[TheClimate.Vote] December 1, 2018 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/December 1, 2018/

[A most important video about fear, anger and grief - 8 mins]
*Textbook Trauma: The Emotions of Climate Change 
<https://youtu.be/MYFlRxJ5Sh0>*
YaleClimateConnections
Published on Sep 17, 2018
Scientists Sara Myhre and Jeffrey Kiehl discuss the emotional impacts of 
climate change.
https://youtu.be/MYFlRxJ5Sh0


[USA Today uses Fahrenheit]
*U.N. says 2018 will be Earth's 4th-warmest year on record, predicts a 
5- to 9-degree temperature rise this century 
<https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/11/29/global-warming-2018-4th-hottest-year-record/2154183002/>*
Doyle Rice, USA TODAY
The globe continued to bake in 2018, and still more warming is predicted 
in the decades to come.
2018 is expected to be the fourth-warmest year on record for the Earth, 
the United Nations' World Meteorological Organization said Thursday. 
Even more concerning, the organization predicts a 5- to 9-degree 
temperature rise by the end of the century.
Based on five separate data sets that keep track of the Earth's climate, 
the global average temperature for the first 10 months of 2018 was about 
1.8 degrees above what it was in the late 1800s. That was when industry 
started to emit large amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
"Greenhouse gas concentrations are once again at record levels and if 
the current trend continues we may see temperature increases of from 5.4 
to 9 degrees by the end of the century, WMO Secretary-General Petteri 
Taalas said in a statement.
"If we exploit all known fossil fuel resources, the temperature rise 
will be considerably higher," he said. Burning fossil fuels such as 
coal, oil and gas release carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into 
the atmosphere, warming it to levels that cannot be explained by natural 
factors...
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/11/29/global-warming-2018-4th-hottest-year-record/2154183002/


[Hiding in plain sight]
*What's Trump hiding in the climate report? That global warming's 
effects are here 
<https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/nov/30/bad-sex-award-2018-the-contenders-in-quotes>*
The administration tried to bury the assessment, but as residents flee 
wildfires and wade through flooded streets, let's hope decision-makers 
get the message
Talk about cognitive dissonance. Just two days before 13 federal 
agencies released a report laying out the devastating human and economic 
toll that climate change already is taking in the United States, Donald 
Trump tweeted: "Whatever happened to global warming?" The tweet was 
based on a spurt of cold weather in the north-east, never mind that the 
rest of the world was experiencing higher than normal temperatures.

The administration was so concerned about what the report, called the 
National Climate Assessment (NCA), would reveal - including the fact 
that the president's thinking on climate change is hopelessly flawed - 
that it chose to release it on Black Friday, hoping no one would pay 
attention. A member of Trump's transition team, Steven Milloy, was 
candid about this strategy, saying: "Do it on a day when nobody cares, 
and hope it gets swept away by the next day's news." Fortunately for the 
Earth and its residents, news coverage about the report continued over 
the weekend and into the following week.

So, what was Trump trying to hide? The fact that global warming's 
effects are here and now. When western state residents say that recent 
wildfires are unlike anything they've experienced before, there's a 
reason for that. Climate change doubled the area burned by wildfires 
across the west between 1984 and 2015, relative to what would have 
burned without warming, according to the report...
- - -
While the report doesn't offer policy recommendations, its findings 
certainly make the case that the administration must stop rolling back 
the climate policies the previous administration put in place, including 
standards requiring vehicles to go farther on a gallon of gas and rules 
that would limit carbon emissions from power plants. The report will 
also make it much harder for the Trump administration to defend these 
rollbacks in court: judges don't like it when policymakers ignore 
authoritative science...
- - -
The lesson for Trump and his supporters is that you can only ignore 
science for so long - eventually it catches up to you. And people around 
the country are realizing that we are now deep into it and climate 
impacts will only get worse without action. State and private sector 
action is helpful; national action is essential. Let's just hope that 
enough federal decision-makers get the message soon. The NCA makes it 
clear that time is the most precious commodity of all; we are running 
out of it.
Ken Kimmell is the president of the Union of Concerned Scientists and 
the former commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Environment. 
Brenda Ekwurzel is the director of climate science at the Union of 
Concerned Scientists
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/29/trump-national-climate-report-climate-change-global-warming-science


[from Utility Dive]
*California regulators announce probe into PG&E corporate structure 
<https://www.utilitydive.com/news/california-regulators-announce-probe-into-pge-corporate-structure/543359/>*
AUTHOR Gavin Bade
@GavinBade
PUBLISHED - Nov. 30, 2018
Dive Brief:

    The Chairman of the California Public Utilities Commission on
    Thursday announced a broad investigation into the "corporate
    governance, structure, and operation" of Pacific Gas and Electric
    amid a safety audit of its equipment, which has been linked to
    multiple deadly wildfires.

    The statement from CPUC Chairman Michael Picker came as his agency
    ordered PG&E to implement more than 80 safety recommendations from
    an independent consultant related to a 2010 natural gas pipeline
    explosion. Picker said the incidents reveal that PG&E "appears not
    to have a clear vision for safety programs."

    The move comes as California fire officials investigate the cause of
    the Camp Fire, which killed 88 people and burned more than 150,000
    acres. PG&E has said one of its transmission lines malfunctioned in
    the area where the fire ignited...

- -
PG&E's costs for the fires are likely to exceed its insurance coverage, 
the utility warned this month, sparking concerns of a potential 
bankruptcy filing. Picker, however, said again on Thursday that 
regulators would  ensure PG&E's financial health through the transition.
"To operate the grid in a safe manner, PG&E must be able to sign 
contracts and raise capital," he said. *"This is a bit like remodeling 
an airplane in mid-flight. We don't want to crash the plane while we are 
trying to make it safer; that's bad for the passengers."*
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/california-regulators-announce-probe-into-pge-corporate-structure/543359/


"[I've seen smarter cabinets at Ikea"]
*Students strike for climate change protests, defying calls to stay in 
school 
<https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-30/australian-students-climate-change-protest-scott-morrison/10571168>*
The PM wants "less activism" in schools, but experts say it's all part 
of a "civics education".
The groundswell was inspired by 15-year-old Swedish student Greta 
Thunberg, who pledged to protest outside parliament in Stockholm until 
the country caught up on its commitments under the Paris Agreement.
News of her one-woman vigil caught the attention of Harriet O'Shea Carre 
and Milou Albrecht, both 14. The pair, from the Castlemaine Steiner 
School, and a group of other climate-concerned teens travelled to the 
nearby regional city of Bendigo, about 90 minutes from Melbourne, to 
hold their own protest outside the office of Nationals senator Bridget 
McKenzie.

That in turn sparked Friday's protests across the nation.

"We have to sacrifice our education, which is something we really value, 
so we're showing them that at the moment this is even more important 
than our education," Harriet O'Shea Carre said...
Organiser Deanna Athanosos, who is in year 10, said Mr Morrison's 
rhetoric towards the strike made her laugh.

"If you were doing your job properly, we wouldn't be here," she said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-30/australian-students-climate-change-protest-scott-morrison/10571168
more pictures at - https://www.flickr.com/photos/160136040@N02/albums


[Radical Graphic - political cartoon]
*Trump to Planet: Drop Dead 
<https://thenib.com/trump-to-planet-drop-dead?t=default>*
by Stats
see image at - https://thenib.com/trump-to-planet-drop-dead?t=default


[Can nuclear waste melt butter? How to ruin a delicious meal]
*Arctic crab invasion comes to nuclear waste graveyard* 
<https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/ecology/2018/11/arctic-crab-invasion-comes-nuclear-waste-graveyard>
Researchers find a huge influx of snow crabs in areas with dumped 
radioactive waste in the Kara Sea.
By Atle Staalesen
November 26, 2018
The Soviet Union during the 1960s and 70s dumped several hundred 
containers with solid radioactive waste in the Blagopoluchie Bay in 
Novaya Zemlya. Back then, these waters were covered with ice 
overwhelming parts of the year.
Today, that is quickly changing. The bay located in the northern part of 
the Russian Arctic archipelago is now ice-free increasing parts of the 
year. With the retreating ice follow new species.
Researchers from the Russian Shirshov Institute of Oceanology have 
comprehensively studied the eco system of the bay for several years. 
Among their key findings is a quickly growing number of snow crabs. In 
this year's research expedition to the remote waters, the researchers 
were overwhelmed by the numbers. According to the institute, the crab 
invasion can be described "as avalanche".

The number of crabs in the area is now estimated to almost 14,000 per 
hectare, the institute informs. With the help of underwater photo and 
video footage, the researchers have studied how the crab expansion is 
leading to a major reduction in other marine life on the sea bottom.

The deep Blagopoluchie Bay is likely to be the bridgehead for the spread 
of crabs in the area, the researchers say. A further spread in the other 
parts of the Kara Sea is imminent, and the Russian Fisheries Agency 
(Rosrybolovstvo) believe that the Kara Sea will ultimately become an 
area with commercial crab fishing.
- - -
Soviet authorities are believed to have dumped about 17,000 containers 
with solid radioactive wastes in Arctic waters and primarily in the Kara 
Sea. More than 900 containers are located on the bottom of the 
Blagopoluchie Bay. Also a number of reactor compartments were dumped, as 
well as three nuclear subs and other nuclear materials.
https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/ecology/2018/11/arctic-crab-invasion-comes-nuclear-waste-graveyard


[From the Lancet]
*THE 2018 REPORT OF THE LANCET COUNTDOWN 
<http://www.lancetcountdown.org/the-report/>*
The Lancet Countdown's 2018 report tracks 41 indicators across five key 
domains in health and climate change, continuously strengthening its 
methods, data and analysis. It arrives at three key conclusions:

IMPACT: Present day changes in heat waves labour capacity, vector-borne 
disease, and food security provide early warning of compounded and 
overwhelming impacts expected if temperature continues to rise.

DELAY: A lack of progress in reducing emissions and building adaptive 
capacity threatens both human lives and the viability of the national 
health systems they depend on, with the potential to disrupt core public 
health infrastructure and overwhelm health services.

OPPORTUNITY: Despite these delays, trends in a number of sectors see the 
beginning of a low-carbon transition, and it is clear that the nature 
and scale of the response to climate change will be the determining 
factor in shaping the health of nations for centuries to come.
http://www.lancetcountdown.org/the-report/
   - - -
[More from The Lancet]
INDICATORS AND HEADLINE FINDINGS:
Climate Change Impacts, Exposures and Vulnerability Indicators and 
headline findings
Adaptation Planning and Resilience for Health Indicators and headline 
findings
Mitigation Actions and Health Co-Benefits Indicators and headline findings
Finance and Economics Indicators and headline findings
Public and Political Engagement Indicators and headline findings
Climate Change Impacts, Exposures and Vulnerability
*Indicators and headline findings*

    Indicator 1.1: The vulnerability to heat exposure is rising in every
    WHO region. 42% and 43% of populations older than 65 years in Europe
    and East Mediterranean are vulnerable.
    Indicator 1.2: The mean global temperature change to which humans
    are exposed is more than double the global average change, with
    temperatures rising 0.8°C versus 0.3°C.
    Indicator 1.3: In 2017, an additional 157 million heatwave exposure
    events occurred globally, representing an increase of 18 million
    additional exposure events compared with 2016.
    Indicator 1.4: In 2017, 153 billion hours of labour (3.4 billion
    weeks of work) were lost, an increase of 62 billion hours lost
    relative to 2000.
    Indicator 1.5: Changes in extremes of precipitation exhibit clear
    regional trends, with South America and southeast Asia among the
    regions most exposed to flood and drought.
    Indicator 1.6: Annual frequencies of floods and extreme temperature
    events have increased since 1990, with no clear upward or downward
    trend in the lethality of these events.
    Indicator 1.7: Mortality from dengue fever and malignant skin
    melanoma is still rising in regions most susceptible to both diseases.
    Indicator 1.8: In 2016, global vectorial capacity of dengue was 9.1%
    ( aedypti) and 11.1% (A. albopictus) above the 1950s baseline.
    Coastal areas suitable for Vibrio infections in the Baltic and US
    northeast increased by 24% and 27% from the 1980s. The environmental
    suitability for Plasmodium falciparum has increased by 20.9% in
    highland areas of Africa since the 1950s.
    Indicator 1.9.1: 30 countries are experiencing downward trends in
    crop yields, reversing a decade-long trend that had previously seen
    global improvement.
    Indicator 1.9.2: Sea surface temperatures have risen in 16 of 21
    fishing basins with threats to marine primary productivity expected
    to follow.
    Indicator 1.10: climate change is the sole contributing factor for
    thousands of people deciding to migrate and is a powerful
    contributing factor for many more migration decisions worldwide.

See also
more at - http://www.lancetcountdown.org/the-report/


[From NY Magazine]
*The Right's Climate Change Shame 
<http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/11/the-rights-climate-change-shame.html>*
By Andrew Sullivan
   Trump continues to ignore climate change, even after witnessing its 
effects in places like Paradise, California. Photo: SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty 
Images
A cartoon popped up in my Twitter feed last week that seemed the perfect 
coda for the latest, congressionally mandated report on climate change. 
It shows a dinosaur looking up into the heavens at night, at all the 
twinkling stars. His smiling face utters the words: "The dot that gets 
bigger and bigger each night is my favorite."

I'm relieved, I suppose, that Trump officials didn't actually suppress, 
censor, or doctor volume two of the Fourth National Climate Assessment. 
All they did was release it on the Friday after Thanksgiving, suggesting 
that somewhere deep in what passes for someone's conscience in this 
putrid presidency, some residual shame might linger. One of the more 
innovative arguments of the report was even pitched to the bottom line: 
high projections expect to knock ten percent off U.S. GDP this century 
-- more than two Great Recessions put together. And so the last 
teetering argument of the carbon polluters and their enablers -- that 
preventing climate catastrophe will cost jobs and reduce growth -- was 
proven void once again. Au contraire, it turns out. There have been more 
jobs in solar energy in the U.S. since 2015 than in oil or natural gas 
extraction. Maybe a decade ago, the expense of wind and solar was a 
major obstacle and expense for a non-carbon future. Not any more.

The denialists, in other words, have nothing left. The most striking 
thing about Bret Stephens's inaugural column in the New York Times was 
not its banal defense of the principle of scientific skepticism, but its 
general lameness. Rereading it this week, it is striking how modest its 
claims were. They essentially came to this: "Claiming total certainty 
about the science traduces the spirit of science and creates openings 
for doubt whenever a climate claim proves wrong. Demanding abrupt and 
expensive changes in public policy raises fair questions about 
ideological intentions. Censoriously asserting one's moral superiority 
and treating skeptics as imbeciles and deplorables wins few converts."

And that's it. But no serious scientist claims "total certainty" about 
the future of climate, just a range of increasingly alarming 
probabilities; no one is demanding "abrupt and expensive" changes in 
public policy, just an intensification of efforts long underway with 
increasingly reliable and affordable new technologies; and, yes, 
treating your opponents as evil morons is rarely a good political 
strategy and Al Gore was terribly supercilious -- but, seriously, that's 
the only substantive argument Stephens had or has? There's not enough 
hay there for a straw ant.

The same blather can be found in this week's column by Jonah Goldberg, 
lamenting Max Boot's sudden volte-face on the issue. Jonah has a point 
about Boot's somewhat too instant makeover into a resistance icon (I've 
made it myself), but on the substance of climate change, what defense of 
the American right does Goldberg have? Zippo. He argues that "there are 
a lot of different views on climate change on the right." I find that 
about as convincing as the argument that there are a lot of different 
views on race among Harvard's faculty. Sure, maybe, in private, a few 
don't subscribe to the idea that America is as ridden with white 
supremacy as it was in the 1920s. But you won't get very far in the 
academy if you say that in public, will you?

More to the point, the hypothesis of carbon-created climate change 
doesn't just have "some legitimate science" on its side, as Goldberg 
puts it, but a completely overwhelming majority of the science. You 
should, of course, retain some skepticism always. It's possible, for 
example, that natural selection may be replaced as the core scientific 
consensus about how life on Earth evolved. Possible. But do we have to 
express skepticism every time new science based on that hypothesis 
emerges? Please. And I honestly can't see how the science of this can be 
right or left. It's either our best working hypothesis or not. And 
absolutely, we can have a debate about how to best counter it: massive 
investment in new green technology; a carbon tax; cap and trade; 
private-sector innovation of the kind that has helped restrain emissions 
in the U.S. already. And this debate could be had on right-left lines. 
But we cannot even have the debate because American conservatism has 
ruled it out of bounds.

Inaction because of uncertainty only makes sense if the threat is 
distant and not too calamitous. But when there's a chance of it being 
truly catastrophic, and the evidence in its favor keeps strengthening, a 
sane person adjusts. A conservative person -- someone attuned to risk -- 
will take out insurance, in case the worst happens. Only an ideologue or 
a fool does nothing at all.

The last line of Republican "argument" is the president's. This is a man 
who has recently visited what remains of a small town on Florida's 
panhandle coast: a landscape that bears a resemblance to the aftermath 
of a nuclear bomb. He has also walked around the dystopian vista of 
unprecedented forest fires in northern California, covering the state in 
smoke and air pollution, getting worse as every longer and longer fire 
"season" succeeds another. He lived in New York City when Hurricane 
Sandy crippled the metropolis. We used to argue that climate change was 
a tough political question because its effects were so distant in the 
future. But that case no longer holds. We are clearly living through 
those effects right now. So how does the president respond?

One of the problems that a lot of people like myself -- we have very 
high levels of intelligence, but we're not necessarily such believers. 
You look at our air and our water, and it's right now at a record clean. 
But when you look at China and you look at parts of Asia and when you 
look at South America, and when you look at many other places in this 
world, including Russia, including -- just many other places -- the air 
is incredibly dirty … if you go back and if you look at articles, they 
talked about global freezing, they talked about at some point the 
planets could have freeze to death, then it's going to die of heat 
exhaustion. There is movement in the atmosphere. There's no question. As 
to whether or not it's man-made and whether or not the effects that 
you're talking about are there, I don't see it …

What's going on here, if you can penetrate the word chowder, is not just 
abject willful denial of reality (that is routine for Trump). It's also 
a sense that energy innovation is for suckers and pansies and pussies. 
(This is one of the very few areas in which I will concede such a thing 
as literally toxic masculinity.) But if it's for suckers and pansies and 
pussies, why is a country like China doubling down on innovating this 
technology? Why is every other government on Earth committed to tackling 
this (rhetorically at least) and every other center-right party on Earth 
taking this very seriously? (Check out this page about environmental 
policy in the British Conservative party -- aimed getting to zero carbon 
emissions by 2050 -- and see if you even recognize the debate on the 
right in the U.S.)

Then there is the final, classic Republican nonargument: "I don't see 
it." When nothing else works, just subjectively deny all objective 
reality. In this area, moreover, Trump is not a digression from GOP 
policy. He is not an exception. As with his insane, bankrupting, 
debt-metastasizing fiscal policy, his climate policies are the 
apotheosis of Republican mindlessness since Nixon -- something that 
almost no one with an actual mind in the conservative intelligentsia has 
vigorously taken on. Even a sane, independent-minded, and erudite 
conservative intellectual, George F. Will, has a blind spot on this.

The kicker, of course, is that the current GOP is not just skeptical of 
climate science and dragging its feet on doing anything about climate 
change. It is actively pursuing policies aimed at intensifying 
environmental devastation. Trump's EPA is attempting to gut the 
regulation of carbon; it has tried to sabotage the only most prominent 
global agreement on the matter; it celebrates carbon-based energy and 
rhapsodizes about coal; it has slapped a 30 percent tariff on solar 
panels; its tax reform hurt solar and wind investment. For allegedly 
intelligent conservatives like Stephens and Goldberg to devote energy 
toward climate skepticism while turning a blind eye to vigorous 
Republican climate vandalism is, quite simply contemptible. I am not 
reading their minds here. I'm reading their columns. On this question -- 
as on fiscal policy -- they're not skeptics or conservatives; they are 
dogmatists, sophists, and enablers of environmental vandalism. They 
reveal Republicanism's calculated assault on the next generations -- 
piling them with unimaginable debt and environmental chaos. This isn't 
the cultural conservatism of Burke; it's the selfish nihilism of Rand.

Let me finish with a quote. It was the first time a major global leader 
spoke to the U.N. on the question: "It is life itself -- human life, the 
innumerable species of our planet -- that we wantonly destroy. It is 
life itself that we must battle to preserve…The danger of global warming 
is as yet unseen but real enough for us to make changes and sacrifices 
so we may not live at the expense of future generations. That prospect 
is a new factor in human affairs. It is comparable in its implications 
to the discovery of how to split the atom, indeed its results could be 
even more far-reaching…We should always remember that free markets are a 
means to an end. They would defeat their object if by their output they 
did more damage to the quality of life through pollution than the 
well-being they achieve by the production of goods and services." That 
leader also made a core moral argument: "No generation has a freehold on 
this Earth; all we have is a life tenancy with a full repairing lease."

Those words were Margaret Thatcher's in 1989. She devoted her entire 
U.N. speech to conservation and climate change. If the subject was real 
enough in 1989 to make sacrifices and changes, how much more so almost 
30 years later? The difference between Thatcher and today's Republicans 
is quite a simple one. She believed in science (indeed was trained as a 
scientist). She grasped the moral dimensions of the stewardship of the 
Earth from one generation to another. She did not engage in the 
cowardice of sophists. And unlike these tools and fools on today's 
American right, she was a conservative...
more at - 
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/11/the-rights-climate-change-shame.html


[Dramatic Video POV in the fire]
*Camp Fire: Butte County deputy turns on body camera to record last 
moments <https://youtu.be/ZOTkky_EbI8>*
Chico Enterprise-Record
Published on Nov 29, 2018
The Butte County Sheriff's Office released body camera footage from 
Deputy Aaron Parmley on Pentz Road in Paradise, California, Nov. 8, 
2018. In the middle of the Camp Fire, Parmley was helping evacuate the 
Feather River Hospital. Flames came up on both sides of the roadway and 
his car broke down.
He turned on his body camera to capture what he thought were his last 
moments. He survived.
https://youtu.be/ZOTkky_EbI8


*This Day in Climate History - December 1, 2010 
<http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/12/house-republicans-nix-global-w.html> 
- from D.R. Tucker*
December 1, 2010: Incoming House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) announces 
plans to snuff out the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and 
Global Warming.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/12/house-republicans-nix-global-w.html 


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