[TheClimate.Vote] September 2, 2017 - Daily Global Warming News
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Sat Sep 2 10:03:03 EDT 2017
/September 2, 2017/
*Hurricane Irma is a Mighty Storm—But Where is It Heading?
<Hurricane+Irma+is+a+Mighty+Storm%E2%80%94But+Where+is+It+Heading?>*
Hurricane Irma rapidly intensified into a Category 3 hurricane with 115
mph winds at 5 pm EDT Thursday, becoming the earliest storm on record to
become a major hurricane east of 35°W. Irma is the second major
hurricane of this active Atlantic hurricane season, along with Hurricane
Harvey, and it has arrived more than a month before the usual October 3
date for the season's second major hurricane. Irma could potentially
impact the islands of the Caribbean next week, and the mainland U.S. or
Canada the following week, but uncertainties in its track at such long
ranges are quite high.
Both Harvey and Irma were rapid intensifiers, bursting from
tropical-storm to major-hurricane strength in less than 36 hours. Irma
pulled off this feat in just 12 hours, one of the fastest such leaps on
record. Very low wind shear at or below 5 knots allowed Irma to develop
a large, robust structure remarkably quickly. Overnight, Irma leveled
off in intensity, as it began moving over somewhat cooler sea-surface
temperatures, and began an eyewall replacement cycle (ERC.) As of 11 am
EDT Friday, Irma had weakened to a top-end Category 2 hurricane with
sustained winds of 110 mph.
https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/hurricane-irma-mighty-storm-where-it-heading
USA TODAY NETWORK
*Zello app emerges as lifesaver during Hurricane Harvey
<https://www.usatoday.com/videos/tech/2017/08/31/zello-app-emerges-lifesaver-during-hurricane-harvey/105163662/>*
>From Cajun Navy to Houston midwives, Zello is go-to app for Harvey
rescues
<https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/talkingtech/2017/08/31/zello-app-helping-harvey-rescue-efforts/619924001/>
How the simple push-to-talk app has become the 'go-to' tool for the
Cajun Navy and other volunteer rescuers in Texas.
As rescue efforts continue in and around Houston following Hurricane
Harvey, one communications app is proving to be a lifesaver.
Zello is basically a walkie talkie in your pocket. Users push and hold a
button to talk immediately with others on radio-style channels.
As rescuers and storm victims seek assistance during the aftermath of
Harvey, Zello is among the go-to tech tools. Zello has seen 20 times as
many new users in Houston on the app compared to the previous week.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/talkingtech/2017/08/31/zello-app-helping-harvey-rescue-efforts/619924001/
https://www.usatoday.com/videos/tech/2017/08/31/zello-app-emerges-lifesaver-during-hurricane-harvey/105163662/
.
Zello walkie-talkie app <https://zello.com/app>
Zello is a free push-to-talk application for smartphones, tablets, and
PCs. It's lightweight, easy to use and extremely fast. Better yet, it's
free and will remain free for personal use. Over 65 million. That's
how many times users have downloaded Zello. Try it on your Android,
iPhone, Windows Phone, BlackBerry, PC or a mix!
Features:
Fast - Zello conversations are almost as fast as face-to-face
conversations and faster than online communications.
Easy to use - Just push the button to talk. You most likely won't have
to configure anything to start using Zello.
One-to-many - Zello supports channels where you can talk to one person
on up to 1,000 people from all over the world … at the same time.
https://zello.com/app
.
ZelloWork <https://zellowork.com/> Instant voice for teams -
Push-to-talk for any device or network.
Unlike two-way radios, Zello works with any data or Wi-Fi network. ...
button options allow users to simply press and talk without fumbling
through app screens.
https://zellowork.com/
*Harvey flooding will lead to 'massive, massive cleanup process,' Texas
governor says*
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/09/01/harveys-wake-drifts-north-as-battered-coast-left-with-lingering-perils-and-staggering-recovery/>*(+videos)
*
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/09/01/harveys-wake-drifts-north-as-battered-coast-left-with-lingering-perils-and-staggering-recovery/>
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/09/01/harveys-wake-drifts-north-as-battered-coast-left-with-lingering-perils-and-staggering-recovery/>BEAUMONT,
Tex. - A week after Hurricane Harvey slammed into Texas as a Category 4
monster, millions of people across the Gulf Coast struggled Friday with
the unfathomable misery left behind as tens of thousands were left
without drinking water, forced from homes or trapped in cities
transformed into islands.
Federal officials kept up a tense watch at a storm-ravaged chemical
plant east of Houston, where some of the volatile organic peroxides
stored there had ignited a day earlier..
Beaumont had issued a voluntary evacuation order for its 118,000
residents. But for many of those still in the city, there was no way out
with murky floodwaters blocking roads in every direction. Police said
some people tried to leave anyway, only to discover that this was
impossible and turn back, driving the wrong way on Highway 90.
"When you take water out of the picture, people start to panic a bit,"
said Halley Morrow, a police spokeswoman.
"That's a game changer for us," she said. "We have medical supplies, we
had food, we had staff. But we never dreamed we would lose water supply.".
"We didn't anticipate having six feet of water in our plant," Richard
Rennard, president of Arkema's acrylic monomers division, had told
reporters on Thursday.
The loss of control of dangerous materials, coupled with the ignition of
these chemicals, have spread anxiety beyond the area around the plant,
which has been evacuated.
An estimate released by the National Weather Service said that more
than 28,000 square miles were covered in at least 20 inches of rain.
.https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/09/01/harveys-wake-drifts-north-as-battered-coast-left-with-lingering-perils-and-staggering-recovery/
*New York State Blocks the Valley Lateral Pipeline!
<https://www.nrdc.org/experts/new-york-state-blocks-valley-lateral-pipeline>*
In a victory for all New Yorkers, the state has blocked a natural gas
pipeline that would have threatened upstate residents' health, water
quality and communities, citing climate change concerns.
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) denied the
water quality certification to the Valley Lateral Pipeline today, a 7.9
mile, 16-inch diameter fracked gas pipeline that would have connected
the existing Millennium Pipeline to the highly controversial
650-megawatt gas-powered CPV Valley Energy Center in Orange County, New
York. To support its denial, DEC explained that the U.S. Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission (FERC) failed to consider climate change impacts
in its environmental review of the pipeline. Without this key
certification, the pipeline cannot move forward in New York State.
https://www.nrdc.org/experts/new-york-state-blocks-valley-lateral-pipeline
.https://twitter.com/BobbyHertz/status/903378938378022917
*
**Sanders: It's 'pretty dumb' not to ask about climate change after
Harvey
<http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/31/politics/bernie-sanders-climate-change-harvey-cnn-tv/index.html>*
http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/31/politics/bernie-sanders-climate-change-harvey-cnn-tv/index.html
*Climate Change Already Impacting Wheat, Rice, Corn, Soybean Yields
Worldwide
<https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2017/09/01/climate-change-already-impacting-wheat-rice-corn-soybean-yields-worldwide/>*
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2017/09/01/climate-change-already-impacting-wheat-rice-corn-soybean-yields-worldwide/
*In Georgia's Peach Orchards, Warm Winters Raise Specter of Climate
Change
<https://insideclimatenews.org/news/31082017/climate-change-georgia-peach-harvest-warm-weather-crop-risk-farmers>*
Three generations of Robert Lee Dickeys faced a failed crop after an
unusually warm winter. They talk about it as weather rather than climate
change.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/31082017/climate-change-georgia-peach-harvest-warm-weather-crop-risk-farmers
*Texas TV Meteorologist: Why Harvey Stalled
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tfd4vd26H2I>*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tfd4vd26H2I
.
*Dr Jennifer Francis - Arctic Sea Ice, Jet Stream & Climate Change
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAiA-_iQjdU&t=76s>*
Dr. Jennifer Francis who is one of the leading scientists in the U.S.
studying the relationship between Arctic warming and changes in the jet
stream, says:
"The Arctic is generally very cold and the areas farther south are warm
and that difference in area between those two areas is really what fuels
that vast river of weather moving high over our head that we call the
jet stream.
The jet stream in turn creates the weather that we feel all around the
northern hemisphere and the middle latitudes, so anything that affects
this jet stream is going to affect weather patterns. So as the Arctic
warms up much faster than the areas farther south, we're seeing this
temperature difference between these two regions get smaller. This means
the force that drives those winds in the jet stream are getting smaller
and that means the winds themselves in the jet stream are getting weaker.
When that happens, the jet stream tends to take a wavier path as it
travels around the northern hemisphere and those waves are actually what
create the stormy patterns [and] the nice weather patterns. As those
waves get larger because of this weakening of those winds of the jet
streams, they tend to move more slowly from west to east. That means it
feels like the weather patterns are sticking around longer, because
those patterns are moving much more slowly and this then makes it more
likely to have the kind of extreme events that are related to persistent
weather patterns."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAiA-_iQjdU&t=76s
*Future Hurricanes Will Be Worse Than Harvey
<https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-31/future-hurricanes-will-be-worse-than-harvey>*
Research on Superstorm Sandy yields grim projections about global
warming and extreme weather in the decades to come.
By Eric Roston August 31, 2017
How powerful would Hurricane Harvey have been in 1880? How much stronger
might it be in 2100?
A single Hurricane Harvey has been more than anyone can bear. But to
better prepare cities for future storms, researchers are preparing to
re-watch Harvey thousands of times. They've already been studying
earlier storms, and their conclusions don't bode well for the decades to
come.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-31/future-hurricanes-will-be-worse-than-harvey
*
Harvey has your eyes this week, but climate change needs your action
<http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/harvey-has-your-eyes-this-week-but-climate-change-needs-your-emaction-em/>*
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/harvey-has-your-eyes-this-week-but-climate-change-needs-your-emaction-em/
*(video) Donald Trump is one of the biggest threats facing humankind: 50
Nobel laureates on what keeps them up at night
<http://www.salon.com/2017/08/31/donald-trump-is-one-of-the-biggest-threats-facing-humankind-50-nobel-laureates-on-what-keeps-them-up-at-night/>*
Trump is a major threat to humanity, according to some of the smartest
people in the world
In a survey that solicited the views of almost one-fourth of all living
Nobel Prize winners, Times Higher Education discovered that many felt
President Donald Trump was among the greatest existing threats to humanity.
The editor of Times Higher Education, John Gill, explained that "this
survey offers a unique insight into the issues that keep the world's
greatest scientific minds awake at night."
http://www.salon.com/2017/08/31/donald-trump-is-one-of-the-biggest-threats-facing-humankind-50-nobel-laureates-on-what-keeps-them-up-at-night/
*Op-Ed Yes, ExxonMobil misled the public
<http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-oreskes-supran-exxonmobil-20170901-story.html>*
Geoffrey Supran: about my and Naomi Oreskes's study last week of
Exxon's history of climate communications (sorry for any cross-posting
you experience). I just wanted to update you that today we've published
an op-ed in the LA Times in rebuttal to Exxon's statements
<http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-oreskes-supran-exxonmobil-20170901-story.html>about
our paper:
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-oreskes-supran-exxonmobil-20170901-story.html
More broadly, given today's post-truth world, we also hope that this may
serve as a helpful piece to point people to when the need arises --
unfortunately -- to explain the difference between peer-reviewed
research and opinion.
P.S. Tweetables:
1) Exxon is baselessly attacking us & our *peer-reviewed* work showing
it misled on climate chg. We debunk in @latimes
<https://twitter.com/GeoffreySupran/status/903594063877869570>
2) Exxon is attacking us with a straw man, a lie, cherry-picking, &
character assassination. We debunk in @latimes:
<https://twitter.com/GeoffreySupran/status/903605268487045120>
3) We showed Exxon has a track record of disparaging peer-reviewed
science. So now they're disparaging our work too.
<https://twitter.com/GeoffreySupran/status/903601411333791744>
4) Exxon is now misleading the public about its history of misleading
the public. Q.E.D. Me+ at NaomiOreskes in @latimes:
<Exxon%20is%20now%20misleading%20the%20public%20about%20its%20history%20of%20misleading%20the%20public.%20Q.E.D.%20Me+ at NaomiOreskes%20in%20 at latimes:>
by Naomi Oreskes and Geoffrey Supran
In late August, we published the first academic analysis of ExxonMobil's
40-year history of communications on climate change. We published our
findings in an open-access, peer-reviewed journal and made our method
and evidence transparent and auditable by publishing 121 pages of
supplementary materials. The result: a systematic discrepancy between
what ExxonMobil scientists communicated in their scientific articles and
internal reports, and what the company told the public in "advertorials"
- advertisements in the New York Times masquerading as editorials. In
other words, our study showed that ExxonMobil misled the public about
climate science and its implications for decades.
Reviewing 187 ExxonMobil documents, we found that 83% of
peer-reviewed papers authored by ExxonMobil scientists and 80% of
the company's internal communications acknowledged that climate
change was real and human-caused. In contrast, only 12% of
ExxonMobil's advertorials directed at the public did so, with 81%
instead expressing doubt.
How did the world's largest publicly traded oil and gas company
respond? With a straw man, a falsehood, cherry picking and character
assassination.
*The straw man: *ExxonMobil claims that we accused them of hiding or
suppressing climate science research, but to quote verbatim from our
study, "We stress that the question is not whether ExxonMobil
'suppressed climate change research,' but rather how they
communicated about it." What our analysis does say - and show - is
that ExxonMobil misled the public. On this point the company remains
silent.
*The falsehood: *ExxonMobil says we "have admitted" that our
previous "allegations that the company hid its climate science
research were wrong." That's not true. One journalist asked where he
could find the link to the allegations; the answer is he couldn't
because we never made them. ExxonMobil has put words in our mouths
and then claimed we retracted them.
*Cherry picking:* ExxonMobil argues that a handful of sentences
within two advertorials undercut our analysis of 187 documents. But
those two advertorials were included in our study. This is the kind
of cherry picking of which ExxonMobil has repeatedly accused others.
*Character assassination: *ExxonMobil says we are in it for the
money. The fact is, Naomi Oreskes did this work as a Harvard
professor, with no additional payment from any source. She has never
been on the payroll of any NGO or activist organization. Geoffrey
Supran did two months of this work on a postdoctoral salary paid by
the Rockefeller Family Fund and 11 more months on his own dime, in
parallel with other, funded research projects. And who do you think
gets paid more, an oil industry executive or a postdoc?
We did begin our research with views on ExxonMobil and its climate
communications, just as most solar cell engineers have views on
renewable energy and most medical researchers have views on public
health. Objectivity doesn't mean having no opinions. It means using
objective methods and being willing to revise your views in light of
evidence. The point of our new study was to read the documents that
ExxonMobil claimed would exonerate them.
In sum, ExxonMobil is now misleading the public about its history of
misleading the public. This is just the latest round in a long and
troubling record of doubt-mongering and misdirection by the fossil
fuel industry and libertarian think tanks in response to the
scientific evidence of climate change.
It's become a familiar pattern. We published science, ExxonMobil
offered spin.
Separating the two is peer review. The idea is simple: Every
scientific claim - unlike every company press release - is vetted by
independent analysis. At minimum, peer reviewers look for mistakes
in data gathering, analysis and interpretation. Usually they go
further, addressing the quality and quantity of data, the reasoning
linking the evidence to its interpretation, the mathematics or
computer simulations used to analyze and interpret the data, and
even the prior reputation of the claimant. If the person is thought
to do sloppy work, has previously been involved in spurious claims
or has not disclosed potential conflicts of interest, he or she can
expect to attract tougher scrutiny. Scientific authors are required
to take reviewers' criticisms seriously, and to fix any mistakes
that have been found. (We did this with our paper.)
The reviewers must be experts and they must be independent. They can
be as tough as they need to be, because they are anonymous. Editors
spend considerable time finding reviewers who meet these criteria.
People have gone to the moon, cured diseases, invented new
materials, spliced the gene and split the atom - all on the basis of
peer-reviewed science. It's how you knew when and where to watch the
solar eclipse.
ExxonMobil has a track record of disparaging peer-reviewed climate
science. Now they are disparaging peer-reviewed social science too.
We think that makes it pretty clear who can be trusted - and who
can't - when it comes to facts about the past and decisions we need
to make about our future.
/Naomi Oreskes is professor of the history of science at Harvard and
co-author of "Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists
Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming."
Geoffrey Supran is a postdoctoral fellow in the department of the
history of science at Harvard and in the Institute for Data,
Systems, and Society at MIT./
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-oreskes-supran-exxonmobil-20170901-story.html
(opinion)
<https://theoutline.com/post/2202/climate-change-denial-should-be-a-crime>*CLIMATE
CHANGE DENIAL SHOULD BE A CRIME
<https://theoutline.com/post/2202/climate-change-denial-should-be-a-crime>*
In the wake of Harvey, it's time to treat science denial as gross
negligence-and hold those who do the denying accountable.
CLIMATE CHANGE DENIAL CAN AND WILL LEAVE PEOPLE DEAD.
But it's high time to start taking this pointed refusal to prepare, this
refusal to observe the basic tenets of science seriously - and call it
what it is: Negligence. Criminal negligence, even.
According to the Texas penal code, "A person acts with criminal
negligence, or is criminally negligent… when he ought to be aware of a
substantial and unjustifiable risk that the circumstances exist or the
result will occur. The risk must be of such a nature and degree that the
failure to perceive it constitutes a gross deviation from the standard
of care that an ordinary person would exercise...."
One of the earliest cases of negligence in the U.S. was built on sinking
ships.
In 1947, the Pennsylvania Railroad Company leased a barge to ship
U.S.-owned flour from the New York Harbor on the Anna C. It was docked
when the Carroll Holding Company sent one of its tugs to retrieve
another barge. Anna C was accidentally cut loose and sunk, and the U.S.
sued the CHC for negligence.
The judge ruled in favor of the United States: "Since there are
occasions when every vessel will break from her moorings, and since, if
she does, she becomes a menace to those about her; the owner's duty, as
in other similar situations, to provide against resulting injuries is a
function of three variables: (1) The probability that she will break
away; (2) the gravity of the resulting injury, if she does; (3) the
burden of adequate precautions," he wrote.
The decision yielded the Hand Test for determining negligence, and would
be a standard used for some time: "If B < PL, then there will be
negligence liability for the party with the burden of taking
precautions," according to Cornell Law, where:
B = burden of taking precautions
P = probability of loss
L = gravity of loss (gravity of the personal loss, not social loss)
In the case of climate change, which just so happens to be breaking many
vessels from their moorings, B is perhaps not granting unrestrained
development, while pursuing policies like reducing carbon emissions and
preserving green spaces. P is near certitude. L is truly massive. B
< PL.
Denying that human activity is warming the globe has been treated in our
media and general discourse as a reasonably valid, if crude, political
opinion - not an outright, immediately disqualifying falsehood contrary
to mountains of scientific evidence accrued over decades of painstaking
inquiry. Not a poisonous fiction that sits contrary to a robust body of
science that contributes to our understanding of the physical world, and
contrary to a field that is crucial to adapting to a meteorologically
hostile future. Not a lie that kills people.
that's one reason more and more people will keep dying in them. We
refuse to hold the negligent accountable. We refuse to strike back with
adequate force at the toxic climate denial that corrupts our public
policies. There's hope-a coalition of flooded homeowners sued Houston in
2016, alleging negligence. More should follow suit after Harvey.
The burden of precaution may at times be made to seem high-it may seem
expensive and time-consuming to engage and heed scientific guidance, but
it's nothing compared to the probability and gravity of coming loss. B <
PL. It's not even close.
https://theoutline.com/post/2202/climate-change-denial-should-be-a-crime
*This Day in Climate History September 2, 2005
<http://youtu.be/H9mWZZ2U6EQ>- from D.R. Tucker*
September 2, 2005: Climate scientist Stephen Schneider appears on "Real
Time with Bill Maher" to discuss climate change's role in
Hurricane Katrina.
http://youtu.be/H9mWZZ2U6EQ
/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
////You are encouraged to forward this email /
. *** Privacy and Security: * This is a text-only mailing that
carries no images which may originate from remote servers.
Text-only messages provide greater privacy to the receiver and
sender.
By regulation, the .VOTE top-level domain must be used for
democratic and election purposes and cannot be used for
commercial purposes.
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.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote/attachments/20170902/91d6fc60/attachment.html>
More information about the TheClimate.Vote
mailing list