[TheClimate.Vote] January 29, 2018 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Mon Jan 29 09:14:26 EST 2018
/January 29, 2018/
[theGuardian]
*Donald Trump says US could re-enter Paris climate deal
<https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/28/donald-trump-says-us-could-re-enter-paris-climate-deal-itv-interview>*
In ITV interview US president also says he would take tougher stand on
Brexit than Theresa May
Play Video 0:57 <https://youtu.be/NUT-IoSlTxk> https://youtu.be/NUT-IoSlTxk
Donald Trump has said the United States could re-enter the Paris climate
change agreement - and that he would have taken a "tougher stand" in
Brexit negotiations than Theresa May.
The US president said his country could join the international accord if
it had a "completely different deal" but called the existing agreement a
"terrible deal" and a "disaster" for the US.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/28/donald-trump-says-us-could-re-enter-paris-climate-deal-itv-interview
https://youtu.be/NUT-IoSlTxk
[Business Insider]
*'Call it atmosphere cancer' - How the world's best-known marketer would
tackle global warming
<https://nordic.businessinsider.com/why-marketer-seth-godin-thinks-storytelling--not-science--will-solve-climate-change--/>*
Seth Godin is a marketer and bestselling author whose work centers on
spreading ideas and building communities.
- Godin thinks action on global warming - "just like slavery or gay
rights" - depends on effective storytelling, which sparks a culture of
change.
- "If they were to call it 'atmosphere cancer' instead, the scientists
would be off to a better footing," Godin said in an interview with BI
Nordic.
- Much of Seth Godin's work - his famous blog; his books and TED talks -
convey the following: No product or idea will spread just because of a
brilliant technology or rock solid facts. In essence, people will
respond to stories that stand out, which creates culture, changes
behaviors, and leads to change.
"For starters, global is a good thing and warming is a good thing.
If [the scientists] had called it 'Atmosphere Cancer', they probably
would have started on a better footing: because atmosphere is
scientific and cancer is a bad thing. There are no cancer deniers.
Everyone knows that cancer is a chronic and degenerative disease,
and you need to stop it soon. "
This applies to the big societal changes too, Godin told Business
Insider Nordic at the Nordic Business Forum in Oslo, when asked about
the role of storytelling in solving societal problems, like climate
change: "[Storytelling] is the only thing that's going to solve it," he
said.
https://nordic.businessinsider.com/why-marketer-seth-godin-thinks-storytelling--not-science--will-solve-climate-change--/
[Haaretz]
*Locals Relish Rare Snow Fall in Saudi Arabia
<https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/locals-relish-rare-snow-fall-in-saudi-arabia-1.5769084>*
Social media users in Saudi Arabia shared videos of snow in Tabuk, in
the north of the kingdom on Saturday. One video shows a user picking up
fresh white snow and throwing it in excitement, while others show
near-deserted landscapes covered in flakes, with thick mist and cars
driving...
https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/locals-relish-rare-snow-fall-in-saudi-arabia-1.5769084
[RealClimate]
*The global CO2 rise: the facts, Exxon and the favorite denial tricks
<http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2018/01/the-global-co2-rise-the-facts-exxon-and-the-favorite-denial-tricks/>*
stefan @ 25 January 2018
The basic facts about the global increase of CO2 in our atmosphere are
clear and established beyond reasonable doubt. Nevertheless, I've
recently seen some of the old myths peddled by "climate skeptics" pop up
again. Are the forests responsible for the CO2 increase? Or volcanoes?
Or perhaps the oceans?
Let's start with a brief overview of the most important data and facts
about the increase in the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere:
1. Since the beginning of industrialization, the CO2 concentration
has risen from 280 ppm (the value of the previous millennia of the
Holocene) to now 405 ppm.
2. This increase by 45 percent (or 125 ppm) is completely caused by
humans.
3. The CO2 concentration is thus now already higher than it has been
for several million years.
4. The additional 125 ppm CO2 have a heating effect of 2 watts per
square meter of earth surface, due to the well-known greenhouse
effect - enough to raise the global temperature by around 1 degrees
C until the present....
The system was almost exactly in equilibrium before humans intervened.
That is why the CO2 concentration in the air was almost constant for
several thousand years (Figure 2). This means that the land ecosystems
took up 120 GtC and returned 120 GtC (the exact numbers don't matter
here, what matters is that they are the same). The increased uptake of
CO2 by forests and oceans of about 2 GtC per year each is already a
result of the human emissions, which has added enormous amounts of CO2
to the system. The ocean has started to take up net CO2 from the
atmosphere through gas exchange at the sea surface: because the CO2
concentration in the atmosphere is now higher than in the surface ocean,
there is net flux of CO2 into the sea. And because trees take up CO2 by
photosynthesis and can do this more easily if you offer them more CO2 in
the air, they have started to photosynthesize more and thus take up a
bit more CO2 than is released by decomposing old biomass. (To what
extent and for how long the land biosphere will remain a carbon sink is
open to debate, however: this will depend on the extent to which the
global ecosystems come under stress by global warming, e.g. by
increasing drought and wildfires.)
Filed under: Carbon cycle, Climate Science, Oceans, skeptics
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2018/01/the-global-co2-rise-the-facts-exxon-and-the-favorite-denial-tricks/
[Vox - Dave Roberts]
*Reckoning with climate change will demand ugly tradeoffs from
environmentalists - and everyone else*
<https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/1/27/16935382/climate-change-ugly-tradeoffs>
Being a climate hawk is not easy for anyone.
First, it's fine if an individual or group chooses to prioritize rivers
in Quebec or the safety risks of existing nuclear power plants over the
threat of climate change. Sincerely: it's fine. I don't personally agree
with that ranking, but people are entitled to their own values and
priorities...
When I first started covering climate change,..The only term available
to describe those concerned about climate change was
"environmentalists," and that just didn't work. Not all
environmentalists prioritize climate change and not everyone concerned
about climate change would self-identify as environmentalist.
Anyone who really digs in and follows the logic of climate change, who
understands both the risks and the extraordinary mobilization required
to avoid them, will eventually find that climate concern bangs up
against their other values and priorities...
I have called this climate change's "*totalizing tendency*"
<http://grist.org/climate-energy/everybody-needs-a-climate-thing/> - the
more you absorb it, the more it eclipses everything else.
It is genuinely difficult to wrap your head around the scale of action
needed to avoid catastrophic changes in the climate...
Just about *nobody is taking climate change completely seriously
<https://www.vox.com/2016/10/4/13118594/2-degrees-no-more-fossil-fuels>*
at present, because, let's face it, doing so is traumatic. To absorb the
full implications of climate change is to realize that even a level of
action beyond what's reasonable to hope for can at best avert the worst
of the damage. Changes in ecosystems that are effectively permanent and
irreversible are already underway; within the century, we will enter a
range of climate conditions entirely new to our species. There is no
"safe" available any more...
To take that seriously is to support massive, immediate carbon
reductions, not only at the level of theory, not only in statements and
proclamations and pledges, but in the sense of preferring the lower
carbon strategy in every local, city, state, or federal decision,
whether it's about land, housing, transportation, infrastructure,
agriculture, taxes, regulations, or lifestyle habits.
It means preferring the lower carbon strategy even if other things you
value must be sacrificed, even if the lower carbon strategy is
suboptimal in light of your other preferences and priorities.
Judged by that harsh criteria, pure climate hawks are a rare species
indeed. None of us can claim purity on that front, so we should show one
another compassion
<http://grist.org/climate-energy/everybody-needs-a-climate-thing/>. But
we should also, at every opportunity, drag our eyes back, unflinching,
to the terrible truth
<https://www.vox.com/2015/5/15/8612113/truth-climate-change>.
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/1/27/16935382/climate-change-ugly-tradeoffs
-
[Dave Roberts - Vox 2015]
*The awful truth about climate change no one wants to admit
<https://www.vox.com/2015/5/15/8612113/truth-climate-change>*
...The obvious truth about global warming is this: barring miracles,
humanity is in for some awful shit...
Even as many climate experts are now arguing that 2 degrees C is an
inadequate target, that it already represents unacceptable harms, we are
facing a situation in which limiting temperature even to 3 degrees C
requires heroic policy and technology changes.
And yet ... the world doesn't appear to be ending; there's no big,
visible threat. Climate change moves so slowly that its pace is evident
primarily through graphs and statistics. It rarely rises above the
background noise.
So people want to hear that there's hope of 2 degrees C. Politicians
want to say that there's hope of 2 degrees C. When asked, modelers are
still able to produce scenarios that show 2 degrees C. And nobody wants
to be the one to pee in the punch bowl.
https://www.vox.com/2015/5/15/8612113/truth-climate-change
-
[Dave Roberts 2015]
*Everybody needs a Climate Thing
<http://grist.org/climate-energy/everybody-needs-a-climate-thing/>*
"...I want to approach the notion of Climate Things from another angle.
They are easy to mock, in many cases misleading or distorting, but I
actually think they are key to understanding the sociopolitical
challenges of climate mitigation. It may be that the only road to
widespread mitigation is through Climate Things...
Climate is everything, which means everyone touches only a tiny piece of
it. Let people care about their birds or their pipelines or their
mountains or their tech startups or their research clusters or their
permaculture farms. Everybody needs a Climate Thing, a close-by proxy
through which they can express their climate concern in a way that has
local effects and tangible rewards. It is these proxies, these rich
anchors in our lived experience of nature and culture, that inspire us.
The important thing is that we're all moving our pieces in the right
direction."..
http://grist.org/climate-energy/everybody-needs-a-climate-thing/
-
[Roberts - 2017]
*No country on Earth is taking the 2 degree climate target seriously
<https://www.vox.com/2016/10/4/13118594/2-degrees-no-more-fossil-fuels>*
If we mean what we say, no more new fossil fuels, anywhere.
One of the morbidly fascinating aspects of climate change is how much
cognitive dissonance it generates, in individuals and nations alike.
The more you understand the brutal logic of climate change
<https://grist.org/climate-change/2011-12-05-the-brutal-logic-of-climate-change/>
- what it could mean, the effort necessary to forestall it - the more
the intensity of the situation seems out of whack with the workaday
routines of day-to-day life. It's a species-level emergency, but almost
no one is acting like it is. And it's very, very difficult to be the
only one acting like there's an emergency, especially when the emergency
is abstract and science-derived, grasped primarily by the intellect.
This psychological schism
<https://grist.org/article/why-climate-change-doesnt-spark-moral-outrage-and-how-it-could/>
is true for individuals, and it's true for nations.
https://www.vox.com/2016/10/4/13118594/2-degrees-no-more-fossil-fuels
*Citizens showing leadership in climate change issues
<http://www.ourmidland.com/news/article/Citizens-showing-leadership-in-climate-change-12531445.php>*
"The good news is that's already starting to happen, as voters all over
the country see storms growing stronger and more frequent, as they see
floods where they never had them before, and as they suffer through
droughts that are worse than they've ever experienced," Bloomberg
writes. "Americans are a lot smarter than the elected officials they
send to Washington. Our country's citizens want to avoid these disasters
- and they know they can do something about it."
Stressing that sea level rise is expected to be gradual, "we have time
to plan," David Shafer said. "It's not a crisis. But it will turn into a
crisis if we don't plan."
Sellers, an organizer of the Climate Justice Coalition, agrees that if a
community takes steps now it can at least reduce negative impacts in the
future.
"You have to act," Sellers said. "Paralysis has a guaranteed outcome."
http://www.ourmidland.com/news/article/Citizens-showing-leadership-in-climate-change-12531445.php
[Age 80 Video on Democracy Now]
*A Lifetime of Activism: Jane Fonda on Gender Violence, Indigenous
Rights & Opposing War in Vietnam <https://youtu.be/9FlyPEvjXUI?t=5m03s>*
What scares me...is the degree to which average people are not
getting news <https://youtu.be/9FlyPEvjXUI?t=5m03s>
the television stations, the radio stations are being bought up by
Sinclair and others
And this is it's really scary and you know I think that corporations
are determining what people hear, but there are some exceptions
obviously you know you MSNBC at night and others.
But that's why it's so important that people are on the ground
talking to people door-to- door.
you know working with in real organizations that have experience of
doing this kind of door-to-door work ...how important is that we
find a way to keep real news reaching people and it can't come from
Hollywood or the Democratic Party for that matter
https://youtu.be/9FlyPEvjXUI?t=5m03s
*This Day in Climate History January 29, 2006
<http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/nasa-scientist-muzzled/> - from D.R.
Tucker*
January 29, 2006: The New York Times reports on the extensive effort
by the George W. Bush administration to muzzle NASA scientist James
Hansen. (The controversy would also be covered by Air America's
"EcoTalk with Betsy Rosenberg" and the CBS program "60 Minutes.")
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/science/earth/29climate.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&
http://blogsofbainbridge.typepad.com/ecotalkblog/2006/02/ecotalk_82.html
http://youtu.be/x0i4Sx1edJE
http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/nasa-scientist-muzzled/
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