
warning to the rich world that they don't fulfil promises they made to
cut carbon and pay finance before 2020 it would undermine the talks,
Nitin Sethi reports.
Fiji has tried to ease tensions with a new discussion format, but
India and China are adamant that they won't be increasing their ambition
until they see greater action from those responsible for most of global
warming, Li Jing and Megan Darby write.
The EU remains an outspoken advocate on climate action and will
push others hard in these talks. But internally the bloc remains riven
by national interests. Arthur Neslen got the scoop this week on a
meeting between German auto lobbyists and EU officials that resulted in
a directive to water down proposed targets for electric cars.
The Australians are still trying their best to build one of the
biggest coal mines on earth. But, as Adam Morton wrote, the Adani-owned
project suffered a major setback on Friday when a state premier came out
against federal loans to the project. "Everybody is aware of this mine,"
said one Bonn-bound negotiator.
And finally, UN climate champion Hakima El Haite will not finish
her term in Bonn after she was named on a list of 'negligent' officials
by the Moroccan king.
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2017/11/03/climate-weekly-get-set-un-climate-talks-bonn/
*The three-degree world: the cities that will be drowned by global
warming
<https://www.theguardian.com/cities/ng-interactive/2017/nov/03/three-degree-world-cities-drowned-global-warming>*
The UN is warning that we are now on course for 3C of global warming.
This will ultimately redraw the map of the world
Until now, global efforts such as the Paris climate agreement have tried
to limit global warming to 2C above pre-industrial levels. However, with
latest projections pointing to an increase of 3.2C by 2100, these goals
seem to be slipping out of reach.
One of the biggest resulting threats to cities around the world is
sea-level rise, caused by the expansion of water at higher temperatures
and melting ice sheets on the north and south poles.
Scientists at the non-profit organisation Climate Central estimate that
275 million people worldwide live in areas that will eventually be
flooded at 3C of global warming.
/ Flood maps were created using sea-level rise estimates from Climate
Central
<http://sealevel.climatecentral.org/uploads/research/Global-Mapping-Choices-Report.pdf>and
digital elevation data. Population estimates refer to urban
agglomerations which comprise the built-up area of a city and the
suburbs linked with it. Maps include OpenStreetMap data.
Temperature projections are based on University of Washington
emissions modelling <https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate3352> and
UN warming estimates. Trajectories have been updated to match latest
temperatures as recorded
<https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/monitoring/climate/surface-temperature>
by the Met Office Hadley Centre./
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/ng-interactive/2017/nov/03/three-degree-world-cities-drowned-global-warming
*When the cities sink, what's the water that stinks?
<http://www.sixdegreesnews.org/archives/20349/when-the-cities-sink-whats-the-water-that-stinks>*
Ranjan Panda
WATER THAT INUNDATES OUR CITIES, WHEN THEY FLOOD DUE TO EXTREME
PRECIPITATION EVENTS OR OTHERWISE, IS A COMPLEX MIX OF POLLUTANTS
INCLUDING FAECAL SLUDGE, CHEMICAL CONTAMINANTS AND MANY MORE HAZARDOUS
SUBSTANCES. WHILE IT IS ESSENTIAL TO WORK TOWARDS MAKING OUR CITIES
FLOOD RESILIENT, IT'S ALSO VITAL TO PLAN FOR BETTER WASTEWATER MANAGEMENT.
New norm: living with disasters
For South Florida, the waste management infrastructure for which was
designed for a lower sea level, things have especially gone worse post
Irma as it was already predicted by experts. As the Washington Post
reported, "the only reason the naturally swampy terrain of South Florida
can sustain more than six million people today is because its previous
residents dredged and drained it. The operations started in the late
1800s, and by the 1970s Floridians had built an expansive network of
canals, levees, and pumping stations to keep water at bay. The system,
which was designed to let gravity drag groundwater downstream to the
ocean, was based on 1930s sea levels, as Frederick Bloetscher, a
water-management expert, pointed out during a 2014 US Senate hearing on
Florida's changing coastline. Fast forward nearly 90 years, and sea
levels are higher".
There is an urgent need for developing strong tools for each of our
cities to not only understand the risks from calamities but also hazards
from the waste spill related to them. Our city planners need to equip
themselves with such new tools so as to save their cities from the
short-term poop disasters that can often have long term negative health
impacts. Existing sanitation infrastructures need to get improved and
new ones integrated with the resilience plans. The regulatory
authorities such as Pollution Control Boards do also have a greater need
to develop their capacities to understand spread and contents of
pollutants during urban flood disasters and handle them with support of
the urban bodies.
http://www.sixdegreesnews.org/archives/20349/when-the-cities-sink-whats-the-water-that-stinks
*"The Climate Swerve: Reflections on Mind, Hope, and Survival"
<https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-climate-swerve/>*
A book by Robert Jay Lifton
American psychologist and author Robert Jay Lifton, best known for his
pioneering investigations of the causes and psychological impacts of
warfare, political violence, and coercive thought reform or
brainwashing, has recently focused his attention on a newer existential
threat to humanity: climate change. His slim volume, "The Climate
Swerve: Reflections on Mind, Hope, and Survival," is a personal
meditation on public perceptions of climate change and nuclear Armageddon.
Written shortly after his 90th birthday, the book expands upon an essay
he published under the same title in 2014, and it reads more like a
memoir than a scientific text. Its main premise is that most of
humankind is now coming to accept the reality and dangers of climate
change, despite delaying tactics by the fossil fuel industry and its
supporters. Borrowing a term from Stephen Greenblatt's Pulitzer
Prize-winning exploration of atomic awareness and cultural awakening,
"The Swerve," Lifton applies it to an "evolving awareness of our
predicament," in which modern civilization threatens the future of our
species. Despite the menace posed by the "apocalyptic twins" of climate
and nukes, however, he also believes that the current swerve in our
climate awareness can lead to constructive action, as a similar swerve
did for nuclear arms control...
Once we accept the harsh facts of climate change (or nuclear apocalypse)
and acknowledge the fear that comes with them, Lifton reminds us to take
a step further. We must unleash that primal fear, he argues, so we can
then use our intellect to channel it into a more mature "anxiety of
responsibility" that leads to concerted action. He mentions the Paris
Climate Conference of 2015 and the climate action group 350.org as
manifestations of such actions, but more examples abound. The insurance
industry is now planning for a warmer, stormier future, the U.S.
military considers climate change to be a national security threat, and
even ExxonMobil expects the retreat of polar ice to facilitate its
exploitation of fossil fuels in the Arctic. Equally important is an
energetic new cohort of young people who consider climate change to be
the great challenge of their generation.
Perhaps the best reason to read "The Climate Swerve" may be this note of
hope that Lifton weaves throughout the book. "Imagining massive
destruction and death," he writes, is "a prerequisite for wisdom" and
for maturing as a "talented species in deep trouble."
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-climate-swerve/
*Our Moral Opportunity on Climate Change
<https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/03/opinion/faith-climate-change-justin-welby.html>*
Climate change is the human thumb on the scale, pushing us toward
disaster. It is not a distant danger - it is already with us. As we
continue to burn fossil fuels, its effects will only grow...
As people of faith, we don't just state our beliefs - we live them out.
One belief is that we find purpose and joy in loving our neighbors.
Another is that we are charged by our creator with taking good care of
his creation.
The moral crisis of climate change is an opportunity to find purpose and
joy, and to respond to our creator's charge. Reducing the causes of
climate change is essential to the life of faith. It is a way to love
our neighbor and to steward the gift of creation.
Indeed, even amid the hurricane-caused devastation and despair of recent
weeks, I have seen seeds of hope. Different expressions of the Christian
faith are freshly united around the need to care for our common home.
The Catholic, Anglican and Orthodox Churches just came together with the
World Council of Churches to celebrate a monthlong Season of Creation.
During this season, people all around the globe prayed and acted to
address climate change and to protect the earth...
However we choose to respond, a response is necessary.
People of faith have a unique call to address the causes of climate
change. As we stand together in our support for the survivors of extreme
weather, let us act together in ways that will safeguard our shared gift
of creation - and the lives of those who will inherit it from us.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/03/opinion/faith-climate-change-justin-welby.html
*
**(YouTube Video Spanish speaking channel) - Planeteando
<https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgV2HC2599REwibgUWIKEjA/featured>*
Estimados colegas,
somos un grupo de divulgadores de cambio climático que hacemos videos de
2 minutos para el público en general. Mira nuestro último capítulo y
compartelo: http://bit.ly/2g9dVm1
Síguenos en Facebook y mira todo nuestro contenido! www.fb.me/Planetea
Gracias!
Dear colleagues,
we are a group of climate change communicators and we make 2-minute
videos for the general public -- with english subtitles --. Watch our
latest video and share it: http://bit.ly/2g9dVm1
Also follow us on Facebook: www.fb.me/Planetea
Thank you!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgV2HC2599REwibgUWIKEjA/featured
*This Day in Climate History November 5, 1965
<http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab/Caldeira%20downloads/PSAC,%201965,%20Restoring%20the%20Quality%20of%20Our%20Environment.pdf>
- from D.R. Tucker*
November 5, 1965: President Johnson's Science Advisory Committee issues
a report, "Restoring the Quality of Our Environment," that cites the
hazards of carbon pollution.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2015/nov/05/scientists-warned-the-president-about-global-warming-50-years-ago-today
https://dge.carnegiescience.edu/labs/caldeiralab/Caldeira%20downloads/PSAC,%201965,%20Restoring%20the%20Quality%20of%20Our%20Environment.pdf
http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab/Caldeira%20downloads/PSAC,%201965,%20Restoring%20the%20Quality%20of%20Our%20Environment.pdf
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