[TheClimate.Vote] August 2, 2018 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Thu Aug 2 07:48:15 EDT 2018
/August 2, 2018/
[Watch closely]
*California fires rage, and Gov. Jerry Brown offers grim view of fiery
future
<http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-california-fires-20180801-story.html>*
As fire crews struggled to gain containment on more than a dozen
wildfires raging across California on Wednesday, Gov. Jerry Brown told
reporters that large, destructive fires would probably continue and cost
the state billions of dollars over the next decade.
"The more serious predictions of warming and fires to occur later in the
century, 2040 or 2050, they're now occurring in real time," Brown said
at a news conference at the state's emergency operations center outside
Sacramento...
- - -
"Things will get much tighter in the next five years as the business
cycle turns negative and the fires continue," Brown said.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-california-fires-20180801-story.html
- - - -
*Western wildfire season keeps firefighters busy
<http://www.capitalpress.com/State/20180801/western-wildfire-season-keeps-firefighters-busy>*
As of mid-week, 23,409 firefighters, 143 helicopters and 1,527 fire
engines were battling fires scorching 4.6 million acres of the West.
An army of firefighters and an air force of planes and helicopters are
working around-the-clock to battle more than 1,700 blazes across the
West as the wildfire season hits full stride.
Map Image
http://www.capitalpress.com/storyimage/CP/20180801/ARTICLE/180809988/AR/0/AR-180809988.jpg&MaxW=600
As of mid-week, 23,409 firefighters, 143 helicopters and 1,527 fire
engines were battling fires scorching 4.6 million acres of the West,
according to the National Interagency Coordination Center. The center
didn’t have numbers for the number of airplanes included in the fight.
The 10 Western states account for the vast majority of wildfires in the
nation and 23,000 of the 25,409 firefighters dispatched across the U.S.
http://www.capitalpress.com/State/20180801/western-wildfire-season-keeps-firefighters-busy
[Fall climate forecast]
*2018 US fall forecast: Unseasonable warmth to grip Northeast; Extreme
fire season predicted in West
<https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/2018-us-fall-forecast-unseasonable-warmth-to-grip-northeast-extreme-fire-season-predicted-in-west/70005621>*
*Gradual transition to fall in store for Northeast, mid-Atlantic and
eastern Ohio Valley
*A warm fall is predicted overall for the Northeast and mid-Atlantic as
chilly air takes its time to arrive...
*Flash flooding possible as wet weather continues for the Southeast*
The persistent wet pattern that occurred over the summer may continue
into fall for the Southeast...
*'Bit of everything' in store from the western Ohio Valley to the
central and northern Plains*
From the western Ohio Valley to the central and northern Plains,
forecasters predict there's a bit of everything on the cards...
*El Nino may send much-needed rainfall to the southern Plains*
While much of the southern Plains will be enduring drought as the fall
season begins, a reversal is in store...
*Summer to linger in the Southwest with some extreme temperatures predicted*
Hot and dry conditions will grip the Southwest early in the season...
*Northwest, Rockies to see turnaround to cooler weather by mid-season*
As is typical, the Northwest and Rockies will endure hot conditions into
the early fall...
https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/2018-us-fall-forecast-unseasonable-warmth-to-grip-northeast-extreme-fire-season-predicted-in-west/70005621
- - - - -
[prediction information comes from NOAA]
*Climate Prediction Center <http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/>*
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/
[13 min audio interview]*
We Almost Fixed Climate Change. Why Couldn't We?
<https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/we-almost-fixed-climate-change-why-couldnt-we>*
The Takeaway interview - Aug 1, 2018
The world came within a few signatures of major global agreement to
combat climate change - decades ago. What happened?
So if we knew the risks of a warming planet way back then…What happened?
Nathaniel Rich has some of the answers. He's a writer-at-large for the
New York Times Magazine, and he's behind a special issue dedicated
entirely to the story of how we came so close to solving climate change
in the 80s, and why efforts fell through, leaving us where we are today.
He joined The Takeaway to tell the story.
https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/we-almost-fixed-climate-change-why-couldnt-we
- - - - -
[NYTimes magazine]
*Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change
<https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/01/magazine/climate-change-losing-earth.html>*
By Nathaniel Rich
Photographs and Videos by George Steinmetz
AUG. 1, 2018
Is it a comfort or a curse, the knowledge that we could have avoided all
this?
Because in the decade that ran from 1979 to 1989, we had an excellent
opportunity to solve the climate crisis. The world's major powers came
within several signatures of endorsing a binding, global framework to
reduce carbon emissions - far closer than we've come since. During those
years, the conditions for success could not have been more favorable.
The obstacles we blame for our current inaction had yet to emerge.
Almost nothing stood in our way - nothing except ourselves.
Nearly everything we understand about global warming was understood in
1979. By that year, data collected since 1957 confirmed what had been
known since before the turn of the 20th century: Human beings have
altered Earth's atmosphere through the indiscriminate burning of fossil
fuels. The main scientific questions were settled beyond debate, and as
the 1980s began, attention turned from diagnosis of the problem to
refinement of the predicted consequences. Compared with string theory
and genetic engineering, the "greenhouse effect" - a metaphor dating to
the early 1900s - was ancient history, described in any Introduction to
Biology textbook. Nor was the basic science especially complicated. It
could be reduced to a simple axiom: The more carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere, the warmer the planet. And every year, by burning coal, oil
and gas, humankind belched increasingly obscene quantities of carbon
dioxide into the atmosphere.
Why didn't we act? A common boogeyman today is the fossil-fuel industry,
which in recent decades has committed to playing the role of villain
with comic-book bravado. An entire subfield of climate literature has
chronicled the machinations of industry lobbyists, the corruption of
scientists and the propaganda campaigns that even now continue to debase
the political debate, long after the largest oil-and-gas companies have
abandoned the dumb show of denialism. But the coordinated efforts to
bewilder the public did not begin in earnest until the end of 1989.
During the preceding decade, some of the largest oil companies,
including Exxon and Shell, made good-faith efforts to understand the
scope of the crisis and grapple with possible solutions...
Nor can the Republican Party be blamed...
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/01/magazine/climate-change-losing-earth.html
- - - -
[Oh Yeah?]
*The Problem With The New York Times' Big Story on Climate Change
<https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/08/nyt-mag-nathaniel-rich-climate-change/566525/>*
*By portraying the early years of climate politics as a tragedy, the
magazine lets Republicans and the fossil-fuel industry off the hook.*
The New York Times Magazine has tried to make the release of its new
article, which details a decade of climate history, as momentous as
possible. It has devoted the entire new issue of the magazine to just
this one story, which is written by Nathaniel Rich. It has even produced
a video trailer for the story.
Having read the story, I am left to wonder: What was the point?
The article tells the story of three men who, between 1979 and 1989,
helped turn climate change into a major political issue. At the
beginning of this tale, few Washington officials knew much of anything
about global warming. By the end, President George H.W. Bush was close
to signing a United Nations treaty to address it. Rich writes with
gripping, novelistic detail, and he captures the comedy and frustration
of scientists struggling to shape the political sphere...
- - - -
"The obstacles we blame for our current inaction had yet to emerge.
Almost nothing stood in our way - nothing except ourselves."
Ah, yes, ourselves. Now settle in, parishioners, for you know what's
coming next. This is a story about humanity, about the frailty and
hubris of those tool-wielding primates who realized they could burn old
rocks for energy and, in doing so, accidentally cooked the Earth.
It is not a risible idea: Perhaps (as Rich later speculates) climate
change really is impossible for our mammalian minds to comprehend, its
timescales too grand for our two- and four-year election cycles. But in
order to turn a story about the U.S. politics of climate change into a
story about the entirety of the human species, Rich has to make a
strange argument. He has to dispatch with the two most powerful and
prominent enemies of a climate policy in the United States: the
fossil-fuel industry and the Republican Party.
He does so, quickly, in the prologue.
"Why didn't we act? A common boogeyman today is the fossil-fuel
industry," he writes. But this can't be the case: These companies did
not actually oppose climate policy in the 1980s. "The coordinated
efforts to bewilder the public did not begin in earnest until the end of
1989," he claims, adding that *Exxon and Shell even made "good-faith
efforts to understand the scope of the crisis."**
**"Nor can the Republican Party be blamed," *he writes, before naming a
smattering of Republicans who endorsed some kind of climate policy at
some point during the 1980s. The list includes three senators (one from
Rhode Island), an EPA administrator, and President George H.W. Bush
"during his presidential campaign."
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/08/nyt-mag-nathaniel-rich-climate-change/566525/
- - - -
[Basic research: a compilation of climate news appearing in major
publications ]
*A Timeline of Climate Science and Policy
<https://medium.com/@climatebrad/climate-hearings-af27a3886a43>*
Includes a *comprehensive review of mentions of industrial global
warming in U.S. Congress hearings from 1956 to 1980.* Various though not
exhaustive mentions in the popular press, starting in 1861. Various
science-policy studies, workshops, and reports, starting in 1963.
https://medium.com/@climatebrad/climate-hearings-af27a3886a43
- - - -
[more reactive criticism]
*NYT Magazine's #LosingEarth Receives Scathing Reviews From Climate
Action Movement
<https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/08/01/nyt-magazines-losingearth-receives-scathing-reviews-climate-action-movement>*
Critics argue the full-issue feature by the prominent publication
"suppresses important facts, covering up how organized climate denial
created our current predicament."
Experts and activists on Wednesday are responding to The New York Times
Magazine's full-issue article on the global climate crisis with a
combination of fury and frustration, arguing that the piece "suppresses
important facts, covering up how organized climate denial created our
current predicament."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/08/01/nyt-magazines-losingearth-receives-scathing-reviews-climate-action-movement
- - - -
*David Roberts delivers 29 Twitter comments.
<https://twitter.com/drvox/status/1024752956875333632>*
https://twitter.com/drvox/status/1024752956875333632
- - - -
[Twitter criticism on the article]
https://twitter.com/Gaius_Publius/status/1024698154325704705
[Oxygen]
*How Climate Change Is Ruining Our Indoor Air
<https://medium.com/s/futurehuman/how-climate-change-is-ruining-our-indoor-air-b73fc1627c1a>*
It would take an unreasonable amount of plants to balance rising CO2
levels being found at home, school, and work
https://medium.com/s/futurehuman/how-climate-change-is-ruining-our-indoor-air-b73fc1627c1a
[Mexico awakens]
*Newly Elected President of Mexico, Lopez Obrador, Vows to Ban Fracking
<https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/08/01/lopez-obrador-ban-fracking>*
Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who won the election to become Mexico's
President on July 1, stated in a press conference that he will ban the
horizontal drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing ("fracking")
upon assuming the office on December 1.
The announcement would be a devastating blow to the oil and gas
industry, which had its eyes set on drilling in Mexico's northern
frontier in an area known as the Burgos Basin. The Burgos is a southern
extension of the Eagle Ford Shale, a prolific field situated in Texas.
The Associated Press broke the story on the press conference and the
announcement. When asked about his plans for fracking at the press
conference, López Obrador said "We will no longer use that method to
extract petroleum," according to the AP.
https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/08/01/lopez-obrador-ban-fracking
[more oil extraction]
*Global Oil Discoveries See Remarkable Recovery In 2018
<https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Global-Oil-Discoveries-See-Remarkable-Recovery-In-2018.html>*
Global discoveries of conventional oil and natural gas are seeing an
exciting recovery with discovered resources already surpassing 4.5
billion boe in H1 2018, Rystad Energy analysis shows.
The average monthly discovered volumes YTD are estimated at 826 million
boe, up approximately 30% compared to 625 million boe in 2017.
- - - -
United States
The United States reported oil discoveries at Ballymore and Dover
prospects in the Norphlet play in deepwater Gulf of Mexico. The Norphlet
play, which is characterized by high-pressure, high-temperature (HPHT)
conditions accompanied with complicated and elusive structures revealed
to be fortunate for Chevron and a prevailing success for Shell. Chevron
discovered a significant oil play at the Ballymore prospect with its
first exploration well in the subtle play whereas the Dover discovery
located 13 miles from the Appomattox host was Shell's sixth discovery in
the play.
Related: Strong Dollar Could Cap Oil Prices
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Global-Oil-Discoveries-See-Remarkable-Recovery-In-2018.html
[Coal industry newsletter]
*San Francisco first US city to push insurers to stop investing in
fossil fuels
<https://www.worldcoal.com/coal/25072018/san-francisco-first-us-city-to-push-insurers-to-stop-investing-in-fossil-fuels/>*
Published by Stephanie Roker, Deputy Editor
World Coal, Wednesday, 25 July 2018
On 25 July, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors became the first
municipal body in the US to call upon insurance companies to stop
insuring and investing in fossil fuels, citing the need to address
climate change and the enormous toll climate pollution inflicts on
public health and the economy.
The resolution, approved unanimously by the San Francisco Board of
Supervisors, urges the City of San Francisco to screen potential
insurers for investments in coal and oilsands and to cut ties with any
insurance company that continues to insure dirty energy projects. The
city's initial focus is on coal and oilsands oil as they are
particularly damaging to the climate, economy and public health.
Insurance companies, particularly in Europe, are already responding to
this threat. Since 2015, 17 large insurers have divested about UA$30
billion from coal companies. In addition, five of the largest insurers
have stopped or limited insuring coal, and two of them have stopped
insuring new oilsands projects. To date, no leading major US insurer has
taken similar action. San Francisco joins Paris in pressuring insurance
companies to break their ties with dirty energy; earlier this year, the
Paris city council passed a similar declaration.
https://www.worldcoal.com/coal/25072018/san-francisco-first-us-city-to-push-insurers-to-stop-investing-in-fossil-fuels/
- - - - - -
[the Insurance Journal]
*San Francisco May Screen Insurers for Their Fossil Fuels Investments
<https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2018/07/26/496064.htm>*
https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2018/07/26/496064.htm
*A perfect storm of factors is making wildfires bigger and more
expensive to control
<https://theconversation.com/a-perfect-storm-of-factors-is-making-wildfires-bigger-and-more-expensive-to-control-100800>*
July 31, 2018
More burn days, more fuel
What is driving this trend? Many factors have come together to create a
perfect storm. They include climate change, past forest and fire
management practices, housing development, increased focus on community
protection and the professionalization of wildfire management.
Fire seasons are growing longer in the United States and worldwide.
According to the Forest Service, climate change has expanded the
wildfire season by an average of 78 days per year since 1970. This means
agencies need to keep seasonal employees on their payrolls longer and
have contractors standing by earlier and available to work later in the
year. All of this adds to costs, even in low fire years.
In many parts of the wildfire-prone West, decades of fire suppression
combined with historic logging patterns have created small, dense forest
stands that are more vulnerable to large wildfires. In fact, many areas
have fire deficits – significantly less fire than we would expect given
current climatic and forest conditions. Fire suppression in these areas
only delays the inevitable. When fires do get away from firefighters,
they are more severe because of the accumulation of small trees and
brush....
- - - -
Baked-in fire risks
Many of these drivers are beyond the Forest Service's control. Climate
change, the fire deficit on many western lands and development in the
wildland-urban interface ensure that the potential for major fires is
baked into the system for decades to come.
There are some options for reducing risks and managing costs. Public
land managers and forest landowners may be able to influence fire
behavior in certain settings with techniques such as hazardous fuels
reduction and prescribed fire. But these strategies will further
increase costs in the short and medium term.
Another cost-saving strategy would be to rethink how firefighters use
expensive resources such as airplanes and helicopters. But it will
require political courage for the Forest Service to not use expensive
resources on high-profile wildfires when they may not be effective.
https://theconversation.com/a-perfect-storm-of-factors-is-making-wildfires-bigger-and-more-expensive-to-control-100800
[video not untrue, but not quite here yet - but take notice anyway]
*Unrelenting Heat and Humidity will soon make regions UNINHABITABLE
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEKcbdciAF0>*
Paul Beckwith - Published on Aug 1, 2018
How hot can it actually get? What is in store for us? When you combine
the heat domes sitting over many countries with high humidity, many
areas around the planet will soon reach the deadly 35 C (95 F) 100%
humidity (wet bulb temperature) or equivalent situation whereby a
perfectly healthy person outside, in a well ventilated area, in the
shade will die from the heat in 6 hours. Most people, like the very
young, the elderly, and the rest of us won't last anywhere as long, at
even lower temperatures. I discuss the latest peer-reviewed science on
how parts of high-risk regions in the North China Plains, Middle East,
and South Asia will soon be rendered uninhabitable by combined heat and
humidity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEKcbdciAF0
*This Day in Climate History - August 2, 2006
<http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2006/08/03/6719/robertson-global-warming/>
- from D.R. Tucker*
August 2, 2006: Republican televangelist Pat Robertson calls for action
on human-caused climate change, a position he would abandon several
years later.
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2006/08/03/6719/robertson-global-warming/
http://youtu.be/zxT0Nug1XqY
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