[TheClimate.Vote] October 22, 2017 - Daily Global Warming News
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Sun Oct 22 10:31:42 EDT 2017
/October 22, 2017/
*A Victory for Standing Rock Sioux Tribe*
October 20, 2017 The Indigenous American
<https://www.theindigenousamericans.com>
*In Victory for Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, Court Finds That Approval of
Dakota Access Pipeline Violated the Law.
<https://www.theindigenousamericans.com/2017/10/17/victory-standing-rock-sioux-tribe-court-finds-approval-dakota-access-pipeline-violated-law-2/>*
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe won a significant victory today in its
fight to protect the Tribe's drinking water and ancestral lands from the
Dakota Access pipeline.
A federal judge ruled that the federal permits authorizing the pipeline
to cross the Missouri River just upstream of the Standing Rock
reservation, which were hastily issued by the Trump administration just
days after the inauguration, violated the law in certain critical respects.
In a 91-page decision, Judge James Boasberg wrote, "the Court agrees
that [the Corps] did not adequately consider the impacts of an oil spill
on fishing rights, hunting rights, or environmental justice, or the
degree to which the pipeline's effects are likely to be highly
controversial."
The Court did not determine whether pipeline operations should be shut
off and has requested additional briefing on the subject and a status
conference next week.
https://www.theindigenousamericans.com/2017/10/17/victory-standing-rock-sioux-tribe-court-finds-approval-dakota-access-pipeline-violated-law-2/
*Climate Kook Is Trump's Choice For Top Environmental Post
<http://www.nationalmemo.com/climate-kook-trumps-choice-top-environmental-post/>*
...President Trump has filled his administration with a rogue's gallery
of fossil fuel-loving climate deniers. Now he's set to sign up another:
Kathleen Hartnett White....
Last week, Trump nominated Hartnett White, a longtime critic of climate
change policy, to head the White House Council on Environmental Quality,
which advises the administration on environmental policy.
On Thursday, CNN reported on some particularly incredible remarks she
made last year during an interview on a conservative online talk show.
Hartnett White claimed that environmental leaders were using climate
policy "to undermine the system of economic growth and industrialization."
She added, "There's a real dark side of the kind of paganism - the
secular elites' religion now being, evidently, global warming."
"Whether emitted from the human use of fossil fuels or as a natural (and
necessary) gas in the atmosphere surrounding the earth, carbon dioxide
has none of the attributes of a pollutant," she wrote in a 2014 paper,
in which she argued that "global warming alarmists are misleading the
public about carbon dioxide emissions."
http://www.nationalmemo.com/climate-kook-trumps-choice-top-environmental-post/
*San Bruno explosion hangs over PG&E amid wildfire investigation
<http://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/San-Bruno-explosion-hangs-over-PG-E-amid-wildfire-12295105.php>*
Authorities suspect that downed PG&E power lines may have sparked the
devastating wildfires in the North Bay that have so far killed 42
people. In the past dozen days, about 100,000 people have been evacuated
statewide as 21 large fires decimated at least 8,400 structures and
burned through more than 246,000 acres. Most of the damage was in PG&E's
vast service area.
At this point, we really don't know if Pacific Gas and Electric Co. is
at fault. But in some ways, it doesn't matter. After a major tragedy
like these fires, we need someone, something to blame. And PG&E is the
perfect villain.
This is the company whose negligence led to a natural gas pipeline
explosion in San Bruno seven years ago, a tragedy that killed eight
people and injured more than 50. A federal jury found the company guilty
of obstructing justice by lying to regulators about its pipeline-testing
policy.
The company's new CEO, Geisha Williams, must craft a delicate strategy
in which PG&E acknowledges that skepticism and - if investigators find
convincing evidence - somehow accept moral responsibility for the fires
without taking on legal responsibility.
http://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/San-Bruno-explosion-hangs-over-PG-E-amid-wildfire-12295105.php
*New Front in War on Science
<https://climatecrocks.com/2017/10/21/new-front-in-war-on-science/>*
New legislation introduced this week by Senator Rand Paul (R–KY) would
fundamentally alter how grant proposals are reviewed at every federal
agency by adding public members with no expertise in the research being
vetted.
https://climatecrocks.com/2017/10/21/new-front-in-war-on-science/
*O Say Can You CO2…
<http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2017/10/o-say-can-you-co2/>*
12 October 2017
/Guest Commentary by Scott Denning <http://biocycle.atmos.colostate.edu>/
The Orbiting Carbon Observatory <https://oco.jpl.nasa.gov> (OCO-2) was
launched in 2014 to make fine-scale measurements of the total column
concentration of CO_2 in the atmosphere. As luck would have it, the
initial couple of years of data from OCO-2 documented a period with the
fastest rate of CO2 increase ever measured, more than 3 ppm per year
(Jacobson et al, 2016
<https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/publications/annual_meetings/2016/abstracts/83-160415-A.pdf>;Wang
et al, 2017)
<http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2017/10/o-say-can-you-co2/#ITEM-20789-0>
during a huge El Nino event that also saw global temperatures spike to
record levels.
As part of a series of OCO-2 papers being published this week, a new
/Science/ paper by Junjie Liu and colleagues
<http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2017/10/o-say-can-you-co2/#ITEM-20789-1>
used NASA's comprehensive Carbon Monitoring System to analyze millions
of measurements from OCO-2 and other satellites to map the impact of the
2015-16 El Nino on sources and sinks of CO_2 , providing insight into
the mechanisms controlling carbon-climate feedback.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2017/10/o-say-can-you-co2/
*Deadline for Public Comment on Proposed Repeal*
December 15, 2017
Find the proposal here:
https://www.regulations.gov/searchResults?rpp=25&po=0&s=epa-hq-oar-2017-0355&fp=true&ns=true
Submit Comments to the Docket:
https://www.regulations.gov/comment?D=EPA-HQ-OAR-2017-0355-0002
*Defending the Clean Power Plan
What's at Risk, How to Comment, and Talking Points
<http://saveepaalums.info/resisting-the-trump-de-regulatory-agenda-talking-points/defending-the-clean-power-plan/>*
The Clean Power Plan
In August 2015, EPA issued the final Clean Power Plan (CPP) to reduce
climate changing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from existing coal- and
gas-fired electric power plants. CO2 is the most prevalent of the
greenhouse gases that are the primary cause of climate change,
threatening the lives, health, and well-being of Americans and people
around the globe.
Greenhouse gases (GHGs) build up in the atmosphere and have wide-ranging
impacts around the globe. Current and anticipated impacts include:
- heat waves and record high temperatures along with an increased
risk of heat-related illnesses and death especially among the poor
and elderly;
- greater risk of droughts, fire, more damaging storms, and floods
that can cause deaths and injuries as well as damage to property and
infrastructure;
- increased spread of diseases, increases in health problems from
ozone pollution in U.S. cities, and increases in allergens;
- acidification of the oceans, extinction of species, damage to
crops and fisheries, and potential increases in world hunger and
other destabilizing changes that would reduce U.S. national
security; and
- possible rapid changes that could cause abrupt and serious impacts
for people and ecosystems. (For more information and scientific
report sources, click here.)
<https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxEEWBL5FvSkOTRucTlFRXltQ2M>
Climate change disproportionately threatens the health and welfare of
vulnerable populations in the U.S. and around the world including
children, the elderly and the poor including the health and welfare of
indigenous people.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports that between
1980 and October 6, 2017, U.S. billion-dollar extreme weather disasters
had cost $1.3 trillion in inflation-adjusted damage and resulted in
9,905 deaths, not counting Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria. Climate
change already has exacerbated extreme weather and can be expected to
have even greater effects in the future.[
Coal and gas-fired power plants together emit more CO2 than any other
category of emissions sources in the U.S. By 2030, the CPP would reduce
power plant CO2 emissions by 32% from 2005 levels.
The CPP sets emissions standards for fossil fuel-fired power plants and
corresponding emissions goals for each state. The goals reflect the
unique power system in each state. Under the CPP, each state would
develop and implement its own plan to reach its goal. There is an
array of policies that states can use to meet their goals and each state
can choose policies that best fit their own power generating sector.
EPA has provided model plans that a state could adopt and implement if
it did not want to write its own plan. Or, if a state preferred, the
state could choose to defer to a federal plan that EPA would implement.
The CPP was developed after years of extensive public engagement that
explored how best to establish requirements under the Clean Air Act to
limit climate pollution from the power sector.
EPA's 2015 analysis shows that the benefits of the CPP are large,
dwarfing the costs. Twenty billion dollars in climate-related benefits
alone would occur in 2030. Furthermore, the measures taken under the
CPP to reduce CO2 emissions would cut emissions of other air pollutants
as well - pollutants associated with increases in heart attacks, asthma
attacks and deaths, producing health benefits of $14 to $34 billion. In
total, the net benefits of the CPP (the value of total health,
environmental and other economic benefits, minus the cost to comply)
were estimated to range from between $26 billion to $45 billion in 2030....
http://saveepaalums.info/resisting-the-trump-de-regulatory-agenda-talking-points/defending-the-clean-power-plan/
*Talking Points — Why We Must Combat Climate Change *
The continued emissions of carbon pollution and other greenhouse gases
threaten the lives, health and well-being of Americans and people
worldwide. These long-lived gases are building up in the atmosphere and
causing far-reaching changes to our planet, according to the National
Research Council (the operational arm of the National Academies), and
other scientific authorities:
- Heat waves and record high temperatures have increased across most
regions of the world resulting in an increased risk of heat-related
illnesses and deaths, especially among the poor and elderly.
- Patterns of precipitation now are changing regionally, and over
time are expected to make dry areas dryer and wet areas wetter.
These increasing trends will bring more droughts, increase fire
risks, and intensify severe storms, extreme weather and flooding —
events that can cause deaths, and injuries, as well as billions of
dollars of damage to property and the nation’s infrastructure (e.g.,
electric power grid, roads and transportation systems, water
distribution systems, buildings, etc.)
- This year we have witnessed the strongest hurricane season in
history. We have seen the devastation that can be caused by such
strong storms. The damage this year alone is estimated to be several
hundred billion dollars, far in excess of the annual cost of the
Clean Power Plan.
- A myriad of other public health concerns are raised in the
scientific literature include anticipated increases in ground-level
ozone pollution, the potential for enhanced spread of some
waterborne and pest-related diseases, and evidence for increased
production or dispersion of airborne allergens.
- Numerous species in the ocean and on land over time will be
threatened with extinction. We are currently seeing the worst
die-off of species since the loss of the dinosaurs and in fact
scientists say that we may be experiencing the beginning of the
sixth mass extinction. Unlike the preceding five mass extinctions,
this one is human caused.
- Threats to the food chain are becoming evident and will continue
to be more pronounced. Warmer waters can lead to a decline in oxygen
causing dead zones threatening important U.S. fisheries. Increased
CO2 in the oceans is causing them to become increasingly acidic,
threatening many species including important food commodities. On
land the changing climate over time is expected to damage staple
crops, and global food security may be threatened.
- The Department of Defense states, "Global climate change will
aggravate problems such as poverty, social tensions, environmental
degradation, ineffectual leadership and weak political institutions
that threaten stability in a number of countries."
Those most vulnerable to climate related health effects - such as
children, the elderly, the poor, and future generations - face
disproportionate risks. Studies also find that climate change poses
particular threats to the health, well-being, and ways of life of
indigenous peoples in the United States.
Several assessments state that we may be approaching critical, poorly
understood thresholds that may lead to rapid and potentially permanent
changes not predicted by climate models that could cause abrupt and
serious impacts for society and ecosystems.
http://saveepaalums.info/resisting-the-trump-de-regulatory-agenda-talking-points/defending-the-clean-power-plan/
-
*How to Submit Your Comments*
EPA will accept written comments on the proposal until 11:59 p.m.
Eastern time on December 15, 2017. To submit on line, click on the
following link:
https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=EPA-HQ-OAR-2017-0355
If you wish to submit comments by mail or by fax see directions at
https://www.epa.gov/dockets/commenting-epa-dockets. Comments should be
identified by the following docket number: EPA-HQ-OAR-2017-0355.
If your comments include confidential business information, see
https://www.epa.gov/dockets/commenting-epa-dockets for further direction.
*There Is More That You Can Do*
It would be great if well-reasoned, fact-based comments were enough to
win the day, but in today’s deregulatory environment, raising the
political stakes of regulatory rollbacks is crucial to stopping or
slowing them down. Submitting comments is a good first step. For rules
that are particularly important to you, please consider taking one or
more of the following steps, too.
*Write to your members of Congress and other elected officials. * Let
them know your concerns and ask them to weigh in on this rollback, and
speak out publically in favor of the CPP. You can find contact
information for your member of Congress and other elected officials at
https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials.
*Write letters to the editor and even op-eds in your local papers.*
Letters to the editor should be fairly brief.
*Organize or participate in letter-writing campaigns.*
*Join or organize demonstrations.*
Talk to your friends, colleagues and neighbors and encourage them to
comment and otherwise join in this effort. Voicing your concerns on
social media can be a very effective way to spread the word.
Finally, and perhaps most important, one of the most effective things
that you can do is to organize or joins efforts to encourage action on
climate change by your state or city. ..
more information at:
http://saveepaalums.info/resisting-the-trump-de-regulatory-agenda-talking-points/defending-the-clean-power-plan/
*This Day in Climate History October 22, 2006
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XB3S0fnOr0M> - from D.R. Tucker*
October 22, 2006: Newsweek's Jerry Adler acknowledges that his magazine
dropped the ball in April 1975 when it ran a story claiming that global
cooling was on the horizon - a story that went against the scientific
evidence of the era pointing to global warming.
http://www.newsweek.com/climate-change-prediction-perils-111927
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XB3S0fnOr0M
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2008/11/10/203320/killing-the-myth-of-the-1970s-global-cooling-scientific-consensus/
/
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