[TheClimate.Vote] January 13, 2018 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/January 13, 2018/

[connecting events]
*Southern California wildfires paved the way for deadly mudslides 
<http://abcnews.go.com/US/southern-california-wildfires-paved-deadly-mudslides/story?id=52257400>*
http://abcnews.go.com/US/southern-california-wildfires-paved-deadly-mudslides/story?id=52257400


[BBC business headline]
*Will Cape Town be the first city to run out of water? 
<http://www.bbc.com/news/business-42626790>*
By Gabriella Mulligan
Cape Town, home to Table Mountain, African penguins, sunshine and sea, 
is a world-renowned tourist destination. But it could also become famous 
for being the first major city in the world to run out of water.
Most recent projections suggest that its water could run out as early as 
March. The crisis has been caused by three years of very low rainfall, 
coupled with increasing consumption by a growing population.
The local government is racing to address the situation, with 
desalination plants to make sea water drinkable, groundwater collection 
projects, and water recycling programmes.
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-42626790
-
[Answer: 122 days]
*How many days of water does Cape Town have left? 
<http://www.howmanydaysofwaterdoescapetownhaveleft.co.za/>*
http://www.howmanydaysofwaterdoescapetownhaveleft.co.za/


[DeSmog]
*Will Mainstream Media Be Duped in 2018 by Climate Denial Spin Doctors? 
<https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/01/11/will-mainstream-media-be-duped-2018-climate-denial-spin-doctors>*
By Kevin Grandia
Will 2018 be the year that mainstream media is not duped by professional 
spin doctors and fake experts paid to downplay and deny the realities of 
climate change?
Call me cynical, but after more than a decade of research and writing 
into the role big fossil fuel companies have played in sponsoring 
coordinated attacks on climate science with public relations spin, I 
remain unconvinced we won’t see a resurgence in climate denial.
Later this year, a major update on the state of climate change research 
- the impacts, solutions, scientific underpinnings, etc. - will be 
released by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 
(IPCC).
In the past, these IPCC reports have turned into a lightning rod for 
attacks by organizations like the Heartland Institute and the 
Competitive Enterprise Institute, who claim to tout freedom and liberty 
as their cause, but enjoy big dollar sponsorship from coal and oil 
companies like Koch Industries, Murray Energy, and ExxonMobil.
IPCC climate reports are the Spin Olympics for these fossil-funded 
groups, with the winner reaping the rewards of notoriety and ultimately 
more funding to continue their disinformation campaigns...
The IPCC releases their updated report later this year, leaving more 
than enough time for any journalists covering climate change, energy and 
environmental issues to get up to speed.
To leave no room for excuses, here’s plenty of the well-documented 
history about how the fossil fuel industry paid to manufacture doubt 
about climate change:
2009 book, Climate Cover-Up <https://www.desmogblog.com/climate-cover-up>
2011 book, Merchants of Doubt <http://www.merchantsofdoubt.org/>
2014 documentary, Merchants of Doubt <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3675568/>
DeSmogBlog Climate Disinformation Database 
<https://www.desmogblog.com/global-warming-denier-database>
2013 Greenpeace Report: Dealing in Doubt 
<http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Greenpeace_Dealing-in-Doubt-1.pdf>
2017 Harvard paper: Assessing ExxonMobil's climate change 
communications (1977-2014) 
<http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa815f>
Inside Climate News Investigation into Exxon: the Road Not Taken 
<https://insideclimatenews.org/content/Exxon-The-Road-Not-Taken>
https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/01/11/will-mainstream-media-be-duped-2018-climate-denial-spin-doctors


[SkepticalScience]
*The Key To Slowing Global Warming 
<https://www.skepticalscience.com/Energy-Storage.html>*
Conclusion
As the effects of global warming increase (fires, severe storms, 
property loss, crop failures, floods), pressure will grow for all 
countries to adopt and apply financial measures (a carbon tax) which 
effectively curb CO2 emissions. There can be little doubt that financial 
measures can achieve this - but not the way they are currently applied. 
To overcome shortfalls described above, an international authority with 
responsibility for reporting annually on the effectiveness of financial 
measures and the performance of each UN Member Country, would appear to 
be needed.
These pressures, combined with market forces and national legislation 
banning fossil fuelled vehicles, will also put pressure on builders to 
produce and sell electric vehicles which are superior in terms of price 
and performance. This is beginning to happen with global electric 
vehicle sales likely to exceed 1 million in 2017. Sales are likely to 
rapidly increase and within the next 5 years cause a significant decline 
in the demand and use of oil-based products.
The transition from fossil fuel generation of electricity to renewable 
energy sources has already started and is irreversible. After 2020 it is 
unlikely that any fossil fuelled power station will be built anywhere in 
the world and, thereafter the use of existing stations is likely to 
decline with increasing speed. This trend will be enhanced by cheaper, 
denser and more compact storage of energy, enabling better management of 
local, national and international grids.
The present state of technology for improved battery storage, on which 
this transition largely depends, is not fully known since, for 
commercial reasons, advances in this area are kept secret. What is known 
is that battery costs continue to fall and their capacity continues to 
rise, giving more and more certainty it will result in use of fossil 
fuels ceasing before 2050, possibly sooner.
https://www.skepticalscience.com/Energy-Storage.html


[Idea: an underwater wall]
*A Radical New Scheme to Prevent Catastrophic Sea-Level Rise 
<https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/01/a-new-geo-engineering-proposal-to-stop-sea-level-rise/550214/>*
A Princeton glaciologist says a set of mega-engineering projects may be 
able to stabilize the world’s most dangerous glaciers.
..plan requires the construction of what he calls "sills": large, flat 
piles of material that sit on the seafloor. "It’s nothing particularly 
technologically advanced," he said. "I’m imagining something like a big 
pile of sand or other loose aggregate, and maybe an outer layer of 
boulders to protect against tides."
Simply constructing these large walls in front of the world’s most 
unstable glaciers, says Wolovick, might stop them from collapsing...
They would just be changes to the underwater topography of the ocean 
floor...
The ocean-facing front of Thwaites glacier is more than 60 miles across. 
Pine Island Bay glacier, another unstable ice flow linked to the WAIS, 
is about 25 miles across. And concerned countries might have to use 
submarines to build in either place, because some of the best 
construction sites available are beneath ice shelves that float on the 
surface of the sea...
Over the past several years, some scientists have identified a number of 
new mechanisms that may cause WAIS to fall apart even faster. One of 
them is called marine ice-cliff instability: As some glaciers in WAIS 
retreat further and further back, their icy fronts will tower 2,000 feet 
above above the sea floor. The ice simply won’t be strong enough to hold 
that much weight. Instead, the ice will crumble, and skyscraper-sized 
hunks of white will plunge into the water.
Another is hydrofracturing: As air temperatures get hotter in 
Antarctica, pools of water could form on the floating ice shelves. These 
pools of water could quickly disintegrate the ice beneath them, as 
happened in the Larsen Sea in 2002, when a Rhode Island-sized piece of 
ice fell apart in weeks. When ice shelves vanish, the landed glaciers 
behind them quicken their march to the sea.
Not every glaciologist agrees that the computer models get these 
mechanisms right yet. Last year, for instance, Robin Bell and her 
colleagues found an enormous waterfall on an ice shelf in Antarctica, as 
well as a number of other features that suggested pools of meltwater 
don’t always force ice shelves to disintegrate.
But when they are factored into computer models, the results are 
worrying. ...In a paper published last month, scientists accounted for 
those two new mechanisms and said that 2100 sea levels could actually 
hit 4 feet, 9 inches (146 centimeters) 
<http://geology.rutgers.edu/images/Kopp_et_al-2017-Earths_Future-2.pdf>. 
Some 153 million people, many of them Americans, would see their homes 
inundated...
Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist at the Carnegie Institution for 
Science, said that he would want to hear from engineers before investing 
further in a seafloor plan. "Without some numbers and some consultation 
with engineers, it is just a modeling thought experiment," he said in an 
email. "I do not have the expertise to evaluate this proposal, but I am 
quite skeptical."
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/01/a-new-geo-engineering-proposal-to-stop-sea-level-rise/550214/


[Speaking Notes #5]
OXFORD CHANGE AGENCY EVENT - REPORT
*Agency in individual and collective change 
<http://www.climatepsychologyalliance.org/explorations/papers/257-oxford-change-agency-event-report>*
Climate Psychology Alliance with Living Witness
Written by Laurie Michaelis
A day for psychological and social practitioners to share our 
experiences of enabling positive
responses to climate change. We’ll explore how our different approaches 
connect and complement
each other, hoping to form a stronger community of practitioners...
*Future Sense, Malcolm Parlett*
(Speaking notes)
Gestalt therapy, in its Paul Goodman version, moved away long ago from 
intra-psychic models of
human functioning in favour of attending equally to the immediate 
contexts of people’s lives, socioeconomic,
local community, and workplace as well as family. In emergencies and 
upheavals, we see
confirmation of people’s versatility, courage, and resilience - evidence 
of immense human
resourcefulness and collective energy that lie untapped most of the 
time. It’s difficult to imagine
meeting current global challenges without harnessing these latent 
strengths. The paramount need is
for greater agency, leadership, and collective action at every level: 
locally, nationally, worldwide. My
conviction is that this will only happen if people and organisations 
manifest higher levels of ‘Whole
Intelligence’, returning to the original meaning of the word: ‘sensible, 
knowing, far-seeing’.
Collectively, we need actively to support higher levels of this 
recognisable competence and human
capability in how we manage our affairs, make decisions, and collaborate 
effectively.
My work is therefore educational and holistic, outer and inner at the 
same time. I want to help create
conditions in which whole intelligence can emerge, grow and be 
nourished: through workshops,
seminars, solidarity movements, and opportunities for emotional support 
and social healing. I think of
each person as a live node in the linked network of same species 
planet-dwellers. Each has their share
of whole intelligence, whether in fragments or integrated, on which to 
build. Each person and group
has potential influence. Each node has effects on others and is affected 
by them. There’s inevitable
interdependence, mutual influence, and social contagion. The need to 
input more whole intelligence is
the key task.
Critically important to rebut are ideas-in-currency normalised by mass 
media and even universities,
that downgrade key dimensions of whole intelligence. A principal 
challenge is to question the absolute
supremacy of rational intellect, disabling the importance of embodying. 
Though necessary, rational
explanations and statistics are insufficient - as we saw in the 
referendum. Drawing on the body as an
equally necessary knowledge source changes the discourse. In witnessing 
forest devastation,
experiences of revulsion, grief, heart ache, are not quantifiable yet 
are powerful enough to change
attitudes and life directions. My colleague Giles Hutchins takes people 
into silence and solitude in the
woodland world, opening to encounters with trees, bird calls, seasons. 
People thrive on freedom to
move, listen, and be still - required for human health at the same time 
as cultivating a Gaian
sensibility.
So embodying practice is central to growing whole intelligence. Another 
dimension, another antidote
to Daily Mail levels of understanding, is about interrelating. 
Collaborations improve through skill
training in listening and not interrupting, but most of all from staying 
with differences to the point of
being curious and finding valuing in them, rather than trying to 
eliminate them. Supportive
interrelating practice makes for juicier contact, fewer words, greater 
impact, more trust.
A third dimension, self-recognising, opens to another range of skills. 
Mindfulness, reviews, sanitypreserving
routes through a mountain of trivia, assessing a group’s changing 
values, noticing stress
levels. As we know, stress-free nodes in the human network are 
invaluable, can change the energy
field. Experimenting, the fourth dimension mentioned here (there’s no 
fixed order) is about breaking
new ground, releasing creativity, practising when to risk and when to 
pull back; and handling the
shame phenomena that accompany doing something new or different. The 
fifth dimension is
responding to the situation, exploring how each person, project group, 
community, or whole
population habitually chooses to act, handles power, and finds courage 
for the right and necessary
Investigate, practise, incorporate. All five dimensions need to be in 
play. Good interrelating or
response-planning or being very embodied are insufficient on their own. 
Each needs the others - they
are interdependent, mutually reinforcing, a set of enabling principles 
and practices that are necessary
to grow and export as new norms. Together they put hope and confidence 
back on the map. Whole
intelligence is not simply adding EQ to IQ. There needs a new overall 
conception - increased whole
intelligence as an all-round fitness for practice in aid of both 
survival and flourishing today.
malcolm.parlett at virgin.net
www.fiveexplorations.com
(These ideas are explored in depth in Future Sense: Five Explorations of 
Whole
Intelligence for a World That’s Waking Up, Malcolm Parlett PhD, 2015, 
Troubador.)
http://www.climatepsychologyalliance.org/explorations/papers/257-oxford-change-agency-event-report


[Webinar Jan 16]
*Cities, climate change and corruption - issues, dynamics, strategies 
<https://cceobservatory.wordpress.com/>*
Webinar with Dieter Zinnbauer, Transparency International
Date: January 16, 2018, 2 - 3 pm CET
Ample evidence suggests that corruption has the toxic potential to 
disrupt both our ambitions for urban development as well as our response 
to climate change. This webinar will unpack the relationship between 
these three issues and provide an outlook on possible policy responses. 
More specifically we will broach the following three questions:
How do urbanisation, corruption and climate change interact? What are 
the main dynamics and interrelationships?
What are the major corruption obstacles and risks on the path towards 
resilient, green, climate-adapted cities?
Based on the experience of tackling corruption in related areas what are 
viable policy responses and practical action options to respond to the 
urban-climate-corruption challenge?
You are welcome to participate in the interactive webinar on January 16, 
2 - 3 pm CET. The slides of the presentation will be made available here 
ahead of the webinar.
https://cceobservatory.wordpress.com/


[ClimateAction]
*Stephen Hawking: "Next time you meet a climate denier tell them to take 
a trip to Venus" 
<http://www.climateactionprogramme.org/news/stephen-hawking-next-time-you-meet-a-climate-denier-tell-them-to-take-trip>*
In the second episode of his new series Stephen Hawking's Favourite 
Places the renowned theoretical physicist used the example of Venus to 
illustrate the impact increased greenhouse gases can have on a habitable 
planet.
"Venus is like Earth in so many ways, a sort of kissing cousin. She's 
almost the same size as Earth, a touch closer to the sun. She has an 
atmosphere", he explained.
NASA says that Venus looked very much like Earth 4 billion years ago and 
was habitable for approximately 2 billion years. The reason why the 
planet turned uninhabitable is due to increased greenhouse gases in its 
atmosphere.
As the planet warmed, and more heat was trapped in the atmosphere, water 
resources kept suffering excessive vaporing. The feedback loop continued 
until the oceans evaporated, affecting the planet’s capacity to 
accommodate life.
"This is what happens when greenhouse gases are out of control", he said.
"Next time you meet a climate-change denier, tell them to take a trip to 
Venus; I will pay the fare", he added.
Last June, Stephen Hawking said that the next 100 years will be very 
decisive for the future of the planet, with the main threats being a 
nuclear war, genetically engineered viruses and global warming.
In addition, he has openly criticised US President Donald Trump on his 
views on climate change and lack of action. Last July, when President 
Trump withdrew the US from the Paris Agreement he told BBC: "We are 
close to the tipping point where global warming becomes irreversible".
"Trump’s action could push the Earth over the brink to become like 
Venus. By denying the evidence of climate change and pulling out of the 
Paris Agreement, Donald Trump will cause avoidable environmental damage 
to our beautiful planet endangering us and our children"
http://www.climateactionprogramme.org/news/stephen-hawking-next-time-you-meet-a-climate-denier-tell-them-to-take-trip


[Video from TED Radio Hour]
*Tim Kruger: How Do We Slow Climate Change Before It's Too Late? 
<https://www.npr.org/2018/01/12/577435746/tim-kruger-how-do-we-slow-climate-change-before-its-too-late>*
Part 1 of the TED Radio Hour episode The Big Five.
  [transcript 
<https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=577435746> 
https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=577435746 ]
About Tim Kruger's TED Talk
To tackle climate change, geoengineer Tim Kruger is developing 
technology that could remove large quantities of CO2 from the 
atmosphere. But he says it takes unprecedented cooperation to make it work.
https://www.npr.org/2018/01/12/577435746/tim-kruger-how-do-we-slow-climate-change-before-its-too-late


[Climate History - Interactive data display]
*National Climate Report - Annual reports and map 
<https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/national/201413>*
NOAA's former three data centers have merged into the National Centers 
for Environmental Information (NCEI).
The demand for high-value environmental data and information has 
dramatically increased in recent years. To improve our ability to meet 
that demand, NOAA's former three data centers - the National Climatic 
Data Center, the National Geophysical Data Center, and the National 
Oceanographic Data Center, which includes the National Coastal Data 
Development Center - have merged into the National Centers for 
Environmental Information (NCEI).

NOAA Monthly Climate Briefings:

  * State of the Climate Reports <https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/>
  * Summary Information
    <https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/summary-info/national/201701>
  * Monthly Climate Briefings <https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/briefings>
  * RSS Feed
    <https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/rss.xml>

https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/national/201413
-
*National Centers for Environmental Information 
<https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/>*
NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) is 
responsible for preserving, monitoring, assessing, and providing public 
access to the Nation's treasure of climate and historical weather data 
and information.
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/

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