[TheClimate.Vote] April 23, 2018 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Mon Apr 23 09:28:32 EDT 2018
/April 23, 2018/
[Political video - Democratic Climate Action]
Democratic Governors Association (DGA) is with Governor Jay Inslee.
*This planet is our only home. It's worth fighting for.
<https://www.facebook.com/supportdemocrats/videos/10156076397031346/>*
Democratic governors are mitigating climate change with environmental
action, and in 2018, we must elect more Democratic governors who will
stand up for clean energy jobs and policies that protect our planet.
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/supportdemocrats/videos/10156076397031346/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/demgovs/status/988091308660142080?s=21
[Colder winter for Europe]
*Atlantic circulation warming the UK is at its weakest for over 1500
years
<http://www.geog.ucl.ac.uk/news-events/news/atlantic-circulation-warming-the-uk-is-at-its-weakest-for-over-1500-years>*
David Thornalley
North Atlantic circulation is weaker today than it has been for over a
thousand years, and leading climate change models could be
overestimating its stability, according to a team of scientists
including Dr David Thornalley (UCL Geography), with Woods Hole
Oceanographic Institution, in Massachusetts US...
- - - -
The Atlantic circulation is scientifically called the Atlantic
Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), and acts as a powerful
conveyor belt carrying warm water north from the equator to the Arctic
and Nordic seas. It is responsible for warming Western Europe and
regulating water patterns important for marine life.
An abrupt slowdown in the AMOC could trigger various global disruptions,
including a sudden rise in sea levels, and changes in the distribution
of major rainfall, arid climate zones, and freezing winters across
Western Europe. It is also important for the ocean's absorption of
carbon dioxide, and a slowdown could lead to more CO2 accumulating in
the atmosphere, where it causes global warming.
- - - -
The results are supported by other research, reported in the same issue
of Nature, led by Levke Ceasar and Stefan Rahmstorf from the Potsdam
Institute for Climate Impact Research, in Germany. This study reveals
that the AMOC has been weakening more rapidly since 1950 in response to
recent global warming. The two new studies thus show that the
present-day AMOC is exceptionally weak...
http://www.geog.ucl.ac.uk/news-events/news/atlantic-circulation-warming-the-uk-is-at-its-weakest-for-over-1500-years
-
[Journal Nature]
Anomalously weak Labrador Sea convection and Atlantic overturning during
the past 150 years <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0007-4>
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0007-4
[Call it a Motto]
*It's real, it's us, the risks are serious, and the window of time to
prevent widespread dangerous impacts is closing fast*
<http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/earth/decoding-weather-machine.html>
WGBH Boston has produced an outstanding episode of NOVA about climate
change. It's realistic, it doesn't give "equal time to idiots," and it
highlights the prospect of realistic solutions without soft-pedalling
the problems. Definitely worth a watch.
This post's title is a quote from Katharine Hayhoe, which is included in
the show.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/earth/decoding-weather-machine.html
[Opinion: Walter Cronkite 48 years ago said Earth Day is over]
CBS TV News 1970 broadcast on Earth Day, April 22, 1970
*Earth Day 1970 Part 13: Conclusion (CBS News with Walter Cronkite)
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HUtM_LTyIw&>*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HUtM_LTyIw& 2:39
*The hoopla of earth day is over, the problems remain.*
Only time will tell if these demonstrations accomplished anything,
but let's summarize the points that were brought home today to a lot
of people who have missed the point so far:
For instance the militants who see all this as an establishment
trick to divert attention from what to them are more urgent concerns
like civil rights, like Vietnam.
They seem to have missed the point that there are no civil rights or
peace in a lifeless world.
For instance the politicians who see this as a safe crusade. They
seem to have missed the point that it will involve treading on more
special interests than ever in our history. For the first time they
may even have to come out against motherhood.
For instance those in industry who see the crisis is only the
hysterical creation of do-gooders.
They've missed the point - if they haven't heard the unanimous voice
of the scientists warning that half-way measures and
business-as-usual, cannot possibly pull us back from the edge of
the precipice.
For instance the too-silent majority. The greatest disappointment
today was a degree of non-participation across the country and
especially the absence of adults. And the young people who did
participate we're in a skylark mood which contrasted rudely with the
messages of Apocalypse.
Those who ignored Earth Day well that's one thing. Those who ignore
the crisis of our planet - that's quite another.
The indifferent have missed the point, that to clean up the air and
earth and water in the few years science says have left to us, means
personal involvement - and may mean personal sacrifice the likes of
which Americans have never been asked to make in time of peace.
A sense of the days teach-in was that America must undertake a
revolution in its way of life.
Affluent America will we were told almost certainly have to scale
down its standards of living. Give up having as many cars as many
children, as many cans, as many conveniences, as much conspicuous
consumption.
Some day we heard today the world will be a better place if it
listens and acts.
In the meantime, perhaps for a generation or more it will be
frightening costly to each of us cleaning up the mess each of us is
made, but the cost of not doing so is more frightening.
That's what today's message really means.
And those who March today and those who slept and those who scorned
or in this thing together.
What is at stake, and what is in question, is survival.
This is Walter Cronkite, goodnight.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HUtM_LTyIw&
[Twenty Years Ago Yesterday]
*Earth Day: Mike Mann's Warning from 1998
<https://climatecrocks.com/2018/04/22/earth-day-mike-manns-warning-from-1998/>**-
(2 minute video)
<https://climatecrocks.com/2018/04/22/earth-day-mike-manns-warning-from-1998/>*
https://climatecrocks.com/2018/04/22/earth-day-mike-manns-warning-from-1998/
[Sinclair the Dinosaur]
*She Tried To Report On Climate Change. Sinclair Told Her To Be More
"Balanced."
<https://www.buzzfeed.com/stevenperlberg/sinclair-climate-change?utm_term=.jbLmBMkqdj#.wpjnpPerw9>*
For three years, Suri Crowe worked for a TV station owned by Sinclair.
She clashed with management - including over stories about climate
change and guns...
In one 2015 instance, the former news director of WSET-TV in Lynchburg,
Virginia, Len Stevens, criticized reporter Suri Crowe because she
"clearly laid out the argument that human activities cause global
warming, but had nothing from the side that questions the science behind
such claims and points to more natural causes for such warming."...
"After I left, I just didn't want to go back to news," Crowe said. "Now
I feel like I'm more committed to journalism than ever. We really have
to fight for journalism - it's worth the fight."
https://www.buzzfeed.com/stevenperlberg/sinclair-climate-change?utm_term=.jbLmBMkqdj#.wpjnpPerw9
[Banks promise]
*'Incredible' News as Banking Giant HSBC Ditches New Coal, Tar Sands,
and Offshore Arctic Drilling Projects
<https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/04/20/incredible-news-banking-giant-hsbc-ditches-new-coal-tar-sands-and-offshore-arctic>*
The development is "yet another signal to Donald Trump and the rest of
the world that, despite their worst laid plans, the era of fossil fuels
is coming to a close."
by Andrea Germanos, staff writer
In another signal that "the era of fossil fuels is coming to a close,"
Europe's biggest bank, HSBC, announced Friday that it will no longer
fund oil or gas projects in the Arctic, tar sands projects, or most coal
projects.
The move was cheered by climate campaigners on social media, who said,
"This is huge," and called it "incredible news."...
According to Daniel Klier, group head of strategy and global head of
sustainable finance at the financial giant, the bank recognizes "the
need to reduce emissions rapidly to achieve the target set in the 2015
Paris Agreement to limit global temperatures rises to well below 2°C and
our responsibility to support the communities in which we operate."
The changes are laid out in HSBC's updated energy policy, which says it
will no longer provide financial services for:
a) New coal-fired power plant projects, subject to very targeted
exceptions of Bangladesh, Indonesia and Vietnam in order to
appropriately balance local humanitarian needs with the need to
transition to a low carbon economy. Consideration of any such
exception is subject to: independent analysis confirming the country
has no reasonable alternative to coal; the plant's carbon intensity
being lower than 810g CO2/kWh; and financial close on the project
being achieved by December 2023
b) New offshore oil or gas projects in the Arctic
c) New greenfield oil sands projects
d) New large dams for hydro-electric projects inconsistent with the
World Commission on Dams Framework
e) New nuclear projects inconsistent with the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) standards
The announcement, said Kelly Martin, director of Sierra Club's Beyond
Dirty Fuels Campaign, "is an important step forward for Europe's largest
bank, and yet another signal to Donald Trump and the rest of the world
that, despite their worst laid plans, the era of fossil fuels is coming
to a close. There is no future in Arctic fossil fuel operations. There
is no future in tar sands. And there is no future in coal."...
- - - -
The news come a month after a report showed that banks are continuing to
bankroll
<https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/03/28/going-backward-trump-era-big-bank-investment-worlds-dirtiest-energy-projects-surged>
the climate crisis by funneling $115 billion into tar sands, offshore
oil drilling, and coal mining projects.
That report, entitled "Banking on Climate Change
<https://www.banktrack.org/download/banking_on_climate_change/banking_on_climate_change_2018_web_final.pdf>"
and endorsed by dozens of environmental groups, ranked HSBC the seventh
worst in the world for the financing of "extreme fossil fuels." It also
found that from 2016 to 2017-"Even as the impacts of climate change
become increasingly apparent"-it made a $2.6 billion increase in such
financing.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/04/20/incredible-news-banking-giant-hsbc-ditches-new-coal-tar-sands-and-offshore-arctic
-
*Banking on Climate Change
<https://www.banktrack.org/download/banking_on_climate_change/banking_on_climate_change_2018_web_final.pdf>*
pdf
https://www.banktrack.org/download/banking_on_climate_change/banking_on_climate_change_2018_web_final.pdf
[Unintended consequences]
*Open destruction in the Colombian Amazon after FARC's exit
<http://www.sixdegreesnews.org/archives/24371/open-destruction-in-the-colombian-amazon-after-farcs-exit>*
by Mongabay
Esteban Montano/Semana Sostenible In 2015, 24,142 hectares of forest
were lost, which is almost 20 percent of Colombia's total forested area
in that year. The main driving forces of the deforestation are the
expansion of the agricultural industry to make room for cattle, along
with the commercialization of wood, illicit crops, and illegal mining...
Satellite maps of the area show that between November 2016 and January
2017, at least three deforested areas have opened up inside the jungle
in this part of the country...
- - -
General Parra claims that they are working on identifying the people who
promote deforestation in Caquetá Department, and that in the coming days
they will have concrete results to that respect. However, he says that
there are also "cultural factors" that explain the problem and that
because of this, "there have to be projects and investments brought into
the communities so that they don't have to do this out of necessity."
The director of Corpoamazonia agrees with Parra's explanation, and he
hopes that with the Amazon Vision plan the current government outlined
to eliminate the deforestation in the region, resources will arrive in
order to deal with the phenomenon in a comprehensive way. Suárez thinks
that it's important to be patient and see what happens with the
peacemaking process. "Just as we've waited our whole lives, we'll wait a
little more," he says to his neighbors. Will the country be able to
avoid another announced tragedy?
http://www.sixdegreesnews.org/archives/24371/open-destruction-in-the-colombian-amazon-after-farcs-exit
[Books]
*Apocalypse How? What Novels Screw Up About Climate Change
<https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/earth-day-eco-fiction-climate-change_us_5ad92237e4b0e4d0715ec872>*
We're obsessed with grim environmental tales, but most of them miss the
point.
By Casey Williams
If you live somewhere other than under a large rock, the premise of The
Tangled Lands will sound familiar: A declining empire owes its former
splendor to a miraculous energy source. Now, emissions from that source
threaten to destroy the empire. Everyone's freaking out.
The story is (maybe too) obviously an allegory of climate change.
Instead of hydrocarbons, the fictional world Paolo Bacigalupi and Tobias
Buckell create in their recently released novel draws power from magic,
which also fertilizes the voracious, writhing, poisonous weeds now
bearing down on one of the last great cities. Migrants pour in from the
bramble-choked periphery. The rich and powerful seek to turn the crisis
to their advantage while ordinary citizens resist. Al Gore is … not
there, but you get the point.
- - -
It's tempting to read worsening disasters as portents of the apocalypse
to come, a preface to some final lethal bang. But this isn't usually how
environmental change, and especially not climate change, works. Climate
change doesn't describe a single future catastrophe, but a slow and
uneven unraveling, a drawn-out apocalypse that began long ago and that
will stretch to an end that probably won't feel like much of an ending
at all.
For most people, climate change is ordinary danger amplified, enduring
injustice heightened. For those few who have enough wealth or power to
recuse themselves from the vicissitudes of planetary change, global
warming will probably feel like banal anxiety: a vague worry here, a
twinge of guilt there. Anyone waiting for the apocalypse is likely to be
disappointed, over and over again.
Journalist Kathryn Schultz summed up the problem nicely. "We excel at
imagining future scenarios, including awful ones," she wrote in a New
Yorker article about a mega-earthquake threatening the Pacific
Northwest. "But such apocalyptic visions are a form of escapism, not a
moral summons, and still less a plan of action."
- - - - -
Reckoning with the complexity of climate change means acknowledging
one's desire to turn it into a spectacle, an art object, a moment of
personal transformation, a dramatic tale to which one can append
existential anxieties like so many railcars on a train barreling over
the edge. Lerner asks readers to confront an unsettling possibility: For
the wealthy and well-connected, climate change will not feel
catastrophic most of the time.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/earth-day-eco-fiction-climate-change_us_5ad92237e4b0e4d0715ec872
[Seeing: Virtual Reality = Future Reality]
*In 'This is Climate Change,' you can't look away from the destruction
<https://www.engadget.com/2018/04/22/this-is-climate-change-vr/>*
It forces you to confront what's happening to the Earth in VR.
Devindra Hardawar
It's one thing to read about melting glaciers. It's another to sit and
stare at one, as large chunks slowly slide off, crashing thunderously
into the water below. In that moment, watching the destruction of a
natural wonder, it's hard not to feel like we're failing to protect the
Earth. That's the experience I had while watching This is Climate Change
<https://www.tribecafilm.com/filmguide/this-is-climate-change-2018>, a
virtual reality series from Danfung Dennis and Eric Strauss from the VR
studio Condition One. It goes a step beyond Planet Earth, giving you a
direct look at how humans are affecting our planet in 360-degree video.
After premiering their first episode at Sundance, which is focused on
melting glaciers in Greenland, Dennis and Strauss are bringing the rest
of the series to the Tribeca Film Festival. They each center on a
different issue: One gives you a birds-eye view of the Amazon
rainforest, which makes the rampant deforestation to make room for the
cattle industry there even more devastating. In another, we see members
of California's Department of Forestry and Fire Protection taking on
some of last year's tumultuous wildfires. And finally, we see how
climate change directly affects the most vulnerable: in Somalia and
nearby African countries, it led to widespread famine that's put
millions of children's lives at risk.
"I think 'seeing' is sort of what you get from a traditional
documentary. What's different about VR is that you're experiencing it,"
Dennis said during our interview for Build Series (above). "The screen
melts away, and you're in these worlds, you're in these environments.
And you feel it in a very different way. Your body reacts to it as if
you're actually there. And so it can leave a really indelible mark on
your memory and psyche of... 'I remember being there,' instead of just,
'I watched a film.'"
I've seen plenty of 360-degree VR films over the past few years, but
This is Climate Change stands out with its polished production. Every
shot looked pristine, even though I was watching it in a first-gen Gear
VR headset. And the 3D stereoscopic imagery gave everything just the
right amount of depth. While they relied on drones for some shots,
Dennis also went the extra to place their VR cameras in potentially
dangerous locations, like a tiny iceberg that might not have supported
his weight.
The first two episodes of This is Climate Change will be available on
Within's VR app tomorrow, and the remaining two will be available in the
coming months.
https://www.engadget.com/2018/04/22/this-is-climate-change-vr/
*This Day in Climate History - April 23, 2007
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/23/AR2007042301763.html>
- from D.R. Tucker*
April 23, 2007:
In a speech on climate change and energy at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies in Washington, D.C., Senator John McCain (R-AZ)
notes: (Texts and video)
"The burning of oil and other fossil fuels is contributing to the
dangerous accumulation of greenhouse gases in the earth's
atmosphere, altering our climate with the potential for major
social, economic and political upheaval. The world is already
feeling the powerful effects of global warming, and far more dire
consequences are predicted if we let the growing deluge of
greenhouse gas emissions continue, and wreak havoc with God's
creation. A group of senior retired military officers recently
warned about the potential upheaval caused by conflicts over water,
arable land and other natural resources under strain from a warming
planet. The problem isn't a Hollywood invention nor is doing
something about it a vanity of Cassandra like hysterics. It is a
serious and urgent economic, environmental and national security
challenge.
"National security depends on energy security, which we cannot
achieve if we remain dependent on imported oil from Middle Eastern
governments who support or foment by their own inattention and
inequities the rise of terrorists or on swaggering demagogues and
would be dictators in our hemisphere.
"There's no doubt it's an enormous challenge. But is it too big a
challenge for America to tackle; this great country that has never
before confronted a problem it couldn't solve? No, it is not. No
people have ever been better innovators and problem solvers than
Americans. It is in our national DNA to see challenges as
opportunities; to conquer problems beyond the expectation of an
admiring world. America, relying as always on the industry and
imagination of a free people, and the power and innovation of free
markets, is capable of overcoming any challenge from within and
without our borders. Our enemies believe we're too weak to overcome
our dependence on foreign oil. Even some of our allies think we're
no longer the world's most visionary, most capable country or
committed to the advancement of mankind. I think we know better than
that. I think we know who we are and what we can do. Now, let's
remind the world."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca-82G-mEvs
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=77106
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/23/AR2007042301763.html
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