[TheClimate.Vote] January 26 , 2018 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Fri Jan 26 10:26:54 EST 2018
/January 26, 2018/
[WashingtonPost reports;]
*Weather.com devoted its entire site to climate change today. Here's
why.
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2018/01/25/weather-com-devoted-its-entire-site-to-climate-change-today-heres-why/>*
It's a 50-state project, and it's the only thing you'll see on
Weather.com today - stories from New England to Hawaii on how people and
ecosystems are adapting (or failing to adapt) to climate change and the
new, extreme weather that comes with it.
Splashed across the front page in font that's big enough for your
partially blind grandmother: "There is no climate change debate."..
All 50 stories are part of the website's series called "United States of
Climate Change." There are long-form stories, some investigations,
videos and photos, rolled into one project to "communicate the reality
of climate change across the country," according to Weather.com, which
is owned by IBM...
"Those investigations and, ultimately, the project as a whole, came to
much the same conclusion," Hayes said in a news release.*"America is
unwilling to invest in mitigating the effects of climate change to the
degree that future safety and stability requires."*
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2018/01/25/weather-com-devoted-its-entire-site-to-climate-change-today-heres-why/
-
[Weather.com]
*THERE IS NO CLIMATE CHANGE DEBATE. <https://weather.com/>*
*50 States, 50 Stories*
Climate Change is Already Here
<http://features.weather.com/us-climate-change/>
To engage in a debate about the reality of climate change is to deny
that there is a remarkably wide - and sincere - consensus among those
who study the subject most intently. The basic mechanism of climate
change was described in 1896, and while the climate system is wickedly
complicated, humans' understanding of climate change and the factors
which might alter or mitigate it has only grown over the past century.
http://features.weather.com/us-climate-change/
https://weather.com/
[Insurance Journal]
*Insurance Industry Making 'Significant Contributions' in Climate Change
Battle, Report Shows
<https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2018/01/25/478540.htm>*
The insurance industry is making significant contributions to building
socio-economic resilience to climate change and supporting the
transition to a low-carbon economy in their role as risk management
experts and investors, according to a new research report.
The report out this week from the Geneva Association, an international
insurance industry think tank, also notes that several challenges are
hindering the industry's efforts to scale up its contributions.
The report, "Climate Change and the Insurance Industry: Taking Action as
Risk Managers and Investors
<https://www.genevaassociation.org/sites/default/files/research-topics-document-type/pdf_public/climate_change_and_the_insurance_industry_-_taking_action_as_risk_managers_and_investors.pdf>,"
is based on interviews with 62 C-level executives at insurance and
reinsurance companies.
download PDF:
https://www.genevaassociation.org/sites/default/files/research-topics-document-type/pdf_public/climate_change_and_the_insurance_industry_-_taking_action_as_risk_managers_and_investors.pdf
The Geneva Association is putting forward three recommendations to
accelerate the contributions of the industry to address climate change:
- Third-party stakeholders such as governments, policymakers,
standard-setting bodies and regulators across sectors should work in
a more coordinated fashion to address barriers that hinder insurers
from scaling up their contribution to climate adaptation and mitigation.
- The insurance industry should continue to institutionalize climate
change as a core business issue, expand its contributions towards
building financial resilience to climate risks and support the
transition to a low-carbon economy by collaborating with governments
and other stakeholders.
- Governments and the industry should explore ways to support
climate resilient and decarbonized critical infrastructure through
the industry's risk management, underwriting and investment functions.
The group called the move by Pruitt, who has openly doubted claims that
climate change is being primarily driven by the burning of fossil fuels,
as an "abuse of power and an affront to the scientific integrity of the
EPA," and it asserts taht the directive singles out scientists from the
nonprofit and academic sector and forces them to choose between public
service and their scientific work.
"It's another example of this administration's hostility to independent
scientific input and basing policy on impartial and balanced scientific
evidence," the group stated. "The directive inherently prevents the
agency from receiving independent scientific advice, and erects
unnecessary barriers to scientists who want to use their expertise to
serve the public."
https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2018/01/25/478540.htm
[FEWS.NET]
[Global Weather Hazards]
*Drought reported as high temperatures and dry conditions continue in
southern Africa
<http://www.fews.net/global/global-weather-hazards/january-26-2018>*
http://www.fews.net/global/global-weather-hazards/january-26-2018
[video Peter Sinclair]
*"Ain't Gonna Happen.": Trump's Pathetic, Backwards and Doomed War on
the Planet
<https://climatecrocks.com/2018/01/25/aint-gonna-happen-trumps-pathetic-backwards-and-doomed-war-on-the-planet/>*
Worried about Republican lust to despoil, poison and pollute offshore areas?
Listen to veteran journalist Keith Schneider's 4 minute analysis above,
and you won't need a chill pill.
As in so, so many examples we have from the Trump administration, just
because they say it, does not make it so.
*Politico*
In addition, Trump and his appointees face limits on their
authority. And in some cases, he has taken a compromise position,
for example by choosing a solar tariff low enough to ease the damage
to U.S. companies that rely on access to low-cost panels from abroad
for solar power plants and rooftop arrays.
"I believe that the wish of the administration to generate again new
jobs in old technologies is clearly determining their policy agenda,
but that policy agenda has so far not been able to match up against
the realities of the unrelenting pace of the energy transition,"
said Jules Kortenhorst, CEO of Rocky Mountain Institute, a
clean-energy advocacy group.
*ThinkProgress:*
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is facing criticism from the White
House for his unexpected decision to exempt Florida from the
administration's sweeping new proposal to subject essentially all
federal waters to offshore oil and gas drilling, according to news
reports....
In response to Zinke's move to exempt Florida, both Democratic and
Republican governors have called for their coastal states to be
spared from the offshore drilling expansion. On the Atlantic Coast,
Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R), a strong Trump ally, is the only
governor who has said he favors offshore oil and gas drilling. Zinke
has pledged to meet with other governors after they publicly asked
for their states to be taken off the list, but there has been no
word on any other possible exemptions, even though they're objecting
on the same grounds as Florida Gov. Rick Scott...
*Christian Science Monitor:*
For all its tough trade rhetoric in the past year, especially
against China, the Trump administration's first enforcement actions
of 2018 will have a measured and temporary impact...
In short, the tariff won't kill solar power, but also won't create
momentum for new investment that could push the industry forward.
https://climatecrocks.com/2018/01/25/aint-gonna-happen-trumps-pathetic-backwards-and-doomed-war-on-the-planet/
[NPR report - MICHAELEEN DOUCLEFF]
*Are There Zombie Viruses In The Thawing Permafrost?
<https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/01/24/575974220/are-there-zombie-viruses-in-the-thawing-permafrost>*
"I noticed a red spot on the front of my leg," Peterson says. "It was
about the size of a dime. It felt hot and hurt to touch."
The spot grew quickly. "After a few days, it was the size of a
softball," he says.
In the past few years, there has been a growing fear about a possible
consequence of climate change: zombie pathogens. Specifically, bacteria
and viruses - preserved for centuries in frozen ground - coming back to
life as the Arctic's permafrost starts to thaw...
The idea resurfaced in the summer of 2016, when a large anthrax outbreak
struck Siberia...
A heat wave in the Arctic thawed a thick layer of the permafrost, and a
bunch of reindeer carcasses started to warm up. The animals had died of
anthrax, and as their bodies thawed, so did the bacteria. Anthrax spores
spread across the tundra. Dozens of people were hospitalized, and a
12-year-old boy died.
On the surface, it looked as if zombie anthrax had somehow come back to
life after being frozen for 70 years. What pathogen would be next?
Smallpox? The 1918 flu?
The media took the idea of "zombie pathogens" and ran with it...
"Climate change ... could awaken Earth's forgotten pathogens," The
Atlantic wrote in November. "Many of these pathogens may be able to
survive a gentle thaw - and if they do, researchers warn, they could
reinfect humanity."...
Now there are some tantalizing hints that the Arctic is, indeed, a
frozen champ maudits, filled with pathogens even more dangerous than
anthrax. Across the permafrost - which covers an area twice the size of
the U.S. - there are tens of thousands of bodies preserved in the frozen
soil. Some of these people died of smallpox. And some died of the 1918
flu - a strain of influenza that swept the globe and killed more than 50
million people...
Back in 1994, erosion exposed the body of a 6-year-old girl completely
encased in ice for about 800 years. "Water had seeped into her burial,"
Jensen says. "So we took her out as a block of ice."
"When you open up frozen bodies from Alaska, all the organs are right in
place and easily identified," Zimmerman says. "It's not like Egyptian
mummies where everything is shrunk and dried up."...
When I finished writing this story in December, I ended it with a faint
warning about the dangers of human curiosity. I was convinced that the
only way "pathogens" would rise up from the permafrost was if a
scientist bent over backward to resurrect the creatures in the lab. The
chance of it happening naturally seemed infinitesimally small.
But then I received an email from Zac Peterson: "After kneeling in
defrosted marine mammal goo ... doctors treated me for a seal finger
infection," Peterson wrote. A photo showed a purplish-red infection
covering the front of his knee.
Seal finger is a bacterial infection that hunters contract from handling
the body parts of seals. The infection can spread rapidly into the
joints and bones. Sometimes people lose fingers and hands...
"I still tell people that I got infected by an 800-year-old strain of a
seal hunter's disease that was trapped in ice."
Peterson just might be the first victim of "zombie bacteria" rising from
Alaska's thawing permafrost.
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/01/24/575974220/are-there-zombie-viruses-in-the-thawing-permafrost
[EveningStandard]
*Join the resilience band: why learning how to fight back is the key to
thriving in 2018
<https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/resilience-buzzwords-2018-a3748386.html>*
Resilience is set to be 2018's first buzzword
*Use anti-mindfulness*
There isn't a magic spell to make everything go away. Instead, they
advocate anti-mindfulness: "letting go of the notion that we will find
'balance' and instead embracing the world's numerous imbalances".
Resilient individuals turn challenges into opportunities. For example,
on the Carteret Atoll, seven tiny islands near Papua New Guinea, rising
sea levels have been embraced and used as a chance to build a vibrant
new community. Don't stick your head in the sand - start digging your
own way out..
How we think about stress matters. Shift your focus from eliminating it
to changing your perception of it. Citing a 2013 Harvard study, the
Marstons say that "when we stop trying to avoid it, stress can actually
energise us". Learn your stress threshold and work with it...
Question your default mindset, and interrupt cycles of negative inner
dialogue. The book claims there are six Type R characteristics:
adaptability, having a healthy relationship with control, a willingness
to learn continually, a sense of purpose, leveraging support, and
engaging with others. Resilience doesn't mean closing yourself off, it
means adapting to adversity, which can be hard. These, therefore, are
your Type R tools. ..
She says she wanted to set an example for her children, to explain that
everyone struggles and everyone has a story. "I grieved for about 10
minutes," she said. Then she began thinking about how to move forward.
Speak out against the issues that cause turbulence for those around you,
but ask yourself some questions: do I have the necessary information to
be able to speak up? Do I have a moral obligation to speak up?
Create a Type R culture. The world we live in is more interconnected
than ever. Get synched. Build Type R "emotional-deference systems",
adversity-resistant support networks that absorb setbacks by using the
mindset.
https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/resilience-buzzwords-2018-a3748386.html
[WaPo Energy and Environment]
*Storm waves moved this 620-ton boulder, scientists say - a stunning
testament to the ocean's power
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/01/23/storm-waves-moved-this-620-ton-boulder-researchers-say-a-stunning-new-testament-to-the-oceans-power/?utm_term=.92ee72e80ef8&wpisrc=nl_green&wpmm=1>*
By Chris Mooney...
A 620-ton boulder - equivalent in mass to about 90 large African
elephants - moved several meters on the island of Inishmore in the
winter of 2013-2014 after being slammed by powerful coastal storm waves,
according to the research led by Rónadh Cox, a geoscientist at Williams
College. It was just one of more than 1,000 boulders that moved along
Ireland's coasts during the storms, many of them quite large, Cox said.
The researchers detected six boulders weighing more than 100 tons and 18
weighing more than 50 tons that had been displaced by waves.
"We had boulders that were north of 100 tons, sitting tens of meters
above sea level and tens of meters inland of the high tide mark, that
got moved several meters, or several tens of meters," said Cox. "There
were boulders that were created from bedrock that were ripped up and
disaggregated and the pieces flung into the boulder ridge at 90 meters
inland and 15 meters above sea level."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/01/23/storm-waves-moved-this-620-ton-boulder-researchers-say-a-stunning-new-testament-to-the-oceans-power/
-
[Source]
*Extraordinary boulder transport by storm waves (west of Ireland, winter
2013–2014), and criteria for analysing coastal boulder deposits
<https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012825217302350>*
***Abstract*
Before-and-after photos of supratidal coastal boulder deposits (CBD)
in the west of Ireland show that storms in the winter of 2013–2014
transported boulders at elevations up to 29 m above high water, and
at inland distances up to 222 m. Among the clasts transported are
eighteen weighing more than 50 t, six of which exceed 100 t. The
largest boulder moved during those storms weighs a fairly
astonishing 620 t.
The boulders moved in these recent storms provide pinning points for
mapping storm-wave energies on coasts: their topographic positions
mark elevations and distances inland reached by wave energies
sufficient to dislocate those specific masses. Taken together, the
CBD data reveal general relationships that shed light on storm-wave
hydrodynamics. These include a robust correlation (inverse
exponential) between maximum boulder mass transported and
emplacement height above high water: the greater the elevation, the
smaller the maximum boulder size, with a dependency exponent of
about -0.2 times the elevation (in metres). There is a similar
relationship, although with a much smaller rate-of-change (exponent
-0.02), between boulder mass and distance inland, which holds from
the shoreline in to about 120 m. Coastal steepness (calculated as
the ratio of elevation to inland distance) seems to exert the
strongest control, with an inverse power-law relationship between
maximum boulder mass and slope ratio: the more gentle the
topography, the larger the moved boulders.
Quantifying CBD dynamics helps us understand the transmission of
wave energies inshore during high-energy storm events. The
transported boulders documented here are larger than many of those
interpreted to have been moved by tsunami in other locations, which
means that boulder size alone cannot be used as a criterion for
distinguishing between tsunami and storm emplacement of CBD. The
biggest blocks-up to 620 t-are new maxima for boulder mass
transported by storm waves. We predict, however, that this record
will not last long: the 2013–2014 storms were strong but not
extreme, and there are larger boulders in these deposits that didn't
move on this occasion. Bigger storms will surely move larger clasts,
and clasts at greater distances from the shoreline. These
measurements and relationships emphasise the extreme power of storm
waves impacting exposed coastlines, and require us to rethink the
upper limits of storm wave energy at coasts.
*Conclusions and Implications*
...In the space of just a few years, discussions of boulder transport
have flipped from a state where there was no observational evidence for
storm wave dislocation of boulders in excess of 50 t to the current
situation,
where new reports of boulders exceeding those criteria are
published every year.
The data presented here ratchet the ceiling for storm-wave transport
up another
notch. We are sure, however, that these new record masses will soon be
exceeded, because although the 2013–2014 storms were powerful, from
a long-term perspective they were not that special. Stronger storms
have hit Ireland in the past and will again: all indicators are that
larger
boulder movements will be documented in the future.
Documenting boulder creation and transport during these events is
one step in a long journey. Showing that storms can move giant rocks is
one thing. Understanding the hydrodynamics behind the data is quite
another. These data contribute to the growing realisation that CBD are
dynamic and that storms are a more powerful sedimentologic force than
was hitherto recognised.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012825217302350
Download PDF
<https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012825217302350#>
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012825217302350#
[Cartoon Sarcasm]
*The billionaire's guide to surviving global warming – with Ian the
Climate Denialist Potato
<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/22/the-billionaires-guide-to-surviving-global-warming-with-ian-the-climate-denialist-potato>*
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/22/the-billionaires-guide-to-surviving-global-warming-with-ian-the-climate-denialist-potato
[Psychology Today]*
**Saving the Planet Feels Good*
<https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/social-dilemmas/201801/saving-the-planet-feels-good>A
new study explains how "warm-glow" helps us act green.
Posted Jan 08, 2018
*Feeling good vs. doing good*
These results are consistent with philosopher Peter Singer's theory that
warm-glow givers are emotional altruists who help because it makes them
feel good, and not necessarily because it is the most logical or
effective action one could take. For example, recycling may help people
feel good about saving the environment, but practically, it's not the
most impactful behavior (e.g., compared to buying green energy).
Nonetheless, the finding that people derive and anticipate internal
pleasure from helping to save the planet, even just a little, is
something to be harnessed, nurtured, and celebrated.
I therefore disagree with the perspective that "emotional" altruism
stands in the way of "effective" altruism-there is room for both. As
comedian Bob Hope once said, if you haven't got any charity in your
heart, you have the worst kind of heart trouble.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/social-dilemmas/201801/saving-the-planet-feels-good
*This Day in Climate History January 26, 2011
<http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/01/26/207407/brulle-climate-change-obama-sotu-address/>
and 2013 <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/50597193#50597193>-
from D.R. Tucker*
*January 26, 2011:* Prof. Robert Brulle of Drexel University rips
President Obama for avoiding any specific mention of climate change in
his 2011 State of the Union Address, noting:
"What I see going on here is that Obama is following the rhetorical
advice of David Axelrod and groups like ecoAmerica, who argue that
the American public is unwilling to deal with climate change.
"So rather than make the case for climate change and the necessity
of action, this approach focuses on 'clean' energy and research and
development as a way to make a transition to a different energy mix.
This is considered the popular, no pain, 'energy quest' approach
that relies on a mystical belief in R&D to address climate change.
The Obama administration appears to have bought this approach
completely as the politically popular way to address this issue. In
my opinion, this approach has several major drawbacks, and
effectively locks in massive and potentially catastrophic global
climate change."
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/01/26/207407/brulle-climate-change-obama-sotu-address/
*January 26, 2013: *MSNBC's Chris Hayes praises President Obama's vow to
combat climate change in his State of the Union address, and notes that
Obama can take action to cut carbon emissions despite the House of
Representatives' "depraved kind of denialism" on climate.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/50597193#50597193
/
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