[TheClimate.Vote] February 19, 2018 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

Richard Pauli richard at theclimate.vote
Mon Feb 19 11:28:35 EST 2018


/February 19, 2018/

*To Stop Climate Change, Educate Girls and Give them Birth Control 
<https://www.wired.com/story/to-stop-climate-change-educate-girls-and-give-them-birth-control/>*
Humanity is now facing an ever-increasing threat of unpredictable and 
extreme weather, climate scientists warn.
While global warming is creating more powerful storms and 
record-breaking, drought-driven wildfires, it would be a mistake to view 
these events as the "new normal," they say. The planet has not reached a 
new climate stability, so the years ahead could be quite a lot worse.
"'New normal' implies that we reach some new sort of equilibrium and 
that's where things stay, whereas what we're looking at is an 
ever-shifting baseline," says Penn State professor and atmospheric 
scientist Michael Mann.
"If we continue to emit these warming greenhouse gases into the 
atmosphere, then the heat waves will become more frequent and more 
intense, [along with] droughts, wildfires and floods," he continues. "We 
are seeing a taste of what's in store and there's no question in my mind 
that, in the unprecedented extreme weather that we've seen over the past 
year, we can see the fingerprint of human influence on our climate."
https://www.wired.com/story/to-stop-climate-change-educate-girls-and-give-them-birth-control/


[images]
*Photojournalist Joanna Pinneo on documenting climate change and the 
lives of women 
<https://www.csindy.com/coloradosprings/photojournalist-joanna-pinneo-on-documenting-climate-change-and-the-lives-of-women/Content?oid=10247849>*
https://www.csindy.com/coloradosprings/photojournalist-joanna-pinneo-on-documenting-climate-change-and-the-lives-of-women/Content?oid=10247849


[audio too]
*Climate change will accelerate extreme weather events in the coming 
years 
<https://www.pri.org/stories/2018-02-18/climate-change-will-accelerate-extreme-weather-events-coming-years>*
Humanity is now facing an ever-increasing threat of unpredictable and 
extreme weather, climate scientists warn.
While global warming is creating more powerful storms and 
record-breaking, drought-driven wildfires, it would be a mistake to view 
these events as the "new normal," they say. The planet has not reached a 
new climate stability, so the years ahead could be quite a lot worse.
"'New normal' implies that we reach some new sort of equilibrium and 
that's where things stay, whereas what we're looking at is an 
ever-shifting baseline," says Penn State professor and atmospheric 
scientist Michael Mann.
"If we continue to emit these warming greenhouse gases into the 
atmosphere, then the heat waves will become more frequent and more 
intense, [along with] droughts, wildfires and floods," he continues. "We 
are seeing a taste of what's in store and there's no question in my mind 
that, in the unprecedented extreme weather that we've seen over the past 
year, we can see the fingerprint of human influence on our climate."
Scientists have long predicted the type of events that occurred in 2017. 
A warming Earth and warming oceans would supply more energy to intensify 
hurricanes and killer storms; more moisture in the atmosphere would 
increase the amount of heavy rainfall leading to Harvey- and Irma-like 
floods; and, while it seems paradoxical, as the rainfall events become 
more intense, they would be fewer and farther between, creating more 
widespread drought.
"The impacts of climate change are no longer subtle," Mann says. "We are 
seeing them play out now in the form of these unprecedented events."...
"So, there isn't a new normal," he concludes. "Things get continually 
worse if we go down this highway. What we need to do is to take the 
earliest exit ramp that we can in the form of decreasing our emissions 
and transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy."
https://www.pri.org/stories/2018-02-18/climate-change-will-accelerate-extreme-weather-events-coming-years


[Weather talk for Stormchasers - convention videos]
*Chasercon 2018 - Denver Colorado 
<https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBtR7ynKM9odz-PW_7uyzDw>*
SevereStudios Streamed live on Feb 17, 2018
SevereStudios provides severe weather information, news, videos, radar, 
GPS tracking, and live streaming real-time video from the field from 
storm chasers all over the world at http://www.severestudios.com
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBtR7ynKM9odz-PW_7uyzDw
-
[Saturday Afternoon at Chasercon 2018]
*Storm chaser convention LIVE from Denver Colorado. 
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCoU9XTxjIw>* Brought to you by 
AllisonHouse and SevereStudios
Dr Greg Forbes - *Perspectives on the Evolution of Severe Weather 
Forecasting and Evolution*
Dr Jason Persoff - *When Duct Tape Isn't Enough: Advanced First Aid and 
Necessary Medical Chase Equipment*
David Mayhew - *Tips and Tricks on photographing the weather*
Doug Kiesling - *Rights & Clearances*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCoU9XTxjIw
-
["Global Warming Manifesting"]
*Perspectives on the Evolution of Severe Weather Forecasting and 
Evolution <https://youtu.be/PCoU9XTxjIw?t=48m55s>
*/Mentions Global Warming //
//CAPE = Convective Available Potential Energy/
https://youtu.be/PCoU9XTxjIw?t=48m55s

*
**Networks spent 260 minutes on 'climate change' in 2017. Most of it was 
actually about Trump.* 
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2018/02/16/networks-spent-260-minutes-on-climate-change-in-2017-most-of-it-was-actually-about-trump/?utm_term=.58f8d70071db>
Climate scientists agree global warming is playing a role in our 
weather. It's making storms, droughts and floods more extreme. Amid the 
chaos, the Trump administration itself issued a report last year that 
said not only is climate change affecting our weather but also there's 
no other explanation for climate change than we (humans) are to blame...
Despite all this, network news largely took a pass on covering climate 
change in 2017, according to new analysis by the liberal watchdog group 
Media Matters for America. Corporate news networks aired six segments 
that mentioned the link between extreme weather and climate change. PBS, 
which is nonprofit, aired nine segments alone...
To be clear, the 260-minute tally is the combined corporate network 
coverage of climate change; the survey includes ABC, CBS, and NBC 
evening news and Sunday morning programs, as well as "Fox News Sunday," 
which airs on both the Fox network stations and Fox News cable station...
The Sunday shows themselves, which are traditionally about politics, 
devoted 95 minutes to climate change, and 94 of those minutes were about 
the Trump administration.
Network news devoted vast majority of climate change segments to the 
Trump administration in 2017..
Of all the segments that discussed climate change, 87 percent were 
focused on the Trump administration's actions or statements.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2018/02/16/networks-spent-260-minutes-on-climate-change-in-2017-most-of-it-was-actually-about-trump/?utm_term=.58f8d70071db


[oh darn]
*Leaked U.N. draft report sees 'very high risk' the planet will warm 
beyond key limit 
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/02/14/leaked-u-n-climate-report-sees-very-high-risk-the-planet-will-warm-beyond-key-limit/?utm_term=.1bdd289ec370>*
A draft United Nations climate science report contains dire news about 
the warming of the planet, suggesting it will likely cross the key 
marker of 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, of temperature 
rise in the 2040s, and that this will be exceedingly difficult to avoid.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/02/14/leaked-u-n-climate-report-sees-very-high-risk-the-planet-will-warm-beyond-key-limit/?utm_term=.1bdd289ec370


[new ways to measure carbon in permafrost]
*Global Warming's Frozen Giant 
<https://www.insidescience.org/news/global-warmings-frozen-giant>*
Scientists are braving Arctic winters to study carbon frozen in soil. 
They keep finding surprises -- all of them bad...
The organic molecules that make up living things are full of carbon, and 
when living things die, that carbon returns to the environment.
In warm places, bacteria and fungi usually transform most of it into 
carbon dioxide or methane, both greenhouse gases that contribute to 
climate change. But when it's cold, dead things rot slowly.
Permafrost regions in the Arctic and on mountaintops have been burying 
dead things for tens of thousands of years, and researchers estimate 
that their soils now hold twice as much carbon as Earth's entire 
atmosphere. Most of this soil carbon remains perpetually frozen. Each 
summer, the top layer thaws, allowing decomposers to break down its 
stored carbon and release that carbon into the air...
The ash-corrected measurements showed that the warmed plots had lost a 
quarter of their carbon in just five years. The loss was primarily from 
depths of 13-22 inches, well below the 4-inch limit of Crowther's study. 
Schuur presented the findings in December at the American Geophysical 
Union meeting in New Orleans.
To the best of Schuur's knowledge, the ash correction method has never 
before been used with permafrost soils. That could mean that past 
experiments in other parts of the Arctic may have missed big carbon losses.
Extrapolating from ash-corrected measurements and global warming 
projections, Schuur estimated that soils at his site in Alaska could 
lose two-thirds of their carbon by the end of the century. Previously, 
he had estimated that Arctic soils as a whole would lose just 5 to 15 
percent of their carbon stocks in the same time frame...
https://www.insidescience.org/news/global-warmings-frozen-giant


[Book Review]
*Who Is Guilty of Climate Crimes? 
<https://www.globalresearch.ca/who-is-guilty-of-climate-crimes/5629490>*
These are the key perpetrators of the largest human rights violation in 
history.
By Dr. Margaret Klein Salamon
Global Research, February 17, 2018
A fascinating exposé of the climate crisis awaits you in Peter Carter 
and *Elizabeth Woodworth's, "Unprecedented Crime: Climate Science Denial 
and Game Changers for Survival."*  It is a comprehensive look at the 
climate crisis through a legal frame, discussing the relevant national 
and international statutes and lawsuits, with a focus on the 
perpetrators of the climate emergency that confronts us all.
Human rights are explored at length, including the critical concept of 
"basic rights," the right to things necessary for human life- fresh 
water, food, and non-toxic air, which must come before non-basic rights. 
The author's quote the 1980 Presidential Commission on World Hunger on 
basic rights: "Whether one speaks of human rights or basic human needs, 
the right to food is the most basic of all. Unless that right is first 
fulfilled, the protection of other human rights becomes a mockery." With 
that frame, it becomes obvious that the climate crisis is indeed an 
"unprecedented crime," as it strips people from their access to the 
building blocks of life, and it is happening on an almost 
incomprehensibly massive scale.
*State-Corporate Crime*
Not surprisingly, the authors' focus is primarily on the fossil fuel 
corporations-who are engaged in an elaborate, multi-billion dollar 
misinformation campaign - and on the governments who have subsidized 
them and colluded with them through inaction. These are the key 
perpetrators of the largest human rights violation in history.
It was fascinating, and sickening, to learn more about how the 
climate-denial machine actually works, such as the Heartland Institute 
mailing a climate-denying DVD to 200,000  high school science teachers. 
The description of the Koch brothers' activities was particularly 
staggering:
'The Kochs are a vertically integrated fossil fuel conglomerate, and 
they have a vertical integrated influence-peddling apparatus to go with 
it'… The Kochs are bigger than either of the Democratic or Republican 
parties, manipulate both, and are determined to keep the Senate 
Republican…A major focus of Koch money has been to ensure that no 
legislation is passed to curb the burning of fossil fuels.
Carter and Woodworth also cast their withering gaze on the media. They 
convincingly argue the media is guilty of criminal negligence for giving 
airtime to deniers and for failing to warn the public about the true 
nature of the climate crisis and about the banks that put billions of 
dollars into fossil fuel projects.
*Are Ordinary Americans Guilty?*
Clearly, there is a lot of guilt to go around. The authors cast some- 
though in my view probably not enough-blame onto the citizens of rich 
countries, for their their complicity in the climate crisis.
The authors speak of the "moral collapse" that most Americans and other 
westerners experience regarding the climate crisis, and they quote Clive 
Hamilton,
"there are three kinds of actors in this process of subversion: those 
who tell the lies, those who repeat the lies, and those who allow 
themselves to be seduced by the lies."
Most Westerners act as though the climate crisis was not happening, and 
as if they have no responsibility to help prevent catastrophe.
Americans tend to feel like victims rather than perpetrators. And 
indeed, we are victimized by the corrupt and cruel system that is deeply 
unequal and driving hard towards ecocide. But when we are complicit in 
"business as usual," we are also perpetrators. My grandmother was a 
Holocaust survivor, and she impressed upon me the moral duty to confront 
evil. She felt so betrayed by the former friends who would not stand up 
for her and who avoided her on the street. One didn't have to be a Nazi 
to be guilty, but just to go along with the genocide.
As citizens, we must start taking personal responsibility for preventing 
the full and horrific unfolding of the climate emergency.  Even though 
we did not directly cause the climate crisis, we still have - it is 
still our job to fix it. More specifically, we must force our government 
to treat the climate crisis like the emergency it is.
One of the most difficult things about climate crimes, is that they are 
primarily crimes of omission. All we need to do to ensure the deaths of 
billions of people is…. Nothing. Just continue with our lives and our 
business as usual. In order to act in accordance with our highest 
ideals, our morality, and our basic common sense, we need to activate 
ourselves, and the world's governments- we need to enter "emergency mode".
*A Non-Criminal Response*
What would an adequate, non-criminal response to the climate crisis 
would look like? Carter and Woodworth describe it. It starts with a 
declaration of climate emergency, and that then leads to a program which 
rapidly transitions our economy to zero emissions and draws-down of 
excess C02 from the atmosphere. Their ideas are largely compatible with 
The Climate Mobilization's Victory Plan. that they cite.
They include many fresh and exciting examples that The Climate 
Mobilization should be incorporate into our next version. I will just 
share a few items that were new and exciting to me: 1) retrofitting 
fossil fuel cars as electric (indeed 30,000 already have been- by 
amateurs!) 2) using small nuclear fission, the type of reactors that 
power nuclear submarines, to provide industrial power and heating, 3) 
covering skyscrapers- not just roofs- with solar panels.
I believe that it is my moral duty- and yours, and everyone's- to do all 
we can to ensure that this emergency mobilization for rescuing our 
climate gets started as soon as humanly possible. Thank you, Peter 
Carter and Elizabeth Woodworth, for your important contribution to this 
necessary effort.
Margaret Klein Salamon, Phd is co-founder and director of Climate 
Mobilization. Klein earned her doctorate in clinical psychology from 
Adelphi University and also holds a BA in Social Anthropology from 
Harvard. Though she loved being a therapist, Margaret felt called to 
apply her psychological and anthropological knowledge to solving climate 
change. Follow her and Climate Mobilization on Twitter: @ClimatePsych / 
@MobilizeClimate
https://www.globalresearch.ca/who-is-guilty-of-climate-crimes/5629490


*This Day in Climate History February 19, 2006 
<http://www.cbsnews.com/news/a-global-warning/>  -  from D.R. Tucker*
February 19, 2006: The CBS program "60 Minutes" reports on the effects 
of human-caused climate change in the Arctic.
Corell says all that water will push sea levels three feet higher all 
around the world in 100 years.

    "You and I sit here, another foot. Your children, another foot. Your
    grandchildren, another foot. And it won't take long for sea level to
    inundate," says Corell.

    "Sea level will be inundating the low lands of virtually every
    country of the world, ours included," Corell predicts.

    To find the sights and sounds of the arctic melting, there are few
    places better than a fjord in Greenland, with a glacier just a short
    distance away.

    Pelley stood on a huge block of ice that had split off from the
    glacier and had dropped into the sea — a big iceberg.

    "This part of Greenland is melting faster than just about any other.
    To get a sense of the enormity of what's happening, consider this:
    The ice that is melting here is the equivalent of all the ice in the
    Alps," Pelley explained, standing atop the iceberg.

    That's more than 105 million acres of melted ice in 15 years. Just
    four minutes after Pelley cleared off this berg, part of the ice
    caved in...

    Even if we stopped using every car, truck, and power plant —
    stopping all greenhouse gas emissions — Mayewski says the planet
    would continue to warm anyway. "Would continue to warm for another,
    about another degree," he says.

    That's enough to melt the Arctic — and if greenhouse gases continue
    to increase, the temperature will rise even more. The ice that's
    melting already is changing the weather by disrupting ocean currents...

    The White House also declined 60 Minutes' request for an interview.
    Corell, who first studied the issue for President Reagan, believes
    the climate change facts are in, even if President Bush does not.

    "When you look at the American government, which is saying
    essentially, 'Wait a minute. We need to study this some more. We
    can't flip our energy use overnight. It would hurt the economy.'
    When you hear that, what do you think?" Pelley asked.

    "Well, what I do then is, I try to tell them exactly what we know
    scientifically. The science is, I believe, unassailable," says
    Corell. "I'm not arguing their policy, that's their business, how
    they deal with policy. But my job is to say, scientifically, shorten
    that time scale so that if you don't push out the effects of climate
    change into the long, long distant future. Because even under the
    best of circumstances, this natural system of a climate will
    continue to warm the planet for literally hundreds of years, no
    matter what we do."
    By Bill Owens

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/a-global-warning/


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