[TheClimate.Vote] September 16, 2017 - Daily Global Warming News
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Sat Sep 16 09:04:59 EDT 2017
/September 16, 2017/
/Before and After image comparisons/*
**A terrifying before/after Irma on Big Pine Key.
<https://twitter.com/weatherdak/status/908322693937864704>*
https://twitter.com/weatherdak/status/908322693937864704
*
Just insane before & after Harvey flooding in Otey, TX.
<https://twitter.com/weatherdak/status/908778153979428864>*
https://twitter.com/weatherdak/status/908778153979428864
*
Entire structures gone (debris and all) on Cook Island.
<https://twitter.com/weatherdak/status/908331502810910720>
*https://twitter.com/weatherdak/status/908331502810910720
*Aircraft hangars at Key West Naval Air Station stood no chance to Irma.
<https://twitter.com/weatherdak/status/907809456213311488>*
Flooding seen at Hideaway Beach Golf Course on Marco Island, FL after Irma.
Before & after on southern coast of Key West.
https://twitter.com/weatherdak/status/907809456213311488
*Hurricane Irma Turns Caribbean Islands Brown
https://go.nasa.gov/2xgaIdY #NASA
<https://twitter.com/NASAEarth/status/907302733757153281>*
https://twitter.com/NASAEarth/status/907302733757153281
*Florida's Poop Nightmare Has Come True
<https://newrepublic.com/article/144798/floridas-poop-nightmare-come-true>*
Hurricane Irma caused massive sewage overflows, highlighting the twin
dangers of an aging infrastructure and climate change.
BY EMILY ATKIN
September 14, 2017
"Hurricane Irma will likely cover South Florida with a film of poop."
Pollution reports submitted to Florida's Department of Environmental
Protection show that, due to power outages and flooding caused by Irma,
human waste has been spilling into streets, residences, and waterways
across the entire state. At the time of this article's publication, at
least 113 "Public Notices of Pollution" had been submitted to the DEP.
Combined, those discharge reports showed more than 28 million gallons of
treated and untreated sewage released in 22 counties. The total amount
is surely much more; at least 43 of those reports listed either an
"unknown" or "ongoing" amount of waste released, and new reports
continue to roll in-sometimes as many as a dozen per hour.
The DEP emphasizes that these notices contain estimates.
...the Environmental Protection Agency "has deployed specialists to
Florida to help get wastewater systems back online." The DEP is urging
Floridians to stay out of floodwaters, and to look for warning signs
posted by local authorities about accidental sewage releases.
To some extent, sewage overflows are to be expected during big storms.
It's a trade-off between uncommon events when they occur that pose a
health risk, versus having a really expensive overcapacity that's not
used 99 percent of the time."
At the same time, the nation's sewage infrastructure-particularly
Florida's-is in worse shape than it should be, making it more
susceptible to accidents and overflows. As The New York Times reported
last week, "Much of the state's infrastructure is now nearing the end of
its useful life." Last year, the EPA said $17 billion would be needed
over the next two decades just to maintain Florida's existing systems.
And that's nothing compared to the $271 billion the EPA says is needed
to maintain and improve the aging, crumbling wastewater infrastructure
across the country. What's more, climate change is slowly making the
problem worse-not only because of more intense rainfall, but because
rising seas cause more leaks from coastal septic systems.
because Trump is hostile to any policy that takes climate change into
account, there's no plan to make these sewage systems more resilient to
the impacts of global warming. "Trump's approach is not the right one,"
Grant said. "We need direct federal spending in our water and sewer
systems." Until that happens, we'll continue to be knee deep in shit.
https://newrepublic.com/article/144798/floridas-poop-nightmare-come-true
*The Window Is Closing to Avoid Dangerous Global Warming
<https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-window-is-closing-to-avoid-dangerous-global-warming/>*
There's a 50 percent chance that temperatures will rise 4 degrees
Celsius under a business-as-usual scenario
Scientists Yangyang Xu and Veerabhadran Ramanathan found in a paper
published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)
that there already exists a 1 in 20 chance that the 2.2 trillion tons of
carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere could cause an existential
warming threat. This "fat tail" scenario would mean the world
experiences "existential/unknown" warming by 2100 - defined in the
report as more than 5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.
"We are quickly running out of time to prevent hugely dangerous,
expensive, and perhaps unmanageable climate change," wrote the report's
authors, who include former U.N. Environment Programme chief Achim
Steiner and Mexican chemist Mario Molina, who won the Nobel Prize for
his role in discovering the threat that chlorofluorocarbon gases pose to
the Earth's ozone layer.
Paul Bledsoe, a co-author of the policy report, described the findings
as "pretty disturbing."
"These studies are a wake-up call ahead of U.N. Climate Week - we must
not only zero out CO2 emissions by 2050, but also rapidly limit
superpollutants like HFCs and methane, and even undertake atmospheric
carbon removal," said Bledsoe, a former Clinton White House climate adviser.
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from E&E News. E&E provides
daily coverage of essential energy and environmental news at www.eenews.net.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-window-is-closing-to-avoid-dangerous-global-warming/
*
****Trump Administration will Waste Billions by Disregarding Science in
Hurricane Recovery
<http://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-09-13/trump-administration-will-waste-billions-disregarding-science-hurricane-recovery/>*
By Joe Romm, Climate Progress
The Trump administration is consciously choosing to reject climate
science in its plan to rebuild from superstorms Harvey and Irma. And
that means their reconstruction of Houston and Florida will squander
billions of taxpayer dollars and put Americans who rebuild at risk in
the future.
https://thinkprogress.org/trump-climate-hurricane-rebuilding-8756d7a3a9a6/
*This Weather Is Not Normal. And It Will Only Get Worse
<https://newrepublic.com/article/144714/weather-not-normal-will-get-worse>*
How many more lives must be destroyed by historic hurricanes, floods,
and wildfires before the government admits that climate change is a problem?
BY EMILY ATKIN September 7, 2017
The days leading up to Hurricane Harvey's landfall in Texas last week
were some of the most nerve-wracking in meteorological history.
Forecasters watched
<http://mashable.com/2017/08/30/harvey-flood-left-forecasters-helpless-accurate/#Ms4zTimDXkqj>
helplessly as a true monster storm-one that would eventually become the
most extreme rain event
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2017/08/29/harvey-marks-the-most-extreme-rain-event-in-u-s-history/?utm_term=.6f8132c78fd6>
in recorded American history-moved toward Houston, the country's
fourth-largest city. They gave the most dire warnings they could,
developing new colors for maps to show unprecedented intensity, and
using more hyperbolic language than ever before. But there was no
avoiding the mass devastation
<http://www.npr.org/2017/09/03/548105631/harvey-s-devastation-hits-home-as-residents-return-to-flooded-neighborhoods>.
Homes were destroyed. At least 60 people died. The flooding has not even
fully receded, and now forecasters are tracking another frightening
storm
<http://mashable.com/2017/09/06/frightening-satellite-images-historic-irma-swallows-caribbean-islands/?utm_cid=hp-n-1#P6DCJ3K4laq0>
that they don't quite have the language for.
Through our carbon emissions, humans have already warmed the atmosphere
and ocean roughly 1.53 degrees Fahrenheit. The warmer atmosphere is able
to hold more moisture, meaning more water vapor can fall as rain, snow,
or hail when storms occur. The warmer ocean can intensify hurricanes and
tropical storms, because hurricanes feed on warm ocean surface water.
The warming climate also tends to dry out areas that are already dry,
which can exacerbate wildfires.
But this is not an "I told you so" moment. This is a "stop destroying
lives" moment.
We would not have to talk about climate change during storms if the
government were making some sort of earnest effort to fix the problem.
Instead, the Trump administration is ignoring the problem-and it wants
you to do the same.
https://newrepublic.com/article/144714/weather-not-normal-will-get-worse
*5 Big Developments in Pipeline Fights This Month
<https://fossilfuelresistance.org/5-big-developments-in-pipeline-fights-this-month/>*
This month was particularly exciting with five major developments in key
fights across North America. Here are some of the stories, headlines,
and landmark decisions. By: Kendall Mackey
Ordinary people everywhere are standing up and fighting fossil fuel
projects across the country. Trump and the fossil fuel industry are
desperate to lock us into decades more of polluting fossil fuels by
building new pipelines and other dirty infrastructure, but their agenda
is being disrupted by grassroots organizing across the country to
protect our water, communities, and climate.
This month was particularly exciting with five major developments in key
fights across North America. Here are some of the stories, headlines,
and landmark decisions.
*August 22, an appeals court rejected the federal government's approval
of a natural gas pipeline project in the southeastern U.S., citing
concerns about its impact on climate change*.
"In a 2-1 ruling, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia
Circuit found that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) did
not properly analyze the climate impact from burning the natural gas
that the project would deliver to power plants.
The ruling is significant because it adds to environmentalists'
arguments that analyses under the National Environmental Policy Act -
the law governing all environmental reviews of federal decisions - must
consider climate change and greenhouse gas emissions."
*August 30, regulators in New York **rejected key permits for a natural
gas pipeline
<http://www.recordonline.com/news/20170831/dec-denies-permits-for-cpv-power-plant-pipeline>**,
saying a previous federal approval had failed to consider the resulting
greenhouse gas emission*s.
The pipeline in question, the 7.8 mile-long Valley Lateral Project,
would supply a 680 megawatt power plant
<http://www.cpv.com/our-projects/cpv-valley/about/>that's currently
under construction. The pipeline had already received approval from the
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), but because it crosses
several streams and wetlands, it needed state regulators to sign off, too."
*Sept 11, the Minnesota Department of Commerce released an analysis
concluding that Enbridge's proposed new crude oil pipeline* across
northern Minnesota, Line 3, isn't needed - and moreover the aging line
it's supposed to replace should be shut down.
"The report represents a major and unexpected roadblock for
Calgary-based Enbridge in its attempt to replace the 1960s-vintage Line
3, which shuttles oil from Alberta, Canada, to the company's terminal in
Superior, Wis."
*September 10, West Virginia environmental regulators rescinded approval
for building the Mountain Valley Pipeline*, which would carry natural
gas down the center of West Virginia for 195 miles.In a letter Thursday,
the Department of Environmental Protection said it's vacating the water
quality certification issued in March, which followed review of the
projected impact on the state's waters and public hearings."
*September 7, TransCanada announced it would suspend the application for
its Energy East pipeline for 30 days* and may abandon the project weeks
after Canada's National Energy Board (NEB) announced a tougher review
process that would consider the project's indirect greenhouse gas
contributions.
/and/
*Louisiana's floating pipeline protest camp prepares to take on 'the
black snake':*
http://thinkprogress.org/louisiana-floating-pipeline-protest … #NoBBP
#StopETP @CherriFoytlin1
https://fossilfuelresistance.org/5-big-developments-in-pipeline-fights-this-month/
*Mapping Fossil Fuel Resistance <https://fossilfuelresistance.org/>*
*A MOVEMENT IS GROWING TO STOP FOSSIL FUEL PROJECTS ACROSS THE COUNTRY*
<https://fossilfuelresistance.org/>
This map has been built by and for the local groups fighting oil and gas
projects in their communities. It began with the desire to visualize the
enormous strength and diversity of the pipeline resistance movement.
While each fight relies on the passion and leadership of local
organizing, we wanted to illustrate that these aren't isolated fights,
but a groundswell of steadfast and widespread resistance across the
continent. Together, we are big enough and bold enough to break down the
power of the fossil fuel industry, and build the future we want - one
that is rooted in dignity for our communities, stability for our
climate, and respect for the ecosystems we live in.
The website itself was created through a collaboration between the Power
Shift Network and 350.org as a way of providing resources and national
support to the real leaders in this work, in the hopes that this will be
a resource to help organizers find their allies, and for new folks to
find ways to plug in where they're needed most.
https://fossilfuelresistance.org/
*Will Harvey and Irma Turn the Political Tide on Climate Denial?
<https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2017/09/15/hurricane-harvey-irma-climate-change-denial/>*
A turning point in public opinion and policymaking is likely to come
when there is a "focusing event" - something that turns everyone's
attention to a major problem and puts a solution on political agendas.
But it's unclear if this year's spate of global warming-fueled disasters
will rise to that level, she said.
Another clue is whether Harvey and Irma rebuilding efforts will factor
in the future impacts and risks associated with climate change, said
Rachel Cleetus, lead economist and climate policy manager for the Union
of Concerned Scientists.
"Are we making sure that as we rebuild, we're implementing measures that
will keep people safer going forward with those risks in mind?" she said.
The Trump administration is standing in the way of such efforts, however.
Trump announced on Aug. 15 that he would reverse a 2015 Obama executive
order requiring federally-funded infrastructure projects to account for
the impacts of rising seas and other climate-related flood risks.
"While it certainly makes sense that any new construction should take
account of sea level rise, heavier rainfall, higher temperatures, and
other climate change-related impacts, we should note that just ten days
before Hurricane Harvey put much of Houston under water, Trump rescinded
Obama's rule that did exactly that for any federally funded
construction," Hassol said.
https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2017/09/15/hurricane-harvey-irma-climate-change-denial/
*
Congress and Climate Change
<https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/15/opinion/congress-climate-change.html>*
To the Editor:
Re "It's Not Too Late to Learn From Our Mistakes,
<https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/02/opinion/sunday/hurricane-harvey-climate-change.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0>"
by Nicholas Kristof (column, Sept. 3):
The answer to why Congress doesn't act on climate change is simple
political hydraulics.
The Supreme Court let unlimited money into politics. The fossil fuel
industry has unlimited money and, according to the International
Monetary Fund, a multi-hundred-billion-dollar subsidy to protect. The
fossil fuel industry used its unlimited money (and related threats) to
capture the Republican Party. Climate change then became "partisan" and
untouchable.
It's actually not that complicated.
The Supreme Court's Republican appointees got in the habit of doing what
they were told by the forces that appointed them (which include the
fossil fuel industry, which asked for the Citizens United decision), and
in a fateful combination of obedience and political ignorance, they
wrecked our politics.
Before Citizens United there were multiple bipartisan climate bills
every year; afterward, none.
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE
NEWPORT, R.I.
The writer, a Democrat, is a United States senator from Rhode Island.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/15/opinion/congress-climate-change.html
Map: where Western wildfires have made the air outside too dangerous to
breathe
<https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/9/12/16295246/wildfires-air-quality-map>
Particulates from smoke have drastically impacted air quality in areas
of several states.
Updated by Casey Miller and Umair Irfan Sep 13, 2017, 1:10pm EDT
Unusually bad wildfires have been blazing in the Western United States,
leaving areas across Oregon, Washington, Montana, and Wyoming choking on
harmful levels of smoke and shrouded in a cloudy haze.
Fire officials anticipate some relief this week as a weather system is
expected to bring rain to some of the smoldering states. But the fires
will also continue to burn through dry woodlands.
On Wednesday, NIFC was reporting 62 large fires across nine Western
states that had already taken about 1.6 million acres. And 2017 is on
track to be one of the worst years for wildfires in the US on record,
with a total of 8.1 million acres burned as of September 13 - already
well above the annual to-date average of 6 million acres for the past
decade.
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/9/12/16295246/wildfires-air-quality-map
*Nineteen Virginians Arrested In Richmond Protesting Gov. McAuliffe's
Fracked-Gas Pipelines during Final Day of "People's Pipeline Protest"
Statewide
<https://www.facebook.com/CCANActionFund/videos/1944584159149252/>*
RICHMOND, Virginia– On September 14, hundreds citizens across Virginia
gathered for the final day of the "People's Pipeline Protest," featuring
two days of action at all seven of Governor Terry McAuliffe's
controversial Department of Environmental Quality offices. During the
protest in Richmond, activists engaged in a peaceful sit-in at the
Richmond DEQ office, effectively blocking the office entrance for over
an hour, and resulting in 19 arrests.
Those arrested today included landowners, physicians and faith leaders
opposed to the pipeline. Governor McAuliffe plans to make a final
decision on water permits for the controversial pipelines this autumn.
He has the full legal authority, under the Clean Water Act, to stop them
based on the massive impact the pipelines would likely have on drinking
water and rivers and wetlands across 1000 miles of their proposed
pathways. Protesters today asked the Governor to deny the water permits
sought by Dominion Energy and other energy companies. The sit-in
arrestees were released by Richmond city police after receiving
misdemeanor trespassing charges.
The protests and vigils this week aimed to honor the victims of
Hurricanes Harvey and Irma while protesting the pro-fracking and
pro-pipelines policies of Governor Terry McAuliffe that make climate
change worse. Opponents of two controversial gas pipelines called the
events the most ambitious and creative environmental protests ever
organized in Virginia's history.
https://www.facebook.com/CCANActionFund/videos/1944584159149252/
And here are some Tweets to share out:
https://twitter.com/ccanactionfund/status/908370678130380802
https://twitter.com/priceofoil/status/908373642182094848
https://twitter.com/350loudoun/status/908372209890201601
https://twitter.com/collinrees/status/908384490380242944
*Chicago is better poised to survive climate change than New York or LA
<https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/third-coast-climate-change-survival-odds/Content?oid=21833024>*
Compared to other major American cities, Chicago is uniquely positioned
to weather the ravages of global warming.
he principal climate-related challenge Chicago itself faces is heat.
Environmental Protection Agency researchers predict that the midwest as
a whole will experience significant increases in temperature throughout
the 21st century, with Chicago experiencing summer temperatures akin to
those of present-day Atlanta before 2100. Projected decreases in summer
and fall precipitation will render this heat particularly problematic.
Fortunately, Chicago needn't be as concerned about drought and dwindling
water supplies compared to other major cities due to its sizable
neighbor, Lake Michigan. David Archer, a climate scientist at the
University of Chicago, says Lake Michigan is enormously useful in a
hotter and drier world, going so far as to call the Great Lakes region
"the Saudi Arabia of freshwater" owing to the vast quantities we have of
the wet stuff.
"We're much better off than NYC, which has real sea level [rise] and
hurricane problems," Archer says. "LA is definitely in a precarious
water situation, along with much of the rest of the southwest. Chicago
is the place to be, it seems."...
The possibility for a massive reduction in automobile use is
extraordinary, with 80 percent of the jobs situated within city limits
accessible by public transit. Additionally, Chicago is ahead of the game
when it comes to green-fitting its skyline. Illinois ranks first in the
country in Leadership in Energy & Design-certified building space;
Chicago has been cited for having the greatest number of LEED-certified
buildings of any American city.
Changes are coming, whether we welcome them or not. Thankfully, Chicago
has the natural resources, alongside the social, cultural, economic
resources, to become the sort of sustainable, climate-change-resistant
metropolis we will inevitably require in the future. If city officials
continue to pave the way for greater resiliency, the "Second City" could
be second to none in a world where Los Angeles runs dry and Manhattan is
washed clean by storm surges.
https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/third-coast-climate-change-survival-odds/Content?oid=21833024
(comic) Climate Denial Crock of the Week with Peter Sinclair
*The 5 Categories of Climate Denial
<http://www.gocomics.com/tomthedancingbug>*
http://www.gocomics.com/tomthedancingbug
*This Day in Climate History September 16, 2009
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IaAsBjoaj8>- from D.R. Tucker*
September 16, 2009: On MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow Show," former
fundamentalist Christian Frank Schaeffer explains right-wing science denial:
"…[T]he mainstream-not just media, but culture-doesn't sufficiently take
stock of the fact that within our culture we have a subculture which is
literally a fifth column of insanity that is bred from birth, through
home school, Christian school, evangelical college, whatever, to reject
facts as a matter of faith… [W]hat we're really talking about is a group
of people that are resentful because they've been left behind by
modernity, by science, by education, by art, by literature. The rest of
us are getting on with our lives. These people are standing on the
hilltop waiting for the end."
Further, Schaeffer noted:
"You don't work to move them off this position. You move past them.
Look, a village cannot reorganize village life to suit the village
idiot. It's as simple as that. And we have to understand, we have a
village idiot in this country, it's called 'Fundamentalist Christianity.'
"And until we move past these people-and let me add, as a former
lifelong Republican, until the Republican leadership has the guts to
stand up and say it would be better not to have a Republican Party than
have a party that caters to the village idiot-there's going to be no end
in sight…
"There is no end to this stuff. Why? Because this subculture has as
its fundamentalist faith that they distrust facts per se. They believe
in a young Earth, 6,000 years old, with dinosaurs cavorting with human
beings. They think that whether it's economic news or news from the
Middle East, it all has to do with the end of time and Christ's return.
This is la-la land.
"And the Republican Party is totally enthralled to this subculture to
the extent that there is no Republican Party. There is a fundamentalist
subculture which has become a cult. It's fed red meat by buffoons like
Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and other people who are just not terribly
bright themselves and they are talking to even stupider people. That's
where we're at. That's where all of this is coming from.
"And it's becoming circular. It's becoming a joke. Unfortunately, a
dangerous joke because once in a while, one of these 'looney tunes,' as
we see, brings guns to public meetings. Who knows what they do next.
It's a serious thing we all have to face, but the Democrats and sane
Americans just have to move past these people, say, 'Go wait on the
hilltop until the end, the rest of us are going to get on with
rebuilding our country.'"
He concluded:
"Look, in the year 2000 I worked for John McCain, to try to get him
elected in the primaries instead of George Bush. But John McCain sold
out by nominating Sarah Palin who comes directly from the heart of this
movement and carries with her all that baggage. So, he sold out. I
don't see anybody on the Republican side of things these days who has
the moral standing to provide real leadership, or who will risk their
position to do so."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IaAsBjoaj8
/------------------------------------------
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