[TheClimate.Vote] December 8, 2018 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/December 8, 2018/

[Washington Post]
*Chuck Schumer: No deal on infrastructure without addressing climate 
change 
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/chuck-schumer-mr-president-lets-make-a-deal/2018/12/06/aeae0188-f99e-11e8-8c9a-860ce2a8148f_story.html>*
For example, we should make massive investments in renewable-energy 
infrastructure, especially in exciting new technologies such as battery 
storage. We also must make our infrastructure more climate- resilient, 
particularly the electrical grid and our water and wastewater systems. 
Those items belong in any infrastructure bill -- indeed they were all 
included in the Senate Democratic proposal last year -- but we can and 
should go further.
More powerful hurricanes are one of many signs of climate change, and 
those who deny it are complicit in the destruction, meteorologist Eric 
Holthaus says. (Gillian Brockell, Kate Woodsome, Adriana Usero/The 
Washington Post)
We should provide permanent tax credits for clean-energy production and 
storage, electric vehicles, and energy- efficient homes. We should 
invest in conservation, wildlife and deferred maintenance on our public 
lands, because this can both mitigate the impacts of climate change and 
grow the outdoor economy. We should significantly reduce the release of 
methane pollution from domestic energy production. And we have to reduce 
the amount of carbon we release into the atmosphere. All of these 
policies can and will create good-paying green jobs.
No doubt, a single infrastructure bill alone will not solve our climate 
problem. But it is an important and necessary first step to include at 
least some, if not many, of these ideas. Without them, Trump should not 
count on Democratic support in the Senate.
It's impossible to overstate the urgency with which America needs to 
confront climate change. Even the Trump administration, which officially 
denies humankind's role in climate change, released a report last month 
outlining its current impacts and warning of dire consequences in the 
near future. Without drastic intervention, more powerful storms, floods 
and fires, as well as billions of dollars in damage to our economy, 
await the next generation of Americans.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/chuck-schumer-mr-president-lets-make-a-deal/2018/12/06/aeae0188-f99e-11e8-8c9a-860ce2a8148f_story.html


[Video Bernie Sanders rants about global warming to Stephen Colbert]
*(climate change and) <Bernie Sanders: Medicare For All Isn't A Fringe 
Idea Anymore> **Bernie Sanders: Medicare For All Isn't A Fringe Idea 
Anymore <Bernie Sanders: Medicare For All Isn't A Fringe Idea Anymore>*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTkkgix4bfo&feature=youtu.be&t=477


[well watered plants make for moist airs above]
*Americans Have Planted So Much Corn That It's Changing the Weather 
<https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/corn-belt-weather>*
The Corn Belt is making it rain.
BY ERIC J. WALLACE - DECEMBER 03, 2018
- -
University of Nebraska climatologists say the growing season has gotten 
10-14 days longer since 1980. Hunnicutt now waits until the first weeks 
of November to pilot his 40-foot-wide, dump-truck-sized combine through 
the farm's widely arching, seemingly endless rows of corn--enough to 
cover 800 city blocks...
- -
A 2018 report issued by climate researchers at the Massachusetts 
Institute of Technology claims to have solved the mystery and verified 
farmers' suspicions: Namely, that large-scale corn production has 
changed the weather...
- -
"We studied data from the past 30 years and found that the 
intensification of corn production has increased average summer 
rainfalls by about 35 percent and decreased [average summer] 
temperatures by as much as one degree Celsius," says former MIT 
researcher Ross E. Alter, now a research meteorologist with the U.S. 
Army Corps of Engineers. Alter was the lead author of a 2018 report 
published in the journal of the American Geophysical Union that 
demonstrated how land use has impacted the region's climate more than 
greenhouse gas emissions. "What makes these findings so fascinating is 
that, while global temperatures have risen, areas like eastern Nebraska 
have actually cooled," continues Alter, referring to yearly averages. 
"We think it's likely heavy agriculture counteracted rising summer 
temperatures that might have otherwise resulted from increasing 
greenhouse gases."
In other words, the man-made shift has been helpful. By increasing 
yields, farmers have unintentionally created weather patterns that seem 
to be protecting their crops and helping them grow more corn. (Of 
course, burning fossil fuels to plant, cultivate, harvest, process, and 
ship farm products has been shown to be a major contributor to rising 
levels of greenhouse gases.)...
- -
"When a plant's pores, called stomata, open to allow carbon dioxide to 
enter, they simultaneously allow water to escape," writes Kimberly 
Hickok, who covers climate change for Science Magazine and reviewed the 
report. Known as transpiration, the process cools the plant and 
surrounding air, and increases the amount of water going into the 
atmosphere and returning as rainfall. As Hickok notes, "the cycle may 
continue" as that additional rainwater evaporates back into the 
atmosphere and causes rainfall on other farms and towns downwind.
Put another way: More corn means more transpiration. Which, in turn, 
produces slightly cooler temperatures and increased precipitation. The 
fact that corn is a non-native species boosts the effect.
"The predominant native vegetation in central and eastern Nebraska is 
grass," explains Dutcher. Farmers have replaced the area's vast seas of 
grass with more than nine million acres of corn, which transpires at a 
rate 20 percent higher than indigenous grasses. "Agriculture is 
literally funneling moisture into the atmosphere, and all that humidity 
has created a kind of protective bubble against rising temperatures."
Dutcher and Hunnicutt say growing more corn--and thus, creating more 
transpiration--would have been impossible without advances in farming 
efficiency. The introduction of high-yielding varieties, better 
irrigation, and soil management techniques, along with the ability to 
use computer sensors to closely monitor field conditions, have all 
contributed to soaring yields.
"One of the biggest factors is the widespread use of cover crops, crop 
residue management, and no-till farming methods," writes University of 
Nebraska-Lincoln Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources 
extension engineer Paul Jasa. Together, the practices have erased the 
need for conventional tillage, dramatically increased organic matter in 
the soil, reduced evaporation and runoff, and lowered summer surface 
temperatures. "With time, the [native clay-based] soil has become much 
healthier and better at retaining water," Jasa continues. "This has made 
crops more resilient to traumatic weather events and, in general, much 
more productive."
Hunnicutt says automated irrigation has helped boost overall production 
and allowed him to grow corn in pivot corners where his grandfather 
could not. Upward of 340 acres that formerly yielded nothing now 
contribute as much as 180 bushels per acre. In his tenure as a farmer, 
full-field yields have grown by more than 50 bushels an acre.
"I can get minute-to-minute weather predictions and tell you moisture 
levels anywhere in our fields just by glancing at my phone," says 
Hunnicutt. "In the 1950s, my grandad was using a Farmers' Almanac. Back 
then, if they thought the soil was too dry, they just dumped water on 
it. Now, I know exactly what my plants need and when to apply it."...
- -
"In terms of the Corn Belt, the degree of agricultural intensification 
we've seen in the last 30 years isn't sustainable," he says. "It's 
projected to soon come to an end and may even decline." And if that 
happens, the mitigating effect of agriculture will disappear, and global 
temperatures will rise even faster.
Though studies have yet to be conducted around the world, Alter says 
that areas that have experienced substantial agricultural 
intensification have likely experienced similar benefits: more rainfall 
and cooler average temperatures during the summers. Like Nebraska, the 
effects have probably masked negative changes and will eventually be 
overwhelmed...
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/corn-belt-weather


[Youth student activism]
*Greta Thunberg's School Strike for the Climate*
Published on Dec 4, 2018
[hope and action 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6s8YgRH5T0&feature=youtu.be&t=796 ]
In this http://ScientistsWarning.org sponsored program at COP-24 in 
Poland, 15-year-old Greta is inspiring kids all over the world to save 
their future from the rampant double-speak of their political leaders.  
Her one-woman School Strike for the Climate has become an international 
civil disobedience movement. This program is not to be missed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6s8YgRH5T0


[Buffalo News columnist ]
*Don Paul: Climate, environment and George H.W. Bush 
<https://buffalonews.com/2018/12/05/don-paul-climate-environment-and-george-h-w-bush/>*
By    Don Paul | Published December 5, 2018
- -
After a strong start on studying global warming, Bush came up short in 
one key area. He did not support an aggressive program to stabilize 
greenhouse gas emissions either through action or word. As William 
Reilly, Bush's EPA Administrator told E&E News, via Scientific American: 
"Bush did everything anyone could have asked of on him on climate except 
commit to stabilization," he said. "He committed [a] very substantial 
research budget to major investments by NASA on upper atmospheric ozone 
monitoring and on climate monitoring. NOAA was well-funded."
Apart from his efforts in climate change, his greatest environmental 
accomplishments involved sponsoring vital amendments to the original 
Clean Air Act of 1970. That landmark legislation contained yawning gaps 
in specific hazards, closed by his amendments. As the EPA stated: 
"Building on Congressional proposals advanced during the 1980s, the 
President proposed legislation designed to curb three major threats to 
the nation's environment and to the health of millions of Americans: 
acid rain, urban air pollution, and toxic air emissions," the EPA states 
on its website. "The proposal also called for establishing a national 
permits program to make the law more workable, and an improved 
enforcement program to help ensure better compliance with the Act."
The targeting of the pollutants leading to acid rain, which was killing 
millions of acres of forests and decimating life in lakes, brought this 
scourge under control.
But the criticism Bush received from environmental groups for not moving 
toward stabilizing greenhouse emissions convinced him, historians say, 
he was damaging his standing with his base. It appears, after the Clean 
Air amendments, he backed away from some of his environmental enthusiasm.
As in so many arenas in his one term, George Herbert Walker Bush left 
his mark on the United States' role in the global climate community. His 
work was flawed and incomplete, but it was substantial and has left a 
lasting legacy of rational environmental leadership that many say is 
completely missing in the executive branch today.
Don Paul - Don Paul is a frequent contributor on weather/climate for The 
Buffalo News. He is also a staff meteorologist for WKBW and a former 
chief meteorologist for WIVB.
https://buffalonews.com/2018/12/05/don-paul-climate-environment-and-george-h-w-bush/


[recent history of the London activism and bridge shutdowns]
*The Extinction Rebellion*
Published on Dec 7, 2018
Greta Thunberg, Nils Agger & Liam Geary Baulch join us to introduce the 
Extinction Rebellion that's begun in the UK this year.  We appear to be 
past the threshold into 'runaway climate change'.  If so, the release of 
Methane in the Arctic ocean will heat the planet unimaginably fast.  The 
collapse of civilization might very possibly lead to our extinction 
within decades if the predictions of some scientists are correct.  Join 
us for this program and share with others.  We are in extreme danger, 
and our governments and media are not getting it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byiWsQaKnQU


[Everything changes]
*A New Language for Grappling With Climate Change 
<https://nexusmedianews.com/a-new-language-for-grappling-with-climate-change-7c37131306e0>*
How to cope with the loss of the world as we know it
Nexus Media
Phil Newell - Oct 22
This month, a major UN report on climate change declared that humanity 
has just a few short years to make the drastic changes needed to stave 
off an environmental catastrophe. While news outlets reacted with shock 
and alarm, those who regularly write, research or advocate on climate 
change were more resigned. For them, the report -- which synthesized 
existing research -- merely aggravated the psychic wound formed by 
continually reckoning with the end of the world.

Responding to the report, climate writer Eric Holthaus encouraged 
readers to talk about their feelings with friends, though he said that 
he has "no idea whether or not this is the right advice for everyone." 
Environmental reporter Zoë Schlanger expressed similar ambivalence, 
writing that "in 2018, life can feel in need of a dirge for the whole 
world, with scarcely the language to write it."

Perhaps as the the climate changes, so must our vocabulary. We need new 
words to grapple with these new challenges. What does it feel like when 
your home leaves you? When the seasons shift and rains dry up or turn to 
deluge? How do you capture the sense of this new abnormal? And how do 
you cope?

In 2005, Philosopher Glenn Albrecht coined the term "solastalgia" to 
describe the feeling of losing one's home. The term combines "solace" 
(comfort in the face of stress), "desolation," and the Greek root of 
"algia," which indicates illness. Solastalgia is, in Albrecht's words, 
"the pain experienced when… the place where one resides and that one 
loves is under immediate assault (physical desolation)…the erosion of 
the sense of belonging (identity) to a particular place and a feeling of 
distress (psychological desolation) about its transformation."

Albrecht summed it up by writing, "In short, solastalgia is a form of 
homesickness one gets when one is still at 'home.'" He went on to 
explain that the term is applicable to people who have lost their 
ancestral homes. From them, we may find some guidance for coping.

In a recent essay for The New York Review of Books, Molly Crabapple 
wrote about the Bund, a "humane, socialist, secular and defiantly 
Jewish" political party that "celebrated Jews as a nation" but was 
"irreconcilably opposed to the establishment of Israel as a separate 
Jewish homeland in Palestine." Instead, they believed that "the diaspora 
was home," and embraced a concept known as do'ikayt or "hereness."

Crabapple asked what do'ikayt means "in our age of mass migration" and 
answered that it is a way "to find the self in exile." This idea can 
perhaps provide a sense of solidarity to those suffering from 
solastalgia -- they are all exiles together. For people who work on 
climate change, hereness may offer a sense that they fight not only to 
preserve a vanishing past, but to protect an emerging future, that 
despite national boundaries or political disagreements, a larger purpose 
sustains them.

The fight to protect our collective homeland will be hard, with our wins 
and losses echoing for thousands of years. There will be changes, and 
we'll need to adapt, but our home on Earth will always be worth the 
effort. This struggle will be etched into the geologic record, but there 
is hope still, for the final score is not yet written in stone.Phil 
Newell writes for Nexus Media, a syndicated newswire covering climate, 
energy, policy, art and culture.
https://nexusmedianews.com/a-new-language-for-grappling-with-climate-change-7c37131306e0


[try one before they're gone]
*Black Truffles Imperiled by Climate Change*
Severe heat and drought could decimate European truffle production.
https://nexusmedianews.com/black-truffles-imperiled-by-climate-change-700d13a89ccf
- - -
[grow your own - this is not a paid advertisement - on my list to 
someday sample one]
*American Truffle Company*
Science + Knowledge = Success
Anyone can plant truffle trees, but actually
harvesting truffles depends on science and knowledge.
To be successful at truffle cultivation requires extensive knowledge - 
knowledge that's based on rigorous science and largely unavailable in 
the public domain. Many people have planted truffle trees without 
science, only to see no truffles. American Truffle Company brings 
world-class, cutting-edge truffle science, customized and applied to 
your specific soil, microclimate and other conditions so you have the 
best science and knowledge at your disposal - science and knowledge that 
are unavailable anywhere else in the public domain
https://www.americantruffle.com/fundamentals/


[this is the first time I have mentioned Guy McPherson - a renowned 
doomerist]
[video- two climate pundits in 2 conversations - interesting discussion]
Challenging Extinction and Wanna Bet? with Guy McPherson
Published on Nov 15, 2018
*Part 1 https://youtu.be/RQJi2s0kefM of my conversation with Guy 
McPherson, challenging his message of 'near term human extinction.' *
*Part 2, entitled 'Wanna Bet?' is at https://youtu.be/_mwuNq1Mb8k*
Watch both and decide for yourself.


*This Day in Climate History - December 8, 2016 - from D.R. Tucker*
December 8, 2016 - The New York Times editorial page observes:

    "Had Donald Trump spent an entire year scouring the country for
    someone to weaken clean air and clean water laws and repudiate
    America's leadership role in the global battle against climate
    change, he could not have found a more suitable candidate than Scott
    Pruitt, the Oklahoma attorney general, whom he picked on Wednesday
    to run the Environmental Protection Agency."

    "This is an aggressively bad choice, a poke in the eye to a long
    history of bipartisan cooperation on environmental issues, to a
    nation that has come to depend on the agency for healthy air and
    drinkable water, and to 195 countries that agreed in Paris last year
    to reduce their emissions of climate-changing greenhouse gases in
    the belief that the United States would show the way. A meeting
    Monday between Mr. Trump and Al Gore had raised hope among some that
    the president-elect might reverse his campaign pledge to withdraw
    the United States from the Paris accord. The Pruitt appointment says
    otherwise."

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/07/opinion/an-enemy-of-the-epa-to-head-it.html?ref=opinion 


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