[TheClimate.Vote] October 1 , 2017 - Daily Global Warming News
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Sun Oct 1 09:20:01 EDT 2017
/October 1, 2017/
*Puerto Rico Grid in Ruins. Can Solar Help?
<https://climatecrocks.com/2017/09/30/puerto-rico-grid-in-ruins-can-solar-help/>*
It's been over a week since Maria tore through Puerto Rico, leaving a
tangle of transmission lines in its wake. The hurricane knocked out all
of the island's electricity, just weeks after Irma took down electricity
for 1 million people. Thousands still hadn't had their electricity
restored when the second storm arrived.
This week, Tesla announced it would send Powerwall storage packs to help
restore power. And on Friday, the Solar Energy Industries Association
(SEIA) posted an announcement
<https://www.seia.org/disaster-response>about its effort to coordinate
with solar companies to donate equipment and installation services.
In the event of a giant storm like Maria, microgrids and smaller-scale
electricity generation would have made it more difficult to decimate the
entire system.
https://climatecrocks.com/2017/09/30/puerto-rico-grid-in-ruins-can-solar-help/
*The McKibben effect: a case study in how radical environmentalism can
work
<https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/9/29/16377806/mckibben-effect>*
Extreme proposals can shift polarized debates.
Updated by David Roberts
The question can be boiled down to this: When a radical faction makes
extreme policy demands, what effect does it have on the larger policy
debate?
Does it discredit the moderates on the same side, by association? Or
does it legitimate them, by contrast? Do advocates for cocaine
legalization tarnish advocates for marijuana legalization, by making
"legalization" in general seem radical? Or do they have the effect of
making marijuana legalization seem like the safe, centrist choice?
Based on their behavior, the two US political parties have different
answers to these questions.
The hard-right conservative movement that began building in the 1960s
has now entirely colonized the GOP. Right-wing media, which has no
incentive to compromise and every incentive to stoke outrage, is in the
driver's seat. The imperative for Republican politicians, most of whom
come from safe seats, is to satisfy their radicals, lest they face a
primary challenge.
The left has always been more wary of its activists. The relationship
between the party and the left end of the spectrum is notoriously
contentious, as was rehearsed repeatedly throughout the Obama years and
yet again in the 2016 primary.
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/9/29/16377806/mckibben-effect
-
*Bill McKibben's Influence on U.S. Climate Change Discourse: Shifting
Field-level Debates Through Radical Flank Effects
<https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2957590>*
*Abstract*
This paper examines the influence of radical flank actors in shifting
field-level debates by increasing the legitimacy of pre-existing but
peripheral issues. Using network text analysis, we apply this conceptual
model to the climate change debate in the U.S. and the efforts of Bill
McKibben and 350.org to pressure major universities to "divest" their
fossil fuel assets. What we find is that, as these new actors and issue
entered the debate, liberal policy ideas (such as a carbon tax), which
had previously been marginalized in the U.S. debate, gained increased
attention and legitimacy while the divestment effort itself gained
limited traction. This result expands theory on indirect pathways to
institutional change through a discursive radical flank mechanism, and
suggests that the actual influence of Bill McKibben on the U.S. climate
debate goes beyond the precise number of schools that divest to include
a shift in the social and political discourse.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2957590
(YouTube interview)-
*Crossing Climate Change's Event Horizon: The Point Of No Return For
Humanity (Prof. Daniel Rothman)
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB4mR5XTDg0>*
Thom talks with Climate Scientist, Professor Daniel Rothman on the point
of no return for climate change, at what point will we not be able to
turn things around?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB4mR5XTDg0
-
MIT news article
*Mathematics predicts a sixth mass extinction
<http://news.mit.edu/2017/mathematics-predicts-sixth-mass-extinction-0920>*
By 2100, oceans may hold enough carbon to launch mass extermination of
species in future millennia.
He then determined that the critical rate applies only beyond the
timescale at which the marine carbon cycle can re-establish its
equilibrium after it is disturbed. Today, this timescale is about 10,000
years. For much shorter events, the critical threshold is no longer tied
to the rate at which carbon is added to the oceans but instead to the
carbon's total mass. Both scenarios would leave an excess of carbon
circulating through the oceans and atmosphere, likely resulting in
global warming and ocean acidification.
The century's the limit
From the critical rate and the equilibrium timescale, Rothman
calculated the critical mass of carbon for the modern day to be about
310 gigatons.
He then compared his prediction to the total amount of carbon added to
the Earth's oceans by the year 2100, as projected in the most recent
report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC
projections consider four possible pathways for carbon dioxide
emissions, ranging from one associated with stringent policies to limit
carbon dioxide emissions, to another related to the high range of
scenarios with no limitations.
The best-case scenario projects that humans will add 300 gigatons of
carbon to the oceans by 2100, while more than 500 gigatons will be added
under the worst-case scenario, far exceeding the critical threshold. In
all scenarios, Rothman shows that by 2100, the carbon cycle will either
be close to or well beyond the threshold for catastrophe.
"There should be ways of pulling back [emissions of carbon dioxide],"
Rothman says. "But this work points out reasons why we need to be
careful, and it gives more reasons for studying the past to inform the
present."
This research was supported, in part, by NASA and the National Science
Foundation.
http://news.mit.edu/2017/mathematics-predicts-sixth-mass-extinction-0920
-
*(YouTube) On A Scale Of One To Ten What Will Climate Change Do To The
Planet? (w/Guest Peter Wadhams)
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vO-mrPfY48>*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vO-mrPfY48
-
(YouTube video) The Big Picture RT
*Climate Apocalypse? <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzVMV-Yj2qo>*
Published on Sep 26, 2017
Professor Peter Wadhams ScD, Professor of Ocean Physics / Head of the
Polar Ocean Physics Group-Department of Applied Mathematics and
Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge, UK RE: A Farewell to Ice:
A Report from the Arctic. We could be just eighteen years away from a
climate apocalypse...
For more information on the stories we've covered visit our websites at
thomhartmann.com - freespeech.org - and RT.com. You can also watch
tonight's show on Hulu - at Hulu.com/THE BIG PICTURE and over at The Big
Picture YouTube page. And - be sure to check us out on Facebook and Twitter!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzVMV-Yj2qo
Earth101 videos
*Why 2 degrees C? The Range and the Risks - an Earth101 short (9:25)
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mixlKIuT0tA>*
Published on Sep 29, 2017
Climate scientist Stefan Rahmstorf talks about the role of the Paris
Agreement in 2015, why we need to aim higher if we want to keep global
temperature increase at or below 2 degrees C, and the catastrophic
problems we will be faced with if we fail to do so.
Stefan Rahmstorf obtained his PhD in oceanography at Victoria University
of Wellington in 1990. He has worked as a scientist at the New Zealand
Oceanographic Institute, at the Institute of Marine Science in Kiel and
since 1996 at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. His
work focuses on the role of the oceans in climate change.
In 1999 Rahmstorf was awarded the $ 1 million Centennial Fellowship
Award of the US-based James S. McDonnell foundation. Since 2000 he
teaches Physics of the Oceans as a professor at Potsdam University.
Rahmstorf served from 2004–2013 in the German Advisory Council on Global
Change (WBGU) and was one of the lead authors of the 4th IPCC Assessment
Report.
Dr. Rahmstorf has published over 100 scientific papers (30 in leading
journals such as Nature, Science and PNAS) and co-authored four books.
Available in English are Our Threatened Oceans (2009, with Katherine
Richardson) and The Climate Crisis (2010, with David Archer).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mixlKIuT0tA
(YouTube video) Thom Hartmann Program
*Will Humanity Survive the Next 50 Years Of Climate Change? (w/Guest Dr.
Veerabhadran Ramanathan) <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JfQMAQL-Kw>*
Published on Sep 26, 2017
Thom is joined by top climate scientist, Dr. Veerabhaadran Ramanathan
(Distinguished Professor-Scripps Institution Of Oceanography, UC San
Diego & UNESCO Professor Of Climate & Policy, TERI University, New
Delhi, India) to discuss the possibility that climate change could lead
to human extinction in the next 50 years. What can we do to fight global
climate change before it gets too late?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JfQMAQL-Kw
*Solar Panel Tariff Threat: 8 Questions Homeowners Are Asking
<https://insideclimatenews.org/news/22092017/solar-tariff-threat-looming-questions-homeowners-buying-itc-ruling-trump>*
If the ITC ruling leads to tariffs on cheap solar imports, it could send
shock waves through the market. What would that mean for solar prices
and jobs?
*How expensive could solar get?*
Expect sticker shock if the Trump administration imposes the kind of
temporary tariff and price floor that Suniva has proposed.
Ananalysis by GTM research shows
<https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/solar-costs-are-hitting-jaw-dropping-lows-in-every-region-of-the-world>the
prices for big utility-size solar would double in 2018—in effect,
turning the clock back six years as prices return to their 2012 levels.
But the price of residential rooftop systems wouldn't double in that
scenario, because the price of the solar module is only a small fraction
of the price of an installed system. Labor, supply chain costs,
permitting and other so-called "soft costs" account for most of the
money homeowners have to lay out when they go solar.
A 15 percent jump in residential solar system prices would be more
likely, based on the latest average price figures fromthe U.S.
Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
<https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy17osti/68925.pdf>
For a 5.7-kilowatt solar rooftop system, that would mean an increase
from $16,000 to about $18,400. For comparison, as recently as 2010, the
price of such a system would have been about $41,270, according to
NREL's analysis.
*How likely is a solar price hike?*
The ITC ruling tips the balance in favor of a tariff that most industry
observers believe President*Donald Trump*
<https://insideclimatenews.org/tags/donald-trump>was inclined to impose
anyway.
*My state is pro-solar. Will things be different?*
Maybe. Currently, rooftop solar energy is cost-competitive with
conventional electricity from the grid in 43 states, according toGTM
Research
<https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/suniva-dispute-could-halt-two-thirds-of-us-solar-installations>.
A price floor and tariffs could eliminate solar's advantage in 17 of
those states.
*Should I buy now, before solar prices jump?*
That may not be so easy. One Phoenix, Arizona, installer toldNPR
<http://www.npr.org/2017/08/22/544544791/in-solar-trade-dispute-will-proposed-tariffs-cost-industry-jobs>that
there's "a sort of panic buying mode in the marketplace right now," with
installers scrambling to stock up on panels. That could
disproportionately hurt consumers in the residential market.
*Would this mean the government is trying to discourage me from going
solar?*
No—oddly enough, the government will still be offering generous solar
incentives, with the current investment tax credit.
The investment tax credit
<https://www.seia.org/research-resources/impacts-solar-investment-tax-credit-extension>is
set to phase out after 2019. But so would the protective tariffs, under
the section of the trade law that's being invoked.
*Is there a difference between leasing and buying?*
For several years, leasing arrangements by companies like SolarCity,
Sunrun, Sungevity and others, drove the residential solar market—making
it easy for residents to benefit from rooftop installations without a
big upfront outlay of cash.
Just as a consumer who leases an electric car doesn't see the tax break
but does enjoy the cheap fuel, a homeowner who goes that route ends up
with seemingly free panels on the roof and a much lower electric bill,
possibly even running the meter backwards.
*So, what's the bottom line?*
... instead of focusing on the uncertainties in Washington, consumers
should look closer to home.
"Are you in a state where there's already a lot of solar being put on
your neighbors homes?" he asks. "If so, that means solar is already
fairly attractive. From there, how much it is actually going to change
is going to be a state by state calculus."
GTM is projecting nationwide residential solar sales will be down 30
percent from previous projections, with continued strong sales in
markets like California and Arizona, but progress stalling in toehold
states like Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Texas.
"For states where solar was on the cusp of being viable, the timeline
will be set back," Honeyman said.
*Is there anything else to consider? *
No matter where you live or what the Trump administration decides to do
about imported solar panels, it's carbon-free electricity at a time when
science says the world must wean itself off fossil energy. And in the
long run, price pressures point only downward for a technology whose
fuel, sunshine, will always be free. The technology's main selling point
is something you can bank on, even while future policy and prices are up
in the air.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/22092017/solar-tariff-threat-looming-questions-homeowners-buying-itc-ruling-trump
*Vic Mensa Explains How Donald Trump Is Making The Fight Against Global
Warming Harder
<https://hiphopdx.com/news/id.44781/title.vic-mensa-explains-how-donald-trump-is-making-the-fight-against-global-warming-harder#>*
September 29, 2017 | 4:11 PM
video HipHopDX gets to speak with Mensa during one of two benefit shows
with Tidal. <https://youtu.be/7eSgWqDIHhM>
https://youtu.be/7eSgWqDIHhM
https://hiphopdx.com/news/id.44781/title.vic-mensa-explains-how-donald-trump-is-making-the-fight-against-global-warming-harder#
*This Day in Climate History October 1, 2013
<http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/10/01/warm_enough_for_you_120159.html>
- from D.R. Tucker*
October 1, 2013: Syndicated columnist Eugene Robinson writes:
"Skeptics and deniers can make all the noise they want, but a landmark
new report is unequivocal: There is a 95 percent chance that
human-generated emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases
are changing the climate in ways that court disaster.
"That's the bottom line from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change, which Monday released the latest of its comprehensive,
every-six-years assessments of the scientific consensus about climate
change. According to the IPCC, there is only a 1-in-20 chance that
human activity is not causing dangerous warming.
"You may like those betting odds. If so, let's get together for a
friendly game of poker, and please don't forget to bring cash."
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/10/01/warm_enough_for_you_120159.html
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