[TheClimate.Vote] December 27, 2018 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

Thu Dec 27 09:20:33 EST 2018

/December 27, 2018/

[Good analysis of Coal issue]
*Yay! Coal In My Stocking! Critiques Of Climate Action Amidst Moves To 
Renewable Energy*
December 24th, 2018 by Carolyn Fortuna
Saint Nicholas was a 4th-century Christian saint known for secret gift 
giving. By Dickensian times, poor people were thought to be made 
unfortunate as punishment from God, so, wealthy children got gifts and 
candies on Christmas, while poor families were fortunate to get coal 
with which to heat their homes. Eventually, the reference to coal in a 
stocking meant a punishment, or at the very least something unpleasant.

Today, coal in a stocking is a metaphor for loss of the industry that 
fueled the US since the industrial era. Yet several conservative 
organizations continue to promote coal in light energy markets in full 
transition mode, both in the US and abroad, toward renewable energy. The 
influence of these organizations is far-reaching and permeates the field 
of climate deniers.
In the US, roughly 30% of all electricity comes from coal: the rest 
comes from natural gas, nuclear, and renewables like wind and solar. 
They're enormously useful, massively valuable, and hugely important 
geopolitically, and they need to stay in the ground if we are to begin 
to tackle global warming.

But not everyone agrees. Here's a list of proponents of coal and their 
2018 actions to maintain its status in the US and global energy mix.

    *Robert E. Murray*, a longtime Trump supporter who donated $300,000
    to the president's inauguration, wrote a memo detailing a wish list
    of environmental rollbacks, and the White House and federal agencies
    have completed, or are on track to fulfill, most of the 16 detailed
    requests.

    *Wells Griffith*, a spokesperson for the US Department of Energy,
    was mocked by audience members as he attempted to tout the virtues
    of coal at the COP24 summit in Katowice, Poland.

    *The Heartland Institute cries out* that the premature retirement of
    the nation's coal fleet is causing electricity prices to rise and
    will lead to rolling blackouts in many parts of the country.

    The *American Enterprise Institute says* that increases in US oil
    and gas production have helped counteract efforts by OPEC and Russia
    to raise global energy prices.

    Australia's *Coalition* MPs have warned against the "demonisation"
    of coal.

The list is quite exhaustive.
*Negotiating the Move Away from Coal: Analysis of Discourse*
How are people in the climate action community dealing with fossil 
fuels' demise? Many are wholly behind a rapid, if disruptive, transition 
to 100% renewable energies (RE) in our cities and towns. Others who see 
the long-term benefit of RE do sometimes waver, unsure about how quickly 
and effectively that the world can adapt to a fossil fuel-free world.

A December, 2018 CleanTechnica article titled *Coal is on its way out -- 
gas is next* offers us some interesting insights about how people are 
negotiating -- and sometimes feeling uncertain -- about the move away 
from coal and its cousin, natural gas.

In this article, author George Harvey's thesis is, "A gas plant is being 
put out of business by lithium-ion batteries, because the energy storage 
costs, combined with the cost of the electricity from solar and wind 
plants, are more attractive than the cost of the least expensive fossil 
fuels." A survey of comments that found some fault with the author's 
premise allows us to the multiple layers of discourse around fossil fuels.

Comment C1: Gas plants are highly dispatchable, unlike coal, which makes 
them good fill in for wind and solar.
This type of comment parallels the utility and fossil industries, which 
are doing their best to dampen the enthusiasm for RE, injecting what 
they see as a dose of reality into the drive to get runaway climate 
change under control.

C2: The next phase will be, "We're vital backup! We're your insurance 
against power failure!" That one there is a last ditch, although for a 
decade or so they will probably have a point. After that, outside of 
isolated facilities or crisis backups, there won't be a market.

The global energy transformation necessary to successfully slow and then 
halt climate change will change the power dynamics among nations, and 
that concerns many people, including what type of security arrangements 
will be needed to keep the peace among the powers that vie for an energy 
advantage in the coming renewables era.

C3: We use nearly 25 billion MWh / year of electricity, and we have 127 
MHh battery the biggest one as of 2018. We still have long way to go, 
and I believe we need a new battery tech. This way we will have to wait 
until 2100… unless a new storage tech will not be available very soon, 
we will newer get rid of FF, CO2 levels will go down but not as fast as 
we need.

The issue of intermittency from solar and wind means that reliable power 
creates a need for energy storage, and many people argue that battery 
storage is currently not efficient enough to be cost effective, or needs 
traditional fossil fuels or nuclear power to supplement.

C4: We can install far more wind and solar now, if people wanted it, yet 
in Germany prefer their coal.
Today, nearly a quarter of all electricity produced in Germany still 
comes from burning lignite, often called brown coal, one of the dirtiest 
fossil fuels, making Germany the world's leader in the mining and 
burning of lignite. Chancellor Angela Merkel is faced with mounting 
challenges, including from the far right, in eastern regions where a 
bulk of those jobs would be lost if coal is replaced by RE. The 
far-right Alternative for Germany, the leading opposition party, has 
questioned Germany's national consensus on the role humans play in 
contributing to climate change.

C5: Fortunately for gas plant owners, the plants are fairly cheap.
While this concept may have been true up until recently, a new report 
reveals 42% of global coal capacity is currently unprofitable, and the 
US could save $78 billion by closing coal-fired power plants in line 
with the Paris Climate Accord's climate goals. This industry-disrupting 
trend will become more evident as the cost of renewable energy dips 
below fossil fuel generation.

C6: I guess domestic heating will be the last bastion of the FF industry.
For many living in cold weather climates, the short-term goal is not 
zero fossil fuels, though they'd like to get there eventually. They see 
the tremendous concentration of energy in liquid fossil fuels as a great 
back-up system, with small steps taken annually to replace boilers with 
solar, for example, or as a fallback for when the renewables need 
filling in.

C7: And shipping and long distance air travel. Unfortunately.
It is clear that the shipping and air industries need to move to 
renewable and alternative fuels to reduce the sector's impact on the 
environment to reduce local pollutants, comply with regulation, mitigate 
against climate change, and cut greenhouse gas emissions. Alternative 
fuels often assessed are liquefied natural gas (LNG), methanol, liquid 
hydrogen (LH2) (with and without carbon capture and storage), biodiesel, 
straight vegetable oil (SVO), and bio-LNG. Right now, it seems as if 
there is there is no widely available fuel to manage climate change and 
local pollutants.

Final Thoughts
Yes, societal action has been stymied by fossil fuel industry lobbyists 
like Americans for Prosperity and Crossroads GPS. But the US needs to 
completely decarbonize -- get to net-zero carbon emissions -- by the 
middle of the 21st century. As climate change advocates, we know how 
important it is to connect with our audiences through effective messaging.

Let's keep getting the word out and helping people who are concerned 
about the shift to renewable energy to know what's happening in the 
quickly changing field so they, too, can gain the confidence to move 
toward 100% RE in their lives.

    Carolyn Fortuna Carolyn Fortuna, Ph.D. is a writer, researcher, and
    educator with a lifelong dedication to ecojustice. She's won awards
    from the Anti-Defamation League, The International Literacy
    Association, and The Leavy Foundation. She's molds scholarship into
    digital media literacy and learning to spread the word about
    sustainability issues

https://cleantechnica.com/2018/12/24/yay-coal-in-my-stocking-critiques-of-climate-action-amidst-moves-to-renewable-energy/
- - - - -
[Trump inspires climate scientists to work in France]
*Climate Scientists Are Leaving The U.S. To "Make Our Planet Great 
Again" (HBO)*
VICE News
Published on Dec 14, 2018
After the United States pulled out of the Paris Agreement in 2017, 
French president Emmanuel Macron made the world's climate scientists an 
offer to work in France. That offer came in the form of a grant with a 
cheeky name -- "Make Our Planet Great Again."

The grant has since been awarded to dozens of scientists -- many of 
them, based in the United States. Ben Sanderson is one of those grant 
recipients. He had been living and working in the U.S. for nearly a 
decade when the 2016 election results caught him by surprise.

"I think it's a strange time for climate science in the U.S.," Sanderson 
told VICE News. "People are a little bit wary of proposing research 
which would be deemed to be political."

And so, Sanderson, along with his wife and young son, packed up their 
lives and moved to Toulouse, France. There, Sanderson will work at a 
French research institute for the next five years.

Meanwhile, some researchers still working in the U.S. are worried that a 
Trump-era brain drain could stunt America's role in the field. As 
climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe told VICE News, "...we could end up 
losing a large number of key people that would really help to advance 
the research."
This segment originally aired December 5, 2018 on VICE News on HBO.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8H4tJEtCRuU

[do-it-yourself data visualization tool]
[fun things to know and tell https://ocdp.met.no/#]
*Let's check your temperature*
Know the past before you can know the future
The study of past climatic variations and trends is necessary before we 
can make projections for the future. The historical data provide us with 
important clues about how different conditions interact, as well as 
being the basis for model evaluation. They are also important for 
studying the impact of local climate fluctuations on society, such as 
crop yields.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2018/12/lets-check-your-temperature/
- -
[View the screencast to see how to use the app]
https://youtu.be/zz8Gx3wAaFM

[Maryland Independent]
*It's time to act now against climate change*
LETTER TO THE EDITOR by Rebecca Wolf, California
- -
This is by no means an exhaustive list of environmental challenges 
facing Maryland. All projections indicate there will be no relief 
anytime soon, so our attention should be directed toward surviving the 
oncoming storm and saving as much as we can.
In addition, there are feedback loops in the environment that could 
drastically change the projections, like the albedo effect or the 
thawing of peat in Siberia. The albedo effect is how much light is 
reflected back into space by the ice sheets and deserts. When the ice 
sheets melt, they are replaced by darker ocean water. Think of it like a 
T-shirt the earth is wearing. Which is cooler, a white T-shirt or a dark 
blue one? The peat bogs in Siberia trap methane. As they thaw, they 
release methane bubbles, a greenhouse gas. This also happens in ice 
sheets, but that's another story.
These climate change multipliers could mean dire consequences for 
Maryland if we do not act now.
http://www.somdnews.com/independent/opinion/letters_to_the_editor/it-s-time-to-act-now-against-climate-change/article_2a228e88-98ff-5018-908b-20c95fc76da7.html

[YouTube video]
*Cracks Caught in the Act*
American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Published on Dec 26, 2018
Earthquakes and petroleum fracking make cracks in rocks underground; 
melting ice forms cracks in glaciers. Freeze-thaw, roots pushing into 
weathered rock, the shatter from an impact--they all create cracks. 
Catching an actual fracturing event as it happens is tough to do (much 
less figuring out how to film something underground), but researchers at 
Harvard University found a solution. This video, compiled from thousands 
of high-speed camera images, shows cracks forming and traveling through 
a lab sample of a transparent synthetic material called a brittle hydrogel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RpJC_xPnNI
- -
[May be how massive ice caps will destabilize]
*Watch Tiny Cracks Travel in 3-D*
Scientists used a transparent gel and high-speed photography to figure 
out how cracks form and spread. What they found could help explain 
earthquakes and fracturing glaciers.
https://eos.org/articles/watch-tiny-cracks-travel-in-3-d

[classic tips for climate messages]
*Things to Avoid in Climate Change Communications*
*from Mashup Messaging: How To Create Effective Climate Change 
Communication*
We in the climate change movement have learned a lot through making 
communicative mistakes with our audiences. There are also some common 
appeals to avoid, which are called "rogue values." Scientific authority 
("research says"), utility (human needs), consumerism (class systems/ we 
vs. me), and intrinsic value/ right to exist (polar bears are failing) 
have been pinpointed in climate change studies as approaches that do not 
sway oppositional points of view.
It's important to create a common language and shared themes, and that 
involves knowing what not to say, too.
Not penguins, but the birds that come to your home feeder.
Not watershed management, but land and water conservation.
Not nonpoint source pollution, but polluted runoff.
Not water quality, but clean water.
Not biodiversity, but plants, animals, and wildlife.
Not ecosystem services, but nature's benefits.
Not green infrastructure, but nature-based solutions.
Not resilient, but healthy and safe.
Not sprawl, but overdevelopment.
Not conservation easement, but voluntary land preservation agreement.
Not sustainable, but responsible/ planning ahead/ environmentally healthy.
Always avoid jargon and acronyms, or at least always remember to 
initially define acronyms.
Also, remember to consider a readability index as you design print text. 
Match your text to your audience' literacy levels.
https://cleantechnica.com/2018/03/14/mashup-messaging-create-effective-climate-change-communication/

*This Day in Climate History - December 27, 2012 - from D.R. Tucker*
December 27, 2012: Lisa Jackson announces that she will step down as EPA 
administrator.
http://youtu.be/Iqw7hO9OhCA

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