[TheClimate.Vote] January 25, 2018 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Thu Jan 25 09:17:03 EST 2018
/January 25, 2018/
[Davos Joke]*
**France's Macron uses his Davos speech to roast Trump's climate denial
<https://thinkprogress.org/macron-trump-climate-denial-joke-davos-5a138dd7b8b5/>*
Macron has tried to position himself as a leader on climate action since
taking office.
Since taking office in 2017, French President Emmanuel Macron has
positioned himself as the antithesis to President Donald Trump's climate
denial. Throughout the last year, Macron has been one of the Paris
climate agreement's most outspoken proponents, hosted a climate
conference in Paris (to which Trump was not invited) and even began
offering United States climate scientists grants to come and continue
their work in France.
On Wednesday, Macron brought his passion for upstaging Trump on climate
issues to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, kicking off
his speech with a joke about the U.S. president's history of climate denial.
Macron began his speech in Davos by talking about the irony that a
conference about globalization is taking place in a part of the world
cut off from its surroundings by snow, immediately transitioning to a
jab at President Donald Trump's climate denial.
"For sure, with Davos, when you look outside, it could be hard to
believe in global warming," Macron siad. "Obviously, and fortunately,
you didn't invite anyone skeptical with global warming this year."
The comment was an apparent swipe at Trump, who tweeted in December that
the East Coast, which was suffering through a historic cold snap at the
time, could "use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our
Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS
to protect against."
https://thinkprogress.org/macron-trump-climate-denial-joke-davos-5a138dd7b8b5/
[NPR]
*Is There A Ticking Time Bomb Under The Arctic?
<https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/01/24/575220206/is-there-a-ticking-time-bomb-under-the-arctic>*
A short drive north of Fairbanks, Alaska, there's a red shed stuck right
up against a hillside. The shed looks unremarkable, except for the door.
It looks like a door to a walk-in freezer, with thick insulation and a
heavy latch. Whatever is behind that door needs to stay very cold.
"Are you ready to go inside?" asks Dr. Thomas Douglas, a geochemist at
the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
from Transcript
<https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=575220206>
DOUCLEFF: You see, the thing is, basically anything that's died in
the Arctic over the past hundred-thousand years is buried and
preserved down here. The permafrost is packed with plants, like this
grass, and dead animals, like those woolly mammoths we saw earlier.
All this life is made of carbon. In fact, there's a massive amount
of carbon down here. There's more carbon trapped in this permafrost
than all the carbon humans have spewed into the atmosphere, first
with steam trains then with their cars, planes, coal plants,
everything we've done since the Industrial Revolution.
DOUGLAS: The permafrost contains twice as much carbon as is
currently in Earth's atmosphere, 1,600 billion metric tons.
DOUCLEFF: Right now this carbon is trapped, frozen. So the big
question is what happens to this carbon as the permafrost thaws?
Because, you see, there's not just dead creatures in the permafrost.
Down here, we are also surrounded by something that's coming back to
life. ..
DOUCLEFF: Once the bacteria warmed up, they were hungry, and they
started eating the dead plants and animals, turning their carbon
into gases.
DOUGLAS: Both carbon dioxide and methane.
DOUCLEFF: Those are the two main gases that cause climate change.
Now, that was in the lab. But imagine these bacteria waking up as
the permafrost thaws all around the Arctic - in Canada, Greenland,
Russia, here in Alaska. Charles Miller is a chemist at NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory who studies permafrost. He says that in the
past few years they've started seeing the microbes here waking up,
warming up and releasing gases.
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/01/24/575220206/is-there-a-ticking-time-bomb-under-the-arctic
*Deadly metro Phoenix heat demands action, Maricopa County official says
<https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-environment/2018/01/23/deadly-metro-phoenix-heat-requires-action-maricopa-county-supervisor-steve-chucri-says/1058557001/>*
Central Arizona must adapt to increasingly dangerous heat waves, a top
Maricopa County official says, and he's pledging to work with Arizona
State University to do it.
Heat doesn't surprise anyone in a metro area that has always weathered
triple-digit temperatures in summers, but the triple-digit death toll
should, said Steve Chucri, who became chairman of the County Board of
Supervisors this month. He considers the lengthening season for extreme
heat a challenge to both public health and economic development.
"We have to start paying attention," said Chucri, a Paradise Valley
Republican.
An Arizona Republic investigation last fall found that a combination of
global warming and urban growth's tendency to retain heat has extended
Phoenix's 100-degree season by six weeks over the past century
<https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-environment/2017/10/18/deadly-heat-phoenix-getting-hotter-so-danger/694283001/>.
Last summer's 25 days at or above 110 degrees represented about a
doubling of the historical average.
At least 150 people in Maricopa County died of heat-related causes in
2016. For 2017, public health officials have confirmed 129
heat-associated deaths, with 51 still under investigation.
MORE FROM OUR SPECIAL REPORT:
*PART 1: Phoenix's heat is rising — and so is the danger
<http://azc.cc/2ywaqA6>*
*PART 2: How heat discriminates <http://azc.cc/2ikVe36>*
*PART 3: 2016 was Phoenix's deadliest year for heat <http://azc.cc/2x9EGxq>*
https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-environment/2018/01/23/deadly-metro-phoenix-heat-requires-action-maricopa-county-supervisor-steve-chucri-says/1058557001/
-
[Personal stories]
*The human cost of heat: 30 stories
<http://static.azcentral.com/human-cost-heat/>*
In 2016, 150 people in Maricopa County died of heat. Here are the
stories of 30 of them. Click on a name or photo to read more.
http://static.azcentral.com/human-cost-heat/
-
[UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA]
*Rise in severity of hottest days outpaces global average temperature
increase
<https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-01/uoc--ris012418.php>*
UCI study also finds megacities affected most by uptick in extreme-heat
events
Irvine, Calif., Jan. 24, 2018 - While our planet's average annual
temperature has increased at a steady pace in recent decades, there has
been an alarming jump in the severity of the hottest days of the year
during that same period, with the most lethal effects in the world's
largest cities.
Engineers at the University of California, Irvine have learned that
urban centers with more than 5 million inhabitants and parts of Eurasia
and Australia have been hardest hit by the accelerated growth in
short-term, extreme-heat events, resulting in lost lives, reduced
agricultural productivity and damage to infrastructure.
In a paper appearing in the American Geophysical Union journal Earth's
Future, the researchers report that their analysis of temperature
readings from the most recent 50- and 30-year periods rules out the
possibility that natural climate variability is to blame for the mercury
rising.
The researchers, from UCI's Henry Samueli School of Engineering,
highlighted an urban phenomenon known as the "heat island effect." In
human-made environments dominated by asphalt, concrete, glass and steel,
hot air lingers and the sun's scorching rays scatter and reflect off
hard surfaces. While expanses of green vegetation and water in nature
help to absorb or dissipate heat, cities amplify it.
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-01/uoc--ris012418.php
[The Antarctic Sun <https://antarcticsun.usap.gov/>]
*Podcast: The Lake Hoare Field Camp
<https://antarcticsun.usap.gov/features/contenthandler.cfm?id=4341>*
BY MICHAEL LUCIBELLA, ANTARCTIC SUN EDITOR
The Antarctic Sun Podcast is taking a behind-the-scenes look at the
workers and what they do to make science at the bottom of the world
possible.
This week: The Lake Hoare Field Camp
Antarctica is a big continent, and often researchers need to work in
regions far away from the main research station. They'll stay up to
weeks at a time in small field camps, which can range from a couple of
temporary tents, to rigid structures with a kitchen and laboratories
that people return to each year....
The Lake Hoare field camp is one of the busiest in the McMurdo Dry
Valleys. It's a hub for researchers who are coming in to study the
unique ecosystems around the valleys, one of the very few areas in
Antarctica not completely covered in snow. Camp staff like Rae Spain and
Renee Noffke keep the camp operating as helicopters land and researchers
cycle in and out.
https://antarcticsun.usap.gov/features/contenthandler.cfm?id=4341
https://antarcticsun.usap.gov/
[Conversation Earth - Audio ]
*NATURE DOESN'T NEGOTIATE: ROBERT JENSEN
<http://www.conversationearth.org/nature-doesnt-negotiate-robert-jensen-112-encore/>*
#112 ENCORE
"If there is to be a decent future, we have to give up on the
imperial fantasy of endless power, the capitalist fantasy of endless
growth, the technological fantasy of endless comfort…we should mourn
the world that these systems have created and search for something
better. Systems that celebrate domination are death cults, not the
basis for societies striving for justice and sustainability."
Bob Jensen is not afraid to speak the truth. He has an impressive body
of work, all holding up a mirror to our society so we can see what we
have created. We'll undoubtedly want to circle back and talk to him
again, as we just scratched the surface in this interview recorded in
October of 2015.
"This is the simple discovery which we must confront. We were given
a place in the creation, with a beauty beyond telling, and we have
failed to care for it. And as our collective contempt for the
non-human world has intensified, so has our contempt for each other.
We have failed to care for each other."
http://www.conversationearth.org/nature-doesnt-negotiate-robert-jensen-112-encore/
[Climate Progress - Joe Romm]
*Trump's solar tariff backfires: It hits red states and U.S. taxpayers
harder than China
<https://thinkprogress.org/trump-solar-tariff-backfires-36cb1c4f7fbc/>*
"Southern states like Texas, Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina among
the most impacted."
On Monday, President Donald Trump slapped a 30 percent tariff on
imported solar cells and panels.
But while the White House said the goal was to punish China for an
industrial policy aimed at taking over the global solar market, the
harsh reality is that the president is going to end up punishing the
states that voted for him the most. On top of that, U.S. taxpayers are
actually going to end up paying for half of any tariff.
Analysis provided to ThinkProgress by GTM Research concludes, "new and
emerging state markets are disproportionately affected [by the new
tariff], with southern states like Texas, Florida, Georgia, and South
Carolina amongst the most impacted by the tariffs." All of those states
voted for Trump in the 2016 election.
MJ Shiao, GTM's head of Americas Research, explained in an interview
that the states hurt the most by the new tariff are the "hot markets
that are on the cusp of becoming economic for solar," or that just
became economic thanks to the steady and rapid price drops for solar
cells and panels. Those states are disproportionately found in the South
and Southeast.
In addition to punishing emerging markets in several red states, experts
say the new tariff will also backfire for all U.S. taxpayers. "The U.S.
federal government will end up footing some of the bill for Trump's
decision," Hugh Bromley, a Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) solar
analyst, said in an email. "Half of any increase in system costs will be
offset through the tax code via the Investment Tax Credit and depreciation."
https://thinkprogress.org/trump-solar-tariff-backfires-36cb1c4f7fbc/
[commentary]
*Betting the Earth on a Game of Wrap-Cut-Smash
<https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/01/24/betting-the-earth-on-a-game-of-wrap-cut-smash/>*
by STAN COX
The Earth is having to deal with continuous, largely unchecked emissions
of greenhouse gases, along with soil degradation, mass extinction of
species, destruction of ecosystems, and disruption of nitrogen,
phosphorous, and water cycles. Meanwhile, efforts to head off the
planet-wide ecological crisis remain trapped in a game of
rock-paper-scissors...
Of all the difficult conundra facing humanity, the search for a way out
of this wrap-cut-smash game is the most urgent. A society has to accept
the need for an ecologically imposed, quantitative ceiling on the
production of capital, goods, and services. And it must devise a system
that will ensure material sufficiency, fairly and for all, without
breaking through that ecological ceiling. Only then can it develop
appropriate green-energy capacity and adopt other policies and
technologies that can ensure good quality of life for all while keeping
within the necessary ecological restraints....
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/01/24/betting-the-earth-on-a-game-of-wrap-cut-smash/
[video classic]
*What Germany Can Teach Us About Home Energy <https://youtu.be/wtDbfV5dsNs>*
In this video, Ask This Old House plumbing and heating expert Richard
Trethewey takes host Kevin O'Connor on a tour of Germany with an eye
toward renewable energy and sustainable home heating.
https://youtu.be/wtDbfV5dsNs
*This Day in Climate History January 25, 1984
<https://youtu.be/TdMTTlpfNP4?t=21m52s><https://youtu.be/TdMTTlpfNP4?t=21m52s>
- from D.R. Tucker*
January 25, 1984: In his State of the Union Address, President Ronald
Reagan says something that would be considered highly controversial by
the right wing today:
"..and as we develop the frontier of space let us remember our
responsibility to preserve our older
resources here on earth preservation of our environment is not a liberal
or conservative challenge,
It's common sense, though this is a time of budget constraints, I have
requested for EPA,
one of the largest percentage budget increases of any agency we will begin
the long necessary effort to clean up a productive recreational area and
a special
national resource, the Chesapeake Bay.
To reduce the threat posed by abandoned hazardous waste dumps, EPA will
spend a
four hundred and ten million dollars and I will request a supplemental
increase of
50 million. And because the Superfund law expires in 1985 I've asked
Bill Ruckelshaus
to develop a proposal for its extension so there will be additional time
to complete this
important task on the question of acid rain which concerns people in
many areas of the United
States and Canada. I'm proposing a research program that doubles our
current funding and
will take additional action to restore our lakes and develop new technology
to reduce pollution that causes acid rain..."
https://youtu.be/TdMTTlpfNP4?t=21m52s
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=40205
/
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