[TheClimate.Vote] September 17, 2017 - Daily Global Warming News
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Sun Sep 17 09:34:17 EDT 2017
/September 17, 2017/
*
**Court Orders New Climate Impact Analysis for 4 Gigantic Coal Leases
<https://insideclimatenews.org/news/15092017/coal-leases-court-orders-new-climate-review-landmark-ruling-nepa-blm-powder-river-wyoming>**
*The government took a long, economically 'irrational' leap of logic
when it approved the Powder River Basin leases, the appeals court said.
A federal appeals court in Denver told the Bureau of Land Management on
Friday that its analysis of the climate impacts of four gigantic coal
leases was economically "irrational" and needs to be done over.
The leases were at Arch Coal's Black Thunder mine and Peabody Energy's
North Antelope-Rochelle mine, among the biggest operations of two of the
world's biggest coal companies...
But that much coal, when it is burned, adds billions of tons of carbon
dioxide to an already overburdened atmosphere, worsening global
warming's harm. Increasingly, environmentalists have been pressing the
federal leasing agency to consider those cumulative impacts, and
increasingly judges have been ruling that the 1970 NEPA statute, the
foundation of modern environmental law, requires it.
"This is a major win for climate progress, for our public lands, and for
our clean energy future," said Jeremy Nichols of WildEarth Guardians,
which filed the appeal along with the Sierra Club. "It also stands as a
major reality check to President Trump and his attempts to use public
lands and coal to prop up the dying coal industry at the expense of our
climate."
But the victory for the green plaintiffs may prove limited. The court
did not throw out the lower court's ruling, a remedy that would have
brought mining operations to a halt. Nor, in sending the case back for
further review, did it instruct the lower court how to proceed, beyond
telling it not "to rely on an economic assumption, which contradicted
basic economic principles."
It was arbitrary and capricious, the appeals court said, for BLM to
pretend that there was no "real world difference" between granting and
denying coal leases, on the theory that the coal would simply be
produced at a different mine.
The appeals court favorably quoted WildEarth's argument that this was
"at best a gross oversimplification." The group argued that Powder River
coal, which the government lets the companies have at rock-bottom
prices, is extraordinarily cheap and abundant. If this supply were cut
off, prices would rise, leading power plants to switch to other, cheaper
fuels. The result would be lower emissions of carbon dioxide.
For the BLM to argue that coal markets, like a waterbed, would rise here
if pushed down there, was "a long logical leap," the court ruled.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/15092017/coal-leases-court-orders-new-climate-review-landmark-ruling-nepa-blm-powder-river-wyoming*
**Bill Nye Wants Fox News to Get Real About Climate Change
<https://www.wired.com/2017/09/geeks-guide-bill-nye/>*
A huge impediment to solving the climate crisis is Fox News, which Nye
accuses of feeding its audience a steady diet of vitriol and paranoia.
"I will challenge Fox News right now," he says. "What else do you guys
talk about except how bad the other side is? What else do you have going
on without straw men and women to knock down? What else is your deal?
How much do you report on what's really going on?"
But as the dangers of climate change grow ever more apparent, Nye says
the political winds are shifting, and that conservative politicians may
finally be on the verge of taking action. "If you talk to the people at
the Union of Concerned Scientists, who spend a lot of time in Congress,
apparently there is a large cohort of conservatives who are ready to do
something about climate change," Nye says. "They're ready to-the
expression is-'hold hands and jump together.'"
"The guy I think about often in this regard is Chad Myers, who was the
meteorologist at CNN-I think he's chief meteorologist. He changed his
mind. He used to say climate change wasn't a big problem, now he says it
is. His daughter is 11 or 12 now, and it's on his mind. And I confronted
Marc Morano, another climate denier, and I said, 'What about your kids?'
And he was at a loss for words-it's on camera-he was at a loss for
words. Because kids are the reason you live, as a parent, to pass your
genes on, and if you pass your genes on to an environment that you
ruined, you're just not doing a very good job as a parent. So we'll see
what happens as the kids and grandkids of deniers come of age."
https://www.wired.com/2017/09/geeks-guide-bill-nye/
*
After the Hurricane, Solar Kept Homes and One City's Traffic Lights
Running
<https://insideclimatenews.org/news/15092017/after-hurricane-irma-solar-florida-homes-power-gird-out-city-traffic-lights-running?utm_source=Inside+Climate+News&utm_campaign=8ae94b86e6-Weekly+Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_29c928ffb5-8ae94b86e6-327787525>*
By using energy storage with solar panels, some Florida homeowners were
able to go off-grid, showing how distributed power could speed future
storm recovery.*
*https://insideclimatenews.org/news/15092017/after-hurricane-irma-solar-florida-homes-power-gird-out-city-traffic-lights-running*
**Exxon Loses Bid to Keep Auditor Files Secret in Climate Fraud
Investigation
<https://insideclimatenews.org/news/12092017/exxon-loses-pwc-auditor-ruling-climate-fraud-investigation-new-york-schneiderman-court?utm_source=Inside+Climate+News&utm_campaign=df2104309a-Weekly+Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_29c928ffb5-df2104309a-327495193>*
BY: DAVID HASEMYER
New York's highest court rejected Exxon's appeal to keep its auditor's
notes secret from a state investigation into whether the oil giant
misled investors about its climate change risks.
Brushing aside objections by ExxonMobil, New York's highest court has
opened the door for state officials to demand that the oil giant's
outside auditor immediately turn over records as part of a fraud
investigation into the company's positions on climate change.
In a one-sentence rebuff, the court refused to hear arguments by Exxon
that the advice of the firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), was protected
by an auditor-client privilege.
The documents in question could provide a candid, and potentially
damaging, glimpse into Exxon's private calculations of the business
risks posed by climate change and whether its auditors had any concerns
about how it disclosed those risks to investors.
"It's definitely not good for Exxon. It opens the door for investigators
to now see whether the auditors had any serious issues with Exxon's
position on [climate] disclosures," said Shapiro, a forensic accountant
and former FBI agent who specialized in financial crimes.
Records held by PwC, a company known for its skill in reviewing
climate-related risks faced by fossil fuel companies, could be some of
the most candid documents revealing Exxon's assessment about the risk
climate change posed to its business.
Schneiderman's subpoena seeks PwC records from 2010 to the present
related to risks to Exxon's profits from regulations limiting the
emission of greenhouse gases, policies discouraging the use or
development of fossil fuels; and the potential effects of climate change
on the price of oil, gas, and other hydrocarbons..
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/12092017/exxon-loses-pwc-auditor-ruling-climate-fraud-investigation-new-york-schneiderman-court*
Global warming a message from God for course correction, says
environment minister
<http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/global-warming-a-message-from-god-for-course-correction-says-environment-minister/articleshow/60711078.cms>*
Lessons taught by ancestors on conserving the environment have been
forgotten and global warming "is a message from God" for course
correction, Union Environment Minister Harsh Vardhan said today.
"Our ancestors handed over to us clean rivers, rich fertile land, pure
air, forest. But in the process of improving our lives, we did things
that led to degradation of environment. This is why God has sent us a
message under the name of global warming and climate change,"
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/global-warming-a-message-from-god-for-course-correction-says-environment-minister/articleshow/60711078.cms
*Healthy, Resilient, and Sustainable Communities After Disasters:
Strategies, Opportunities, and Planning for Recovery (2015)
<https://www.nap.edu/read/18996/chapter/2>*
Chapter: Abstract
Disasters often impact fundamental elements of a community-physical
infrastructure, health and social services, social connectedness-that
affect the health of its residents. Accordingly, the recovery period,
with its attendant influx of resources and synchronization of planning
processes, presents an important opportunity to redesign physical and
social environments in a manner that will improve a community's
long-term health status while simultaneously reducing its vulnerability
to future hazards. In response to concerns that health considerations
are not adequately incorporated into disaster recovery decision making,
the Institute of Medicine assembled an ad hoc committee to develop
recommendations and guidance on strategies for mitigating
disaster-related health impacts and optimizing the use of recovery
resources and pursue more deliberately and thoughtfully the goal of
healthier and more resilient and sustainable communities.
The committee found that, although there is growing emphasis on
incorporating resilience-building efforts into the recovery process,
such efforts tend to focus on hardening critical infrastructure and not
on strengthening the health and resiliency of individuals and
communities. Unfortunately, the idea of using disaster recovery efforts
to enhance the health of communities and their residents is not
widespread. The committee noted few communities taking this
forward-looking and synergistic approach; as a result, important
opportunities are being missed.
Recognizing that disaster recovery is a process of community strategic
planning and that communities can build on prior strategic planning
initiatives and cross-sector collaborations, the committee developed a
framework for integrating health considerations into recovery decision
making. Each step in the strategic planning process presents
opportunities for this integration:
*Visioning*-Recovery is viewed as an opportunity to advance a shared
vision of a healthier and more resilient and sustainable community.
*Assessment*-Community health assessments and hazard vulnerability
assessments provide data that show the gaps between the community's
current status and desired state and inform the development of goals,
priorities, and strategies.
Planning-Health considerations are incorporated into recovery decision
making across all sectors. This integration is facilitated by involving
the health sector in integrated planning activities and by ensuring that
decision makers are sensitized to the potential health impacts of all
recovery decisions.
*Planning*-Health considerations are incorporated into recovery decision
making across all sectors. This integration is facilitated by involving
the health sector in integrated planning activities and by ensuring that
decision makers are sensitized to the potential health impacts of all
recovery decisions.
*Implementation*-Recovery resources are used in creative and synergistic
ways so that the actions of the health sector maximize health outcomes
and the actions of other sectors yield co-benefits for health. A
learning process is instituted so that the impacts of recovery
activities on health and well-being are continuously evaluated and used
to inform iterative decision making.
In this report, the committee presents 12 recommendations, along with
sector-specific guidance, that provide strategies for leveraging each of
these opportunities. Success, however, will depend on breaking down the
barriers to cross-sector collaboration, thereby enabling community
planners, emergency managers, health professionals, and other key
governmental and nongovernmental stakeholders to come together around a
shared goal, with each sector bringing its resources (knowledge, tools,
funding streams) to bear. The end result will be a community that is a
healthier, more livable place in which current and future generations
can grow and thrive, and one better prepared for future adversities.
Suggested Citation:"Abstract." Institute of Medicine. 2015. Healthy,
Resilient, and Sustainable Communities After Disasters: Strategies,
Opportunities, and Planning for Recovery. Washington, DC: The National
Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18996. ×
https://www.nap.edu/read/18996/chapter/2
*George Monbiot: Urge, Splurge, Purge
<http://www.monbiot.com/2017/09/15/urge-splurge-purge/>*
15th September 2017
The demand for perpetual economic growth, and the collective madness it
provokes, leads inexorably to environmental collapse.
Environmental collapse does not progress by neat increments. You can
estimate the money you might make from building an airport: this is
likely to be linear and fairly predictable. But you cannot reasonably
estimate the environmental cost the airport might incur. Climate
breakdown will behave like a tectonic plate in an earthquake zone:
periods of comparative stasis followed by sudden jolts. Any attempt to
compare economic benefit with economic cost in such cases is an exercise
in false precision...
Even to discuss such flaws is a kind of blasphemy, because the theory
allows no role for political thought and action. The system is supposed
to operate not through deliberate human agency, but through the
automatic writing of the invisible hand. Our choice is confined to
deciding which goods and services to buy. But even this is illusory. A
system that depends on growth can survive only if we progressively lose
our ability to make reasoned decisions. After our needs, then strong
desires, then faint desires have been met, we must keep buying goods and
services we neither need nor want, induced by marketing to abandon our
discriminating faculties and succumb instead to impulse...
The environmental crisis is an inevitable result not just of
neoliberalism – the most extreme variety of capitalism – but of
capitalism itself. Even the social democratic (Keynesian) kind depends
on perpetual growth on a finite planet: a formula for eventual collapse.
But the peculiar contribution of neoliberalism is to deny that action is
necessary; to insist that the system, like Greenspan's financial
markets, is inherently self-regulating. The myth of the self-regulating
market accelerates the destruction of the self-regulating Earth...
They bailed out the banks. But as the storms keep rolling in, you'll
have to bail out your own flooded home. There is no environmental rescue
plan: to admit the need for one would be to admit that the economic
system is based on a series of delusions. The environmental crisis
demands a new ethics, politics and economics. A few of us are groping
towards it, but it cannot be left to the scattered efforts of
independent thinkers: this should now be humanity's central project. At
least the first step is clear: to recognise that the current system is
flawed.
http://www.monbiot.com/2017/09/15/urge-splurge-purge/
see also
The Climate Crisis as Seen by the Economics Mainstream
<http://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-08-28/the-climate-crisis-as-seen-by-the-economics-mainstream/>
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-08-28/the-climate-crisis-as-seen-by-the-economics-mainstream/
*How to Feed Ourselves in a Time of Climate Crisis
<http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/just-transition/how-to-feed-ourselves-in-a-time-of-climate-crisis-20170908>*
Here are 13 of the best ideas for a just and sustainable food system,
from saving seeds to curbing food waste.
Changing the food system is the most important thing humans can do to
fix our broken carbon cycles. Meanwhile, food security is all about
adaptation when you're dealing with crazy weather and shifting growing
zones. How can a world of 7 billion-and growing-feed itself? Here are
13 of the best ideas for a just and sustainable food system.
*Land Ownership *
1. Indigenous land sovereignty
2. Agroecology, not chemicals
3. Carbon sequestration
4. Resilient polyculture
*Seeds *
5. Open source seeds
6. Genetic diversity
7. Better pay
8. Valuing traditional knowledge
Distribution
9. Regional food hubs
10. Accessibility, affordability
*Diet*
11. Eat together
12. A plate full of plants
13. Waste nothing
http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/just-transition/how-to-feed-ourselves-in-a-time-of-climate-crisis-20170908
*The Test: Excerpt
<http://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-09-14/the-test-excerpt/>*
By Jeremy Leggett, Jeremy Leggett blog
And so to The Test. I make the basic case, and repeat the question that
frustrates me so much. How can it be that, collectively, we are missing
such an open goal? I am sure that the reasons are multi-faceted. But
there is one simple over-arching answer. None of us are trying hard
enough. Not governments, not companies, not international organisations,
not non-governmental organisations.
/Ed. note: This post is an excerpt from Jeremy Leggett's latest e-book
in progress: The Test: Solar Light for All: A Defining Challenge for
Humanity. The following excerpt is from Chapter 1./
http://www.jeremyleggett.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/The-Test-chapters1-3.pdf
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-09-14/the-test-excerpt/
GUEST POSTS 15 September 2017 13:33
*Guest post: What will be in the next IPCC climate change assessment
<https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-what-will-be-in-the-next-ipcc-climate-change-assessment>*
Dr Valérie Masson-Delmotte is a senior researcher at the Laboratoire des
Science du Climat et de l'environnement in France and co-chair of
Working Group 1 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
At a meeting in Montreal last week, the member countries of the United
Nations reached an important decision about the next few years of the
IPCC – the scientific body that assesses climate change. All countries
agreed on the outlines for the three main components of the next major
report, due in 2021-22, which is the vital groundwork that will now
guide the contributions of climate change researchers from all over the
world.
My colleagues and I at Working Group 1 (WG1) – the group that examines
the physical science basis underpinning past, present and future climate
change – have taken a brand new approach that we think will make our
work more accessible, holistic and in tune with policymakers' needs
My colleague Prof Panmao Zhai and I are the co-chairs of WG1, which
deals with the scientific aspects of the climate system. This includes,
for example, temperature, precipitation (rain and snow), sea level
trends and extreme events. The second working group (WG2) looks the
vulnerability of socio-economic and natural systems to climate change,
consequences and options for adaptation. The third working group (WG3)
explores pathways for limiting greenhouse gas emissions, known as
climate change mitigation.
Before we embark on the big assessment reports, it is important to scope
out what they need to cover – a bit like a table of contents. Since IPCC
reports are prepared for all governments, every country needs to agree
on this outline. That is what we were all doing in Montreal last week.
Late on Sunday afternoon, the final outline for the WG1 report was
unanimously agreed. So what will it look like?
'One-stop-shop'
The outline consists of 12 chapters. The first is the framing, then
three chapters are dedicated to large-scale patterns of climate change.
These are: the changing state of the climate system, the assessment of
human influence, and future climate change. This last chapter will
encompass both near term prediction and scenario-based long term
projections.
Each of these chapters will have an "end-to-end" approach, which means
that they will combine observations, palaeoclimate, process studies,
theory and modelling into a complete picture. They are essentially a
"one-stop-shop" for each topic.
The last set of chapters will be dedicated to regional climate
information, and will fit closely will the assessment of regional
climate change impacts in the WG2 report. There will be a chapter on the
assessment of methodologies linking global to regional climate change,
one full chapter on weather and climate extreme events, and our final
chapter on climate change information relevant for assessing regional
impacts and for risk assessment.
A final important aspect of our new outline is that it is designed to
complement and build on the three special reports that are already underway.
The idea of special reports is that they are smaller than the main
assessment reports and focus on a specific topic of interest. The first
one is onglobal warming of 1.5C
<https://www.carbonbrief.org/scientists-priorities-for-ipcc-special-report-1point5c>(the
first draft of which is currently out for expert review). The second
special report is on theoceans and cryosphere
<https://www.carbonbrief.org/the-ipccs-priorities-for-the-next-six-years-1-5c-oceans-cities-and-food-security>in
a changing climate and the third is onclimate change and land
<https://www.carbonbrief.org/the-ipccs-priorities-for-the-next-six-years-1-5c-oceans-cities-and-food-security>.
AR6 will revisit the findings of these special reports and update them
on the basis of new lines of evidence. New results from climate model
simulations performed under thesixth phase of the Climate Model
Intercomparison Project
<https://www.wcrp-climate.org/wgcm-cmip/wgcm-cmip6>(CMIP6) will be
available by the time of AR6, for example.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-what-will-be-in-the-next-ipcc-climate-change-assessment
*Why The Media Isn't Linking Hurricanes To Climate Change
<https://youtu.be/n6ouHJGieEU>*
After Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma, it seems like now's the
perfect time to talk about climate change, right? FOX? NBC? ABC? Head of
the EPA? Former Texas governor Rick Perry? Anybody? No? No one. Ugh.
What are you seeing and reading about climate change? How do you think
the media has done on reporting on the links between hurricanes and
climate change? Let us know in the comments.
https://youtu.be/n6ouHJGieEU
*This Day in Climate History September 17, 2011
<http://www.mediaite.com/tv/up-with-chris-hayes-a-dvr-gem-in-the-making/>
- from D.R. Tucker*
September 17, 2011:
1. The Occupy Wall Street movement begins in New York City. Writer
Naomi Klein would later credit OWS for prompting a delay of the Obama
administration's final decision on the Keystone XL pipeline.
http://youtu.be/MJ8CoxnjjZg
2. "Up with Chris Hayes" debuts on MSNBC; the program would become
notable for recognizing the importance of climate change as a moral,
economic and political issue, something rare on cable news.
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/up-with-chris-hayes-a-dvr-gem-in-the-making/
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