[TheClimate.Vote] February 10, 2018 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

Sat Feb 10 08:44:40 EST 2018

/February 10, 2018/

[Sarcasm video]
*Global Warming Is Now Not 'Necessarily A Bad Thing' 
<https://youtu.be/6KbCgruX6yI>*
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
Published on Feb 9, 2018

    Scott Pruitt, the head of the EPA, is taking a new approach to
    global warming.
    He's now questioning whether warming is necessarily a bad thing.
    "So I think there's assumptions made that because the climate is
    warming, that necessarily is a bad thing. Do we really know what the
    ideal surface temperature should be in the year 2100?"
    "And now an editorial response from the year 2100:"
    "Scott Pruitt is right rising temperatures aren't necessarily bad.
    In fact they've been great for me. I lead a lawless gang a desperate
    psychotic bandits who now control the desert lands of West
    Maine-Sylvania. Yeah floods pretty good. In the before times I was
    an assistant manager at Dollar Tree. But look at me now, I have a
    cadre of concubines, I sit on a throne of human skulls and I have
    desperate prisoners battle each other for my amusement.  So layoff
    EPA administrator Scott Pruitt. He knows of what he speaks.
    As Scott said, "Why should the government pick winners and losers?"
    Those are picked in Thunderdome!
    [Music], [Applause]

Positive thinking is a great thing, unless you're the person in charge 
of environmental policies and applying it to an impending international 
crisis.
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert is the premier late night talk show 
on CBS, airing at 11:35pm EST, streaming online via CBS All Access, and 
delivered to the International Space Station on a USB drive taped to a 
weather balloon. Every night, viewers can expect: Comedy, humor, funny 
moments, witty interviews, celebrities, famous people, movie stars, 
bits, humorous celebrities doing bits, funny celebs, big group photos of 
every star from Hollywood, even the reclusive ones, plus also jokes.
https://youtu.be/6KbCgruX6yI

[tax breaks]
*Congress Extends Tax Breaks for Clean Energy - and Carbon Capture 
<https://insideclimatenews.org/news/09022018/congress-tax-breaks-carbon-capture-css-geothermal-solar-biodiesel>*
Environment groups worry the carbon capture credits will just boost 
fossil fuels. The 'tax extenders', meanwhile, cut some nuclear, solar 
and geothermal costs.
Georgina Gustin
The compromise federal spending bill that Congress passed early Friday 
includes an array of tax credits for renewable energy, along with a 
controversial tax break for carbon-capturing technologies that will 
benefit the fossil fuel industries.
Known as "tax extenders" because they expand or revive temporary 
benefits that had lapsed, these provisions will provide significant 
incentives for people and companies to invest in low-carbon forms of 
energy, ranging from residential installations of solar water heaters 
and geothermal heat pumps to nuclear power plants.
In some cases, industry groups had lobbied for the provisions for years 
with little gain while Congress extended solar and wind tax credits 
during the Obama administration and enacted the Trump administration's 
recent broad tax break for corporate profits and personal incomes...
In addition, the legislation extends tax credits to makers of biodiesel 
and "renewable diesel," and pushes back the deadline for nuclear 
facilities to qualify for credits. The nuclear provision would benefit 
the only plant in the works, under construction by Southern Company, in 
Georgia.
But it disappointed some clean-energy advocates by omitting benefits for 
battery storage, a growing and crucial element of the expansion of wind 
and solar power...
Bob Perciasepe, president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions 
(C2ES), praised the tax cuts for promoting low-carbon sources of energy, 
which he called "critically necessary to the goal of reducing greenhouse 
gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050."
Supporters say the more generous tax credits could provide an essential 
boost for the industry, much as solar and wind credits did. The National 
Enhanced Oil Recovery Initiative (NEORI), a coalition of oil, gas, 
ethanol and environmental groups that worked on the legislation for more 
than six years, says the extended credits will only apply to projects 
that demonstrate they can successfully capture and store carbon dioxide.
"This is a climate bill, really," said Stuart Ross of the Clean Air Task 
Force. "It's really helping CCS, which the IPCC says we have to have 
because the fossil fuel industry is going to be around for some time."
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/09022018/congress-tax-breaks-carbon-capture-css-geothermal-solar-biodiesel

[sport]
*Sport must prepare for irreversible changes due to climate change 
unless it becomes part of the solution 
<http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/sport-climate-change-football-golf-cricket-become-part-of-the-solution-problem-leeds-university-a8201986.html>*
Virtually every coastal golf course in the world will be under threat by 
the end of the century while nine of 21 Winter Olympics host cities will 
not be able to host the Games again...
They've been playing golf at Montrose Links, on the idyllic windswept 
Angus coastline between Dundee and Aberdeen, for almost 500 years. It's 
the second oldest continually-used course in the world, after the Old 
Course at St Andrew's: a piece of this country's sporting heritage, and 
a damned nice spot to boot. And it's slowly being nibbled to death.
Piece by piece, the links is being swallowed up by rising tides and 
coastal erosion. The North Sea is encroaching at a rate of a couple of 
metres per year. The iconic third tee has already been sacrificed. A big 
storm could be catastrophic. "As the sea rises, and the coast falls 
away, we're left with nowhere to go," says the club's financial director 
Chris Curnin. "Climate change is often seen as tomorrow's problem, but 
it's already eating away at our course."
The case of Montrose features in a report issued this week based on 
research by the Priestley Centre at Leeds University into the potential 
impact of climate change on sport in this country. And what becomes 
clear over its pages is that virtually no outdoor sport is safe from the 
seismic and accelerating consequences of extreme weather. Nobody can 
really say with any certainty what sport will look like in 100, or 50, 
or even 20 years. But there's a fair chance a lot of it will be 
happening indoors...
Tackling climate change requires us to fear climate change, which in 
turn requires us to delve deep into our imaginations and envisage 
something that has never happened before, and for which we thus have no 
previous frame of reference. It requires a long-term vision, and in a 
sport where Sam Allardyce is never more than four months away from his 
next job, that's always going to be a tall order...
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/sport-climate-change-football-golf-cricket-become-part-of-the-solution-problem-leeds-university-a8201986.html

POLITICS
*Zinke met Israeli energy boss who called Arabs a 'cancer' 
<https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060073391>*
Zack Colman, E&E News reporter
Interior Sec. Ryan Zinke met with Effie Eitam, a far right former 
Israeli lawmaker close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who also 
happens to run an energy firm drilling in the Golan Heights - a 
violation of U.S. policy and international law...
The meeting has implications for foreign policy at a time when Netanyahu 
is pushing the Trump administration to formally recognize Israel's claim 
to the Golan, which it unilaterally annexed in 1981.
Here's Ohio State University law professor John Quigley on the broader 
implications:
"You have someone who is engaged in action that is illegal and by 
meeting with [Eitam] it seems to be giving some credibility to what 
they're doing."...
"There are no meeting notes or transcript available," Swift said in an 
email. "I have no additional information on the meeting, nor can I 
confirm that the person you have identified is the person the Secretary 
met with."
The United States does not recognize Israel's claim to the Golan. That 
position "has not changed," said Noel Clay, a State Department official, 
in an email. Israel maintains that it annexed the Golan Heights in 1981, 
after capturing it during the Six-Day War in 1967.
Eitam and Zinke have similar career arcs...
The United States has defended similar activity by Israel and Israeli 
companies during other administrations, said Noura Erakat, an assistant 
professor who focuses on international law at George Mason University. 
She noted that the United States has often used its vote at the United 
Nations Security Council to shield Israel from penalties for violating 
international law.
"Nobody is going to punish Israel for that extraction," Erakat said. 
"Most of what Israel does, it is doing with the implicit or explicit 
consent of the U.S. administration."
https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060073391

[the Nation - student activism]
*Climate Change Isn't Just About the Planet 
<https://www.thenation.com/article/climate-change-isnt-just-about-the-planet/>*
It's about justice: racial, social, socioeconomic, reproductive, and 
environmental. It's about immigration reform, LGBTQIA+ rights, and 
religious freedom.
By Leehi Yona
We must build resilience, physical as well as social, and spiritual...
I would be lying if I said that I am very hopeful these days; after all, 
there are many reasons to choose to despair. However, when I hear about 
how - as we young climate organizers knew - young generations are rising 
up to Donald Trump, to the deafness of politicians, and to the climate 
crisis, I decide to be hopeful.
I hope that you join us.
Leehi YonaLeehi Yona is pursuing a Master's of Environmental Science at 
the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, where she is 
researching climate change science and policy.
https://www.thenation.com/article/climate-change-isnt-just-about-the-planet/

[reform]
*New Study Finds Cutting Oil Subsidies Will Not Stop Climate Change 
<https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-study-finds-cutting-oil-subsidies-will-not-stop-climate-change/>*
The effect of removing fossil fuel subsidies would fall far short of the 
reductions promised in the Paris Agreement...
The findings help reaffirm the idea that effectively tackling climate 
change "requires an incentive directly focused on the problem, which is 
emissions," Victor said. More targeted approaches to reducing greenhouse 
gases include carbon pricing - not just removing financial incentives 
for fossil fuels, but actually taxing them - or stringent emissions caps.
Fiscal policy expert Ian Parry, of the International Monetary Fund, made 
a similar point in a commentary on the new research, also published 
yesterday in Nature.
"I think that reform of fossil-fuel prices needs to go well beyond 
aligning them with production costs," he wrote. "Fuel prices should also 
reflect the consequences of their use for global warming and other 
environmental considerations, such as the costs of deaths resulting from 
air pollution and, in the case of road fuels, traffic congestion and 
accidents."
Jewell cautioned that the new research doesn't indicate that subsidy 
reform should be abandoned, or that it makes no difference from a 
climate perspective. Rather, the new study helps illuminate the areas 
where its effects will be most helpful.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-study-finds-cutting-oil-subsidies-will-not-stop-climate-change/

[Sophie's Aerosols]
*Devil's Bargain: Why Aerosols Pose a Deadly Climate Change Threat 
<https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/why-aerosols-are-a-deadly-climate-change-threat-w516504>*
We already have planet-cooling technology – the problem is, it's killing us
Eric Holthaus
People have been aware of the influence of aerosols for centuries. In 
the 1200s,Londoners complained 
<http://www.air-quality.org.uk/02.php>about the clouds of coal 
smoke.In<http://www.enviropedia.org.uk/Air_Quality/UK_Air_Pollution.php>1783,Benjamin 
Franklin observed 
<https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-do-volcanoes-affect-w/>that 
tiny particles from volcanic eruptions tended to chill the weather. 
Throughout the late 1800s and early 1900s, dense smoke from coal blocked 
out daylight inChicago 
<http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/history/ct-dirty-air-pollution-environment-chicago-flashback-per-0607-jm-20150605-story.html>,Pittsburgh 
<https://www.citylab.com/design/2012/06/what-pittsburgh-looked-when-it-decided-it-had-pollution-problem/2185/>,St. 
Louis 
<http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/look-back-the-day-coal-smoke-choked-st-louis-/article_eeed6f7c-19ba-5962-97bc-39dc72fc6d28.html>, 
and scores of other cities...
There's documented evidence that thunderstorms in China vary on a weekly 
cycle,in tune with factory schedules 
<http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016GL070375/full>...
What's clear is that they're cooling us off. If we magically transformed 
the global economy overnight, and air pollution fell to near zero, we'd 
get an immediate rise in global temperatures of between 0.5 and 1.1 
degrees Celsius, according to the new study.
This puts our increasingly interdependent global civilization in a tough 
bind. Get rid of carbon emissions to fight global warming and you get 
rid of aerosols, pushing temperatures back up...
Embarking on a planetary-scale aerosol geoengineering project would 
produce "a wide range of unintended regional consequences," Samset says. 
One of the biggest risks is that the cooling would work/too/well, 
producing shifts in ecosystems at "unprecedented speeds," according to 
the/Nature Ecology and Evolution/study. That could be a fatal shock to 
animals and plants already stressed by decades of warming...
After 25 years of global negotiations, greenhouse gas emissions arestill 
rising 
<https://insideclimatenews.org/news/12112017/climate-change-carbon-co2-emissions-record-high-2017-cop23>. 
Extreme weather is now consideredthe biggest risk to the world economy 
<https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/01/the-biggest-risks-in-2018-will-be-environmental-and-technological>. 
And of course the leader of the world's largest economy thinksthe whole 
thing is a hoax 
<https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/265895292191248385?lang=en>.
Time is running short, but that doesn't mean we should be reckless. We 
are fast entering a world in which there are no good options remaining 
to tackle climate change. Geoengineering is dangerous, but so are 
aerosols, and so is accelerating climate change. Absent a real-life 
Hollywood miracle, we'll likely need to try some interventions that 
would have been better left to the movies.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/why-aerosols-are-a-deadly-climate-change-threat-w516504

[Letter]
*I'm a Stanford professor accused of being a terrorist. McCarthyism is 
back 
<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/08/stanford-professor-mccarthyism-antifa?CMP=share_btn_link>*
David Palumbo-Liu
I am used to receiving abusive messages and being publicly maligned. 
Now, however, attacks on me have reached troubling new heights..
In recent years, there have been well-publicized cases of academics who 
have had their syllabuses or social media cherry-picked for allegedly 
inflammatory statements, and then found themselves on the receiving end 
of orchestrated harassment campaigns.
CNN ran a story on the increasing numbers of professors like myself who 
have faced death threats for their political statements and activism 
<http://edition.cnn.com/2017/12/21/us/university-professors-free-speech-online-hate-threats/index.html>. 
But it's not just political progressives and radicals who are being hit. 
Scientists are under attack, too. Michael Mann, a professor of 
atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center at 
Penn State University, has received death threats for his work on 
climate change. 
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/this-is-what-the-coming-attack-on-climate-science-could-look-like/2016/12/16/e015cc24-bd8c-11e6-94ac-3d324840106c_story.html?utm_term=.0b8a59401937>
Despite this new and alarming phenomenon on campus, university 
administrators seem loth to aggressively protect their faculty...
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/08/stanford-professor-mccarthyism-antifa?CMP=share_btn_link
[Michael Mann 2016]
*I'm a scientist who has gotten death threats. I fear what may happen 
under Trump. 
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/this-is-what-the-coming-attack-on-climate-science-could-look-like/2016/12/16/e015cc24-bd8c-11e6-94ac-3d324840106c_story.html?utm_term=.225749bce660>*
"Add to all this the Trump transition team's alarming request that the 
Energy Department identify employees and contractors who have been 
involved in climate meetings during the Obama administration."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/this-is-what-the-coming-attack-on-climate-science-could-look-like/2016/12/16/e015cc24-bd8c-11e6-94ac-3d324840106c_story.html?utm_term=.225749bce660

[Under sea forest]
*Scientists: Long-Buried Ice Age Forest Offers Climate Change Clues 
<https://www.npr.org/2018/02/09/584116280/scientists-long-buried-ice-age-forest-offers-climate-change-clues>*
February 9, 20185:01 AM ET
  Debbie Elliot
A preserved Ice Age forest
Scientists say it's a remarkable discovery.
"The underwater forest is like the Garden of Eden underwater," says 
Christine DeLong, a paleo-climatologist at Louisiana State University. 
She says tests date the forest to be between 50,000 and 70,000 years old.
"It's a huge deal," DeLong says."Because here we have this like 
perfectly preserved time capsule of an Ice Age forest."...
"You can see the grain in the wood, and it's hard as a rock," he says, 
rapping his knuckles on the piece of cypress, and pointing out holes in 
the tree trunk, likely tunneled by ancient beetles or worms. "It's like 
you just cut it down in the forest."...
"It's like any of our national treasures," says Raines. You know you can 
go to the Grand Canyon or whatever. That's what this is. This is a 
natural wonder. And it really ought to get to stay here rather than be 
turned into coffee tables and electric guitars."
Raines says salvage companies have already been calling trying to get 
the GPS coordinates for the site, hoping to harvest the bald cypress wood.
https://www.npr.org/2018/02/09/584116280/scientists-long-buried-ice-age-forest-offers-climate-change-clues

*This Day in Climate History February 10, 2015 -  from D.R. Tucker*
February 9, 2015: MSNBC's Ed Schultz discusses the mainstream media's 
chronically poor climate coverage. President Obama stressed the 
importance of focusing the media's attention on climate change in light 
of record snow falls and the hottest year on record. Ed Schultz, Dr. 
Reese Halter, Tiernan Sittenfeld and Mike Papantonio discuss. 
http://www.msnbc.com/the-ed-show/watch/cold-hard-truth-about-climate-change-396460099933 
**/
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