[TheClimate.Vote] February 11, 2018 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/February 11, 2018/

[BBC]
*The 11 cities most likely to run out of drinking water - like Cape Town 
<http://www.bbc.com/news/world-42982959>*
...the plight of the drought-hit South African city is just one extreme 
example of a problem that experts have long been warning about - water 
scarcity...
According to UN-endorsed projections, global demand for fresh water will 
exceed supply by 40% in 2030, thanks to a combination of climate change, 
human action and population growth.
It shouldn't be a surprise, then, that Cape Town is just the tip of the 
iceberg. Here are the other 11 cities most likely to run out of water.

    *1. Sao Paulo*
    Brazil's financial capital and one of the 10 most populated cities
    in the world went through a similar ordeal to Cape Town in 2015,
    when the main reservoir fell below 4% capacity.
    At the height of the crisis, the city of over 21.7 million
    inhabitants had less than 20 days of water supply and police had to
    escort water trucks to stop looting...
    *2. Bangalore*
    Local officials in the southern Indian city have been bamboozled by
    the growth of new property developments following Bangalore's rise
    as a technological hub and are struggling to manage the city's water
    and sewage systems.
    To make matters worse, the city's antiquated plumbing needs an
    urgent upheaval; a report by the national government found that the
    city loses over half of its drinking water to waste...
    *3. Beijing*
    The World Bank classifies water scarcity as when people in a
    determined location receive less than 1,000 cubic metres of fresh
    water per person.
    In 2014, each of the more than 20 million inhabitants of Beijing had
    only 145 cubic metres.
    China is home to almost 20% of the world's population but has only
    7% of the world's fresh water...
    *4. Cairo*
    Once crucial to the establishment of one of the world's greatest
    civilisations, the River Nile is struggling in modern times.
    It is the source of 97% of Egypt's water but also the destination of
    increasing amounts of untreated agricultural, and residential waste...
    *5. Jakarta*
    Like many coastal cities, the Indonesian capital faces the threat of
    rising sea levels.
    But in Jakarta the problem has been made worse by direct human
    action. Because less than half of the city's 10 million residents
    have access to piped water, illegal digging of wells is rife. This
    practice is draining the underground aquifers, almost literally
    deflating them.
    As a consequence, about 40% of Jakarta now lies below sea level,
    according to World Bank estimates...
    *6. Moscow*
    One-quarter of the world's fresh water reserves are in Russia, but
    the country is plagued by pollution problems caused by the
    industrial legacy of the Soviet era.
    That is specifically worrying for Moscow, where the water supply is
    70% dependent on surface water.
    Official regulatory bodies admit that 35% to 60% of total drinking
    water reserves in Russia do not meet sanitary standards...
    *7. Istanbul*
    According to official Turkish government figures, the country is
    technically in a situation of a water stress, since the per capita
    supply fell below 1,700 cubic metres in 2016.
    Local experts have warned that the situation could worsen to water
    scarcity by 2030...
    *8. Mexico City*
    Water shortages are nothing new for many of the 21 million
    inhabitants of the Mexican capital.
    One in five get just a few hours from their taps a week and another
    20% have running water for just part of the day.
    The city imports as much as 40% of its water from distant sources
    but has no large-scale operation for recycling wastewater. Water
    losses because of problems in the pipe network are also estimated at
    40%...
    *9. London*
    Of all the cities in the world, London is not the first that springs
    to mind when one thinks of water shortages.
    The reality is very different. With an average annual rainfall of
    about 600mm (less than the Paris average and only about half that of
    New York), London draws 80% of its water from rivers (the Thames and
    Lee)...
    *10. Tokyo*
    The Japanese capital enjoys precipitation levels similar to that of
    Seattle on the US west coast, which has a reputation for rain.
    Rainfall, however, is concentrated during just four months of the year.
    That water needs to be collected, as a drier-than-expected rainy
    season could lead to a drought. At least 750 private and public
    buildings in Tokyo have rainwater collection and utilisation systems...
    *11. Miami*
    The US state of Florida is among the five US states most hit by rain
    every year. However, there is a crisis brewing in its most famous
    city, Miami.
    An early 20th Century project to drain nearby swamps had an
    unforeseen result; water from the Atlantic Ocean contaminated the
    Biscayne Aquifer, the city's main source of fresh water.
    Although the problem was detected in the 1930s, seawater still leaks
    in, especially because the American city has experienced faster
    rates of sea level rise, with water breaching underground defence
    barriers installed in recent decades.
    Neighbouring cities are already struggling. Hallandale Beach, which
    is just a few miles north of Miami, had to close six of its eight
    wells due to saltwater intrusion.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-42982959


[ Icepocalypse color graphick]
*Ice Apocalypse - MULTIPLE METERS SEA LEVEL RISE 
<https://youtu.be/Pp5kK0Td-Vc>*
Climate State
Published Nov, 2017
Rapid collapse of Antarctic glaciers could flood coastal cities by the 
end of this century. Based on an article written by Eric Holthaus. Read 
the full story 
https://grist.org/article/antarctica-doomsday-glaciers-could-flood-coastal-cities/
Support the next narrated video with a paypal donation to 
climatestate at gmail.com , or become a patreon 
http://patreon.com/ClimateState Thank You.
Narration by Vomatt https://www.fiverr.com/vomatt
https://youtu.be/Pp5kK0Td-Vc
*Reef drowning during the last deglaciation: Evidence for catastrophic 
sea-level rise and ice-sheet collapse 
<http://scholar.google.com/scholar_url?url=http://www.academia.edu/download/543214/95BlanchonGeology.pdf&hl=en&sa=X&scisig=AAGBfm3OQescmdBjRT4uI6ROYSdfIXRyvA&nossl=1&oi=scholarr>*
Paul Blanchon Department of Geology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, 
Alberta T6G 2E3, Canada
John Shaw Department of Geography, University of Alberta, Edmonton, 
Alberta T6G 2H4, Canada

    *ABSTRACT:*
    Elevations and ages of drowned Acropora palmata reefs from the
    Caribbean-Atlantic
    region document three catastrophic, metre-scale sea-level-rise
    events during the last
    deglaciation. These catastrophic rises were synchronous with (1)
    collapse of the
    Laurentide and Antarctic ice sheets, (2) dramatic reorganization of
    ocean-atmosphere
    circulation and, (3) releases of huge volumes of sub- and proglacial
    meltwater. This
    correlation suggests that release of stored meltwater periodically
    de-stabilized ice sheets,
    causing them to collapse and send huge fleets of icebergs into the
    Atlantic. Massive
    inputs of ice not only produced catastrophic sea-level rise,
    drowning reefs and
    destabilizing other ice sheets, but also rapidly reduced the
    elevation of the Laurentide
    ice sheet, flipping atmospheric circulation patterns and forcing
    warm equatorial waters
    into the frigid North Atlantic. Such dramatic evidence of
    catastrophic climate and sealevel
    change during deglaciation has potentially disastrous implications
    for the future,
    especially as the stability of remaining ice sheets - such as west
    Antarctica - is in question

http://scholar.google.com/scholar_url?url=http://www.academia.edu/download/543214/95BlanchonGeology.pdf&hl=en&sa=X&scisig=AAGBfm3OQescmdBjRT4uI6ROYSdfIXRyvA&nossl=1&oi=scholarr
[flowchart]
*Marine Ice Sheet Instability Hypothesis 
<http://cdn.antarcticglaciers.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/marine-ice-sheet-instability-hypothesis.png>*
http://cdn.antarcticglaciers.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/marine-ice-sheet-instability-hypothesis.png
http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glaciers-and-climate/ice-ocean-interactions/marine-ice-sheets/
-
*First images of creatures from Antarctic depths revealed 
<https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/feb/10/first-images-of-creatures-from-antarctic-depths-revealed>*
Photographs of rare species from unexplored area of Antarctic seabed 
highlight need to protect life in one of the most remote places on the 
planet
(Click images for full caption information)
by Matthew Taylor
Will McCallum of Greenpeace's Protect the Antarctic campaign, said 
survey showed the Antarctic seafloor was "bursting with a stunning 
diversity of life and colour, from tiny sea spiders, to feather stars, 
worms, krill and rare corals and sponges."
"We know so little about this precious ecosystem and we hope that our 
work with an Antarctic seafloor specialist, diving to the depths to 
collect crucial footage and specimens, can help provide the evidence of 
the need to secure strong protection for huge swathes of the Antarctic, 
including a vast 1.8m sq km Antarctic Ocean Sanctuary."
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/feb/10/first-images-of-creatures-from-antarctic-depths-revealed


[video visualizing data]
*Understanding the Role of Ice Shelf-Ocean Interactions in a Changing 
Climate <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRn69Vs1vco>*
Argonne National Laboratory Published Jan, 2018
Mark Petersen, Los Alamos National Laboratory
Read more here - 
https://www.alcf.anl.gov/projects/understanding-role-ice-shelf-ocean-interactions-changing-global-climate
Projecting the rate and probability of future sea-level rise is a 
primary science driver for the Department of Energy's (DOE) Accelerated 
Climate Model for Energy (ACME) project. ACME is focusing on better 
understanding the potential for rapid sea-level rise from the Antarctic 
Ice Sheet (AIS) where both observations and modeling indicate that ice 
sheet mass loss is highly sensitive to changes in oceanic melting of 
floating ice shelves.
To understand this sensitivity and its potential impact on future sea 
level rise, ACME scientists have introduced new, variable-resolution 
ocean and sea-ice models for simulating the key processes responsible 
for delivering warm waters to the base of Antarctic ice shelves.
The proposed research includes a suite of simulations of varying 
resolution and complexity designed to:
(1) validate the ACME ocean models in global, coupled configurations 
with ocean circulation in ice shelf cavities;
(2) explore the influence of global climate on sub-ice shelf melting 
(and vice versa);
(3) explore the impact of anticipated changes in climate on sub-ice 
shelf melting.
The simulations will produce a greatly improved understanding of the 
coupled interactions between ice sheets, oceans, and global climate, 
which is a necessary first step in being able to accurately project 
future sea-level change using dynamic ice sheet models coupled to Earth 
System Models.
The research brings together the new ACME capability of modeling ice 
sheet-and-ocean interactions with DOE's expertise in climate modeling 
and high performance computing, and applies it to the pressing question 
of future ice shelf melting in Antarctica.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRn69Vs1vco

*
*[Intersection of Health and Climate]*
Multisolving at the Intersection of Health and Climate 
<https://www.climateinteractive.org/programs/multisolving/multisolving-at-the-intersection-of-health-and-climate/>*
Lessons from Success Stories
Around the world, people are innovating in ways that improve health and 
protect the climate, often while saving money. What can we learn from 
these projects, and how can we create more of them?
We interviewed the leaders of ten such initiatives and presented our 
findings on what is possible and how it can be accomplished in 
Multisolving at the Intersection of Health and Climate: Lessons From 
Success Stories 
<https://d168d9ca7ixfvo.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Multisolving-at-the-Intersection-of-Health-and-Climate-1.pdf>, 
which was supported by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Join a webinar 
<https://www.climateinteractive.org/get-involved/webinars/> discussing 
these cases and other pathways to protecting the climate while also 
improving health. You can also read our press release 
<https://d168d9ca7ixfvo.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/CI-Climate-Health-Press-Release-Feb-2018.pdf>.
Climate Interactive creates interactive, scientifically rigorous tools 
that help people see connections, play out scenarios, and see what works 
to address the biggest challenges we face.
https://www.climateinteractive.org/programs/multisolving/multisolving-at-the-intersection-of-health-and-climate/


[Florida Health]
*If you live in Florida, doctors say climate change is already affecting 
your health 
<http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/environment/article199310404.html>*
BY ALEX HARRIS
The popular thought is that the future impacts of a warming globe are 
just that, problems for the future.
But doctors in Florida say the changing climate is a public health risk, 
one they already see in their waiting rooms right now. Now, some 
clinicians have formed a new group to sound the alarm.
They want to educate people and policymakers about the dangers of a 
hotter, more humid world, and the risks to their most vulnerable patients...
"Being in Florida especially, you can't not realize what's happening to 
our climate," she said. "I see it right now on a day-to-day basis."
She's not alone. Doctors across the state are worried too, and some have 
banded together to form Florida Clinicians for Climate Action. The group 
is so new it doesn't have a leadership structure or a set agenda yet, 
but members said they want to make sure people know how climate change 
is already affecting public health.
The data on short term effects of global warming are sparse - likely 
because the process is so slow moving and the changes are, for now, 
minor - but doctors said they know what they see and they're ready to act.
Heat worsens asthma, heart and lung disorders and even mental illnesses. 
Rising seas push floodwater polluted by leaky sewage pipes into 
neighborhoods. A changing climate helps spread mosquito-bourne diseases 
(think Zika), and research shows it makes hurricanes stronger and more 
common.
And who's most vulnerable? The same people that always are, doctors say: 
low income populations, the elderly and people of color...
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/environment/article199310404.html


[climate tort]
*Paris, Inspired by New York City, Considers Climate Suit Against Oil 
Companies 
<https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2018/02/09/paris-climate-liability-suit/>*
Paris could become the first city in Europe to try to defray the cost of 
climate change by taking fossil fuel companies to court.
The City Council passed a resolution 
<https://350.org/press-release/paris-explores-climate-lawsuit-against-fossil-fuel-companies/> 
this week to examine suing oil and gas companies to pay for the costs of 
climate impacts. It also wants to explore lobbying other major cities to 
pull their investments from fossil fuel producers, which have 
historically generated good returns for investors....
Legal experts often cite a lawsuit in the Netherlands as the best case 
law for recognizing the connection between emissions and climate change. 
In /Urgenda Foundation v. The State of Netherlands/, the court said 
<https://elaw.org/nl.urgenda.15>in 2015 the government must cut the 
country's emissions more aggressively because the Netherlands shared the 
blame for the rising global temperatures, even if its carbon footprint 
wasn't as great as other countries'.
New York City isn't the first American city to file climate lawsuits 
against oil and gas companies. Seven other cities and counties, all in 
California, have filed similar lawsuits. Los Angeles 
<https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2018/01/13/climate-lawsuit-los-angeles/> 
and Boulder in Colorado have talked about doing the same.
https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2018/02/09/paris-climate-liability-suit/
[Press Release]
*Paris explores climate lawsuit against fossil fuel companies 
<https://350.org/press-release/paris-explores-climate-lawsuit-against-fossil-fuel-companies/>*
The city council also decided to lobby other major cities such as London 
to ban fossil fuels from their investments through the C40 Cities 
Climate Leadership Group, of which the mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo is 
president. The council also announced that it will release an update on 
the progress that has been made since it pledged to divest from fossil 
fuels in 2015
https://350.org/press-release/paris-explores-climate-lawsuit-against-fossil-fuel-companies/
[International Case Law]
*Urgenda Foundation v. The State of the Netherlands 
<https://elaw.org/nl.urgenda.15>*
The Hague District Court found that the Netherlands must do more to 
avert the imminent danger posed by climate change in view of its duty of 
care to protect and improve the living environment. In addressing the 
fact that Dutch contribution to global climate emissions is 0.5%, the 
Court said:  "[I]t has been established that any anthropogenic 
greenhouse gas emission, no matter how minor, contributes to an increase 
in CO2 levels in the atmosphere and therefore to hazardous climate 
change." Para. 4.79.  In addition, the Court found a sufficient causal 
link "can be assumed to exist" between Dutch emissions, global climate 
change, and the effects. The Court determined the Dutch government must 
reduce CO2 emissions by a minimum of 25% (compared to 1990) by 2020 to 
fulfill its obligation to protect and improve the living environment 
against the imminent danger caused by climate change.
https://elaw.org/nl.urgenda.15
*Opinion (English translation) 
<https://elaw.org/system/files/urgenda_0.pdf>*
https://elaw.org/system/files/urgenda_0.pdf
*CLIMATE CASE EXPLAINED 
<http://www.urgenda.nl/en/climate-case/legal-documents.php>*
SUMMARY
In a letter to Urgenda, the Dutch government acknowledged that its 
actions are insufficient to prevent dangerous climate change. Urgenda 
concludes that The Netherlands is therefore knowingly exposing its own 
citizens to dangerous situations, in which they and their children will 
suffer serious hardship. In legal terms, that is a wrongful act of the 
State. The Dutch Supreme Court has consistently upheld the principle 
that the government can be held legally accountable for not taking 
sufficient action to prevent foreseeable harm. Urgenda argues that this 
is also the case with climate change. The Urgenda Foundation and its 
co-plaintiffs believe that preventing dangerous climate change is not 
only morally and politically the right thing to do, but also that it is 
a legal obligation that cannot be ignored.
http://www.urgenda.nl/en/climate-case/legal-documents.php
[2015 Video English subtitle]
*Verdict in Dutch climate case - with English subtitles 
<https://youtu.be/aY7eLKJWLxQ>*
Published on Jun 25, 2015
Urgenda and nine hundred co-plaintiffs were victorious in the climate 
case June 24th 2015, forcing the Dutch government to adopt more 
stringent climate policies. The district court of The Hague has granted 
the plaintiffs' claims, and the government is now required to take more 
effective climate action to reduce the Netherlands' considerable share 
in global emissions. *This is the first time that a judge has legally 
required a State to take precautions against climate change. This 
verdict will provide support to all the other climate cases around the 
world.*
More information and the whole verdict and press releases in English 
http://www.urgenda.nl/en/
https://youtu.be/aY7eLKJWLxQ


[National Geographic]*
**How Virtual Reality Affects Actual Reality 
<https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/02/virtual-reality-helping-nfl-quarterbacks--first-responders/>*
The technology helps quarterbacks learn plays, first responders recover 
from PTSD, and everyone get a grip on climate change.
*One of the bold claims you make is that VR can help save the planet. 
Describe the thinking here, and how an experiment on the island of 
Ischia, in Italy, is helping combat ignorance about climate change.*
Climate change science is very abstract, so it's hard for a person to 
fathom a world in which there are extreme weather events and higher sea 
levels and how it's going to affect his or her daily life. So what we 
did in Ischia was take a marine site that scientists have been studying 
for decades, which shows how carbon dioxide is destroying coral and 
degrading the food web...

    I can't bring the entire world to Ischia to show how CO2 degrades
    ecosystems. But with VR, I can bring Ischia to people. So we
    produced a seven-minute journey that shows how all the oceans will
    look like in about 50 years, based on this one site in Ischia. Using
    this VR model, people get to be a scientist, explore the effects of
    CO2 on various species in the ecosystem and organically learn by
    doing...

We've tested it in high school and college classrooms; thousands of 
people go through it at different museums. We have a permanent 
installation at the San Jose Tech Museum and we've brought it to the 
U.S. Senate, where senators and congressmen and congresswomen can 
experience it. I can confidently say that this simulation increases 
knowledge about climate change by showing them, viscerally, how it is 
going to affect us all...

*What's the difference between watching a video of this and sticking on 
a headset and VR goggles?*
The difference centers on what psychologists call "embodied cognition," 
which is, we learn by doing. For a lot of the most important learning 
events in your life, you actually did something; you walked somewhere or 
felt something. VR gives people an active, not passive, opportunity to 
explore a space to learn in ways that people have been learning for 
hundreds of thousands of years. That is, having an experience.
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/02/virtual-reality-helping-nfl-quarterbacks--first-responders/


*This Day in Climate History February 11, 1988 
<http://c-spanvideo.org/program/Energ> -  from D.R. Tucker*
February 11, 1988: In a speech on environmental and energy policy in
Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Democratic presidential candidate Michael
Dukakis declares: "We need someone in the White House who understands
that the United States must be a leader on international environmental
questions."
(29:20-29:50) http://c-spanvideo.org/program/Energ
/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
//Archive of Daily Global Warming News 
<https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote/2017-October/date.html> 
//
/https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote//
///
Send email to subscribe <a%20href=%22mailto:contact at theClimate.Vote%22> 
to news clippings. /

        *** Privacy and Security: * This is a text-only mailing that
        carries no images which may originate from remote servers.
        Text-only messages provide greater privacy to the receiver and
        sender.
        By regulation, the .VOTE top-level domain must be used for
        democratic and election purposes and cannot be used for
        commercial purposes.
        To subscribe, email: contact at theclimate.vote with subject: 
        subscribe,  To Unsubscribe, subject: unsubscribe
        Also youmay subscribe/unsubscribe at
        https://pairlist10.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/theclimate.vote
        Links and headlines assembled and curated by Richard Paulifor
        http://TheClimate.Vote delivering succinct information for
        citizens and responsible governments of all levels.   List
        membership is confidential and records are scrupulously
        restricted to this mailing list.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote/attachments/20180211/0202baea/attachment.html>