[TheClimate.Vote] September 1, 2017 - Daily Global Warming News
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Fri Sep 1 09:49:35 EDT 2017
/September 1, 2017/
*
Hurricane Irma strengthens to major Cat 3 storm
<http://www.miamiherald.com/news/weather/hurricane/article170542417.html>*
Forecasters are monitoring the storm as it makes its way across the
Atlantic, but it's too early to tell where it might strike.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/weather/hurricane/article170542417.html
Climate Law Blog*
Climate law/policy issues raised by Harvey, will TX ever learn + change?
<http://blogs.law.columbia.edu/climatechange/2017/08/31/climate-law-issues-related-to-hurricane-harvey/>*
Here, the team of lawyers at the Sabin Center offers a brief primer on
eleven key climate law issues highlighted by and likely to arise due to
Hurricane Harvey:*
1. Disaster Recovery Legislation:* As a presidentially-declared disaster
area, Harris County, Texas is eligible for several forms of assistance
pursuant to federal law. Federal disaster recovery legislation takes two
basic forms. The first divides disaster mitigation and recovery
responsibilities between the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The second is
one-time appropriations that fund recovery efforts in disaster areas.
*2. Flood Insurance Reform: *The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP)
is in a bad way. Even before Hurricane Harvey struck, the Government
Accountability Office identified the NFIP as being "high risk" in fiscal
terms because, since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck in 2005, it has
accrued debt to the Treasury—totaling just under $25 billion in July
2017—faster than it has been able to repay it. ...
*3. Flood Maps:* As part of its nationwide Coastal Flooding Risk Study
Process, FEMA recently updated the Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRMs) for
large portions of Harris County. ...
*4. Flood Protection for Federal Projects:* Ironically, just ten days
before Hurricane Harvey made landfall, President Trump signed an
executive order revoking the Federal Flood Risk Management Standard
(FFRMS). ...FFRMS was intended to ensure federally-funded projects in
and near floodplains are built to withstand the effects of future
flooding, taking into account climate change. ..
*5. Controlling Air Emissions from Damaged Facilities:* The regulations
require states to impose limits on facility emissions of covered
pollutants during periods of startup, shutdown, and malfunction..
*6. Handling Toxic Pollutants and Discharges of Toxic Water Pollution:
*Flood-related discharges of toxic and conventional pollutants into
waters of the U.S. exceeding effluent standards could violate
facilities' National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permits and
Section 402 of the Clean Water Act (CWA)...
*7. Chemical Safety:* On August 31, an Arkema chemical plant in Crosby,
about 30 miles north of downtown Houston, suffered several explosions. ..
*8. Damage to Superfund Sites: *There are sixteen federal Superfund
sites in Harris County—more than any other county in Texas—as well as
numerous Superfund sites located in adjacent counties and toxic waste
sites managed under the state Superfund program..
*9. Zoning and Building Codes: *Even if Houston were not located in the
crosshairs of storms like Harvey, its largely unregulated development
would still make its population and assets susceptible to floods. ..
*10. Public utilities:* It is almost certain that much of the utility
equipment in the area affected by Harvey has been damaged or destroyed,
requiring enormous capital expenditures. ..
*11. Climate Change Attribution and Hurricanes: *Numerous scientists
have suggested that Hurricane Harvey was fueled, at least in part, by
the warming climate. This raises the question of whether greenhouse gas
emitters or fossil fuel companies can be held liable for their
contribution to climate change and the corresponding damages caused by
Harvey. ..
http://blogs.law.columbia.edu/climatechange/2017/08/31/climate-law-issues-related-to-hurricane-harvey/
*Exxon Mobil loses support of a powerful voice in climate change policy
<https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/31/investing-power-vanguard-votes-against-exxon-mobil-on-climate-change.html>*
- Proxy voting records released Thursday by Vanguard Group revealed that
for the first time it voted against Exxon Mobil management to require a
climate report of the oil and gas giant.
- In recent years, Vanguard had been a laggard compared to BlackRock and
State Street Global Advisors in supporting shareholder resolutions on
climate change.
- Vanguard came under attack last month by Walden Asset Management for
its own disclosure policy on climate, a battle it headed off by
advancing several proactive measures.
- Overall, Vanguard showed a little more of a "dissident" streak in its
proxy votes this year over issues of gender, diversity, environment and
board directors.
Eric Rosenbaum | @erprose
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/31/investing-power-vanguard-votes-against-exxon-mobil-on-climate-change.html
Insurance Journal
*Climate Change and Hurricanes - The Worst Is Yet to Come
<http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2017/08/31/462984.htm>*
The biggest impact multiplier in many storms won't be slowness and
stalling, as much as human decisions on the ground. Building a city in a
flood plain, for example, is just asking for it. "My hunch is that
signal would be greater than the anthropogenic signal of the storm
itself," he said. The 2015 study, however, didn't analyze any changes in
population or urbanization that, in the real world, strongly influence
hurricane damages.
Lackman continues to test models that are useful in taking apart big
storms, and he said he expects to give close attention to Harvey—the
event itself and its many computer clones. But that'll take a year or
two, and this hurricane season isn't even over yet. In fact, the letter
"I" on the National Hurricane Center's 2017 naming list was recently
assigned: Tropical Storm Irma is on its way west.
http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2017/08/31/462984.htm
*Harvey reveals corporate hubris regarding safety
<http://www.chron.com/business/columnists/tomlinson/article/Harvey-reveals-corporate-hubris-regarding-safety-12164662.php>*
Richard Rennard, the president of Arkema, shrugged his shoulders when
asked what more his company could have done to prevent chemicals from
burning at his plant in Crosby.
He rattled off the systems his company employed to chill the organic
peroxides: Grid power, back-up generators, nitrogen coolers and
ultimately refrigerated trailers. On Thursday the refrigerator systems
began shutting down and the peroxides began burning and blowing the lids
off their containers.
After the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan, every
facility with dangerous materials should know to keep back-up generators
above any potential flood line. Yet that precaution escaped Arkema.
Rennard's fatalism in the face of a natural disaster is disingenuous.
Experts identified the plant as high-risk, and Arkema could have
designed a more resilient facility. But it didn't, most likely because
management considered the risk too low and the costs too high.
We know this because the Houston Chronicle identified Arkema as a
potentially dangerous plant in an award-winning 2016 investigative
series called "Chemical Breakdown." In response to my colleague Matt
Dempsey's inquiries about safety, plant manager Wendal Turley assured
the newspaper that every precaution had been taken.
"The safety of our workforce and community are paramount in everything
we do. We take our commitment to safe operations and compliance with
federal and state regulations very seriously," Turley wrote. "We
regularly meet with our community and local officials and strive to be a
good neighbor at all times."
Arkema executives told their neighbors to flee their homes this week. No
one is explaining why Arkema didn't simply dilute the peroxides, which
would have ruined them, but at least would have prevented the fires and
explosions.
Let's be honest, Harvey is not causing accidents. The storm is revealing
the risks executives willingly took. No one has the right to shrug their
shoulders and say, "C'est la vie."
http://www.chron.com/business/columnists/tomlinson/article/Harvey-reveals-corporate-hubris-regarding-safety-12164662.php
*
**(video) George Monbiot: We Can't Be Silent on Climate Change or the
Unsustainability of Capitalist System
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siladGzSKJI>*
While Houston continues to deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey,
we look at the media silence on the human contribution to the
record-breaking storm. British journalist and author George Monbiot
wrote that despite 2016 being the hottest year on record, the combined
coverage during the evening and Sunday news programs on the main
television networks amounted to a total of 50 minutes in all of last
year. "Our greatest predicament, the issue that will define our lives,
has been blotted from the public's mind," he wrote. The silence has been
even more resounding on climate-related disasters in areas of the world
where populations are more vulnerable—most recently, on the devastating
floods across the globe, from Niger to South Asia. Over the past month,
more than 1,200 people have died amid flooding in Bangladesh, Nepal and
India. This year's monsoon season has brought torrential downpours that
have submerged wide swaths of South Asia, destroying tens of thousands
of homes, schools and hospitals. Meanwhile, in Niger, West Africa,
thousands of people have been ordered to leave their homes in the
capital Niamey after several days of heavy downpours. We speak with
Monbiot, columnist at The Guardian. His book, "Out of the Wreckage: A
New Politics for an Age of Crisis," will be out this week.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siladGzSKJI
*Transcript
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/8/31/george_monbiot_we_cant_be_silent*
We go now to Oxford in Britain to speak to George Monbiot. He's a
columnist with The Guardian. His book, Out of the Wreckage: A New
Politics for an Age of Crisis, is out this week. His latest article for
The Guardian is headlined "Why are the crucial questions about Hurricane
Harvey not being asked?"
George Monbiot, welcome back to Democracy Now! Well, answer your question:
*GEORGE MONBIOT: *Well, because to ask those questions is to challenge
everything. It's to challenge not just Donald Trump, not just current
environmental policy. It's to challenge the entire political and
economic system. And it is to recognize that the system which we tell
ourselves is the best system you could possibly have, of neoliberal
capitalism, which will deliver the optimum outcomes and the best of all
possible worlds, actually is destined to push us towards catastrophe,
and unless we replace that system with a better one, with something
really quite different, then it will destroy us. Instead of making us
more prosperous, more comfortable, it will rip apart everything that
makes our lives worth living, and result in the deaths of very large
numbers of people.
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/8/31/george_monbiot_we_cant_be_silent
*Harvey, Rainfall, and Climate Change*
<https://medium.com/@huntercutting/harvey-rainfall-and-climate-change-c7032dbef0e1>
What We Know..All of the available evidence, and there is plenty of it,
clearly points to a very strong role for climate change, driven by
carbon pollution, in helping to fuel the unprecedented rainfall
delivered by Hurricane Harvey. When, and if, a formal modeling study is
done, we will learn more then.
https://medium.com/@huntercutting/harvey-rainfall-and-climate-change-c7032dbef0e1
*Climate change did not "cause" Harvey, but it's a huge part of the
story
<https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/8/28/16213268/harvey-climate-change>*
9 things we can say about Harvey and climate.
Updated by David Roberts @drvox david at vox.com
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/8/28/16213268/harvey-climate-change
*Study: Methane from tundra, ocean floor didn't spike during previous
natural warming period
<http://oregonstate.edu/ua/ncs/archives/2017/aug/study-methane-tundra-ocean-floor-didn%E2%80%99t-spike-during-previous-natural-warming-peri>*
CORVALLIS, Ore. - Scientists concerned that global warming may release
huge stores of methane from reservoirs beneath Arctic tundra and
deposits of marine hydrates - a theory known as the "clathrate gun"
hypothesis - have turned to geologic history to search for evidence of
significant methane release during past warming events.
A new study published this week in the journal Nature suggests, however,
that the last ice age transition to a warmer climate some 11,500 years
ago did not include massive methane flux from marine sediments or the
tundra. Instead, the likely source of rising levels of atmospheric
methane was from tropical wetlands, authors of the new study say.
While this certainly is good news, the study also points at a larger
role of humans in the recent methane rise, noted Edward Brook, an Oregon
State University paleoclimatologist and co-author on the study
"Our findings show that natural geologic emissions of methane - for
example, leakage from oil seeps or gas deposits in the ground - are much
smaller than previously thought," Brook said. "That means that a greater
percentage of the methane in the atmosphere today is due to human
activities, including oil drilling, and the extraction and transport of
natural gas."
The study suggests that human emissions of geologic methane may be as
much as 25 percent higher than previous estimates. Although not as
abundant as carbon dioxide, methane is a much more powerful greenhouse
gas and therefore the rising levels are an important contributor to
global warming.
"This means we have even more potential to fight global warming by
curbing methane emissions from our fossil fuel use," said Vasilii
Petrenko, an associate professor of earth and environmental sciences at
the University of Rochester, and lead author on the study.
Anthropogenic methane emissions are the second largest contributor to
global warming after carbon dioxide, but there has been uncertainty as
to the source of that methane and whether it has changed over time,
Brook noted. The new study sheds light on the issue by analyzing levels
of atmospheric methane from the last deglaciation in air bubbles that
have been trapped in pristine ice cores from Antarctica's Taylor Glacier.
The researchers were able to estimate the magnitude of methane emissions
from roughly 11,500 years ago by measuring radioactive carbon isotopes
in methane, (carbon-14, also known as 14C or radiocarbon), which decay
fairly rapidly. Methane released from those marine hydrates and
permafrost is old enough that any 14C originally present has now decayed
away.
They found that amount of methane from ancient "14C-free sources" was
very low - less than 10 percent of the total methane - during the entire
range of sampling, from 11,800 to 11,300 years ago.
"A lot of people have painted the Arctic as a methane time bomb," Brook
said, "but this shows that it may be more stable than we thought. Past
performance isn't always a predictor of the future, but it is a good
analog. We should be more concerned about anthropogenic sources of
methane into the atmosphere, which continue to increase."
The levels of 14C in the ice cores suggest that the increase in methane
during the last deglaciation had another source - likely from tropical
wetlands, said Christo Buizert, an Oregon State University researcher
and co-author on the paper.
"Methane is not stored in the tropics for long periods of time, but
produced every day by microbial activity in wetlands," Buizert said. "We
know from other studies that rainfall increased in the tropics during
the last warming period, and that likely created more wetlands that
produced the additional methane."
Atmospheric methane has increased from 750 parts per billion in the year
1750 to more than 1,800 parts per billion today - mostly from
anthropogenic sources, especially leakage from fossil fuel production,
the creation of rice paddies, and cattle ranching, the researchers say.
"All of the natural gas that we mine is very old and leaking inevitably
occurs during that process," Brook said. "Natural gas is considered a
cleaner energy source than coal, but it can be a significant problem
depending on how much of the methane is leaking out."
The key to documenting the source of atmospheric methane is the pristine
ice cores of Taylor Glacier in Antarctica, where dry, windy conditions
have allowed this ancient ice to be slowly brought to the surface. One
reason scientists had yet to pin down the sources of methane during the
last ice age is that the amount of 14C is so small, it takes enormous
amounts of ice to get enough air to measure the isotope.
In fact, it takes some 2,000 pounds of ice, running a melting instrument
over three days, to get enough air to produce one sample of measurable
14C. Drilling down in the center of the ice sheet to find that much ice
from the end of the last ice age would be prohibitively costly and
labor-intensive, but the unique conditions at Taylor Glacier - pushing
that old ice toward the surface - made it possible.
Brook and Buizert are on the faculty of OSU's College of Earth, Ocean,
and Atmospheric Sciences
http://oregonstate.edu/ua/ncs/archives/2017/aug/study-methane-tundra-ocean-floor-didn%E2%80%99t-spike-during-previous-natural-warming-peri
World Toilet Day Resources Launched
<http://sdg.iisd.org/news/world-toilet-day-resources-launched/>
26 August 2017: The website and resources for outreach during World
Toilet Day, which is celebrated annually on 19 November, have been
released. The theme for World Toilet Day 2017 - wastewater - coordinates
with the theme selected for World Water Day 2017, which is celebrated
annually on 22 March.
http://sdg.iisd.org/news/world-toilet-day-resources-launched/
*
**Nuclear War, Climate Change, And Trump Named As World's Biggest
Threats By Nobel Laureates
<http://www.iflscience.com/environment/nuclear-war-climate-change-and-trump-named-as-worlds-biggest-threats-by-nobel-laureates/all/>*
According to a poll of 50 Nobel laureates - the world's leading figures
in science in their field - the biggest threats facing the world today
include environmental issues, the threat of nuclear war, and leaders
like Donald Trump. ..
The survey was conducted by Time Higher Education, the body that puts
together the world university rankings, ahead of its World Academic
Summit held in London this week. They surveyed 50 of the world's Nobel
prize winners for science, medicine, and economics - that's one in five
of the living laureates - on their views on a range of topics, from
university funding to the biggest threats facing mankind today...
Many actually name-checked Donald Trump in reference to populist leaders
choosing to ignore evidence provided by the scientific community and
purposely distorting the truth to mislead people.
http://www.iflscience.com/environment/nuclear-war-climate-change-and-trump-named-as-worlds-biggest-threats-by-nobel-laureates/all/
<http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/evening-news-online-090108/>*This Day in
Climate History September 1, 2008
<http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/evening-news-online-090108/> - from D.R.
Tucker*
September 1, 2008: Hurricane Gustav strikes the United States.
http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/evening-news-online-090108/
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