[TheClimate.Vote] June 8, 2018 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Fri Jun 8 09:50:31 EDT 2018
/June 8, 2018/
[Pipeline explosion]
*Gas line explosion rocks Moundsville area of northern W.Va., sends
flames high in air
<https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gas-pipeline-explosion-rocks-moundsville-area-northern-west-virginia-sends-flames-high-in-air/>*
A powerful gas line explosion sent flames shooting into the sky early
Thursday in the Nixon Ridge area of Marshall County, West Virginia,
reports CBS Wheeling affiliate WTRF-TV. The flames could be seen for
miles around.
The blast, in a TransCanada pipeline, was felt around 4:20 a.m., the
station says.
One person told WTRF it shook his house so badly it felt like a tornado
was ripping through the area.
Moundsville, W. Va. police told CBS News the fire was "very large - if
you can see it from your house, evacuate"
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gas-pipeline-explosion-rocks-moundsville-area-northern-west-virginia-sends-flames-high-in-air/
[Journal nature new report:]
*Sucking carbon dioxide from air is cheaper than scientists thought
<https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05357-w>*
NEWS 07 JUNE 2018
Estimated cost of geoengineering technology to fight climate change has
plunged since a 2011 analysis.
Jeff Tollefson
Siphoning carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere could be more than
anexpensive last-ditch strategy for averting climate catastrophe
<https://www.nature.com/news/2008/081217/full/news.2008.1319.html>. A
detailed economic analysis published on 7 June suggests that the
geoengineering technology is inching closer to commercial viability.
The study, in Joule, was written by researchers at Carbon Engineering in
Calgary, Canada, which has been operating a pilot CO2-extraction plant
in British Columbia since 2015. That plant - based on a concept called
direct air capture
<https://www.nature.com/news/commercial-boost-for-firms-that-suck-carbon-from-air-1.18551>
- provided the basis for the economic analysis, which includes cost
estimates from commercial vendors of all of the major components....
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05357-w
- - - -
[2015 news story]
Commercial boost for firms that suck carbon from air
<https://www.nature.com/news/commercial-boost-for-firms-that-suck-carbon-from-air-1.18551>
Two companies expand their extraction plants and line up customers.
https://www.nature.com/news/commercial-boost-for-firms-that-suck-carbon-from-air-1.18551
- - - -
[Caveats BECSS = bio-energy with carbon capture and storage]
*THE DIRTY SECRET OF THE WORLD'S PLAN TO AVERT CLIMATE DISASTER
<https://www.wired.com/story/the-dirty-secret-of-the-worlds-plan-to-avert-climate-disaster/>*
Wired 12-10-2017
The UN report (IPCC) envisions 116 scenarios in which global
temperatures are prevented from rising more than 2 degrees C. In 101 of
them, that goal is accomplished by sucking massive amounts of carbon
dioxide from the atmosphere - a concept called "negative emissions" -
chiefly via BECCS. And in these scenarios to prevent planetary disaster,
this would need to happen by midcentury, or even as soon as 2020. Like a
pharmaceutical warning label, one footnote warned that such "methods may
carry side effects and long-term consequences on a global scale."...
- - - -
The models assumed BECCS on a vast scale. According to an analysis that
British climate researcher Jason Lowe shared with Carbon Brief, at
median the models called for BECCS to remove 630 gigatons of CO2,
roughly two-thirds of the carbon dioxide humans have emitted between
preindustrial times and 2011. Was that reasonable?...
- - -
"The most important of the IPCC's projections is that we're screwed
unless we can figure out how to take CO2 out of the atmosphere, because
we haven't acted fast enough," she says. "I think that's the most
important part of the story...
https://www.wired.com/story/the-dirty-secret-of-the-worlds-plan-to-avert-climate-disaster/
[May 22nd flooding - repeated stress and distress]
*The psychological toll of Ellicott City's flooding
<http://www.dailyclimate.org/mental-health-impact-of-ellicot-city-floods-2575939674.html>*
Dailyclimate.org
The city's second major flood in two years could have a significant
mental health impact on residents wondering whether they should rebuild
CNN report https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKJQ5J1jXFw
Ellicott City was founded in 1772 around Main Street, "for a very
specific reason. It's a mill town," said Andy Miller, professor at
University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Three tributaries and the
Patapsco River powered the mill. Nowadays, Main Street is lined with mom
and pop stores and parked cars. In the summer months, visitors and
residents walk the streets, popping into the local businesses or
attending one of the summer movie nights at The Wine Bin...
- - - - - (see CNN May 27 video
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKJQ5J1jXFw>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKJQ5J1jXFw )
The street's residents and business owners were still recovering from a
flash flood in 2016 that ripped up the road and gutted businesses when
another storm hit May 27, dumping almost nine inches of water on the area.
The streets filled with water, almost as high as the second floor of
many of the buildings on Main Street. When the rain stopped, the rebuilt
businesses were once again destroyed and many ... were left without a home.
When events, like the flood, become overwhelming, they become traumatic
events. That can lead to traumatic stress... It's important to note that
traumatic stress is not abnormal or a sign of mental illness.
"Traumatic stress reactions are not a sign of weakness. It's just a sign
of being human," he said.
People often feel fear, anxiety, sadness, depression, anger or guilt, he
said. Typically the stress lasts about four to six weeks, he said.
But it can last longer, said Dr. Emanuela Taioli, director of the
Institute of Translational Epidemiology at Mount Sinai. Taioli has been
studying psychological reactions from Hurricane Sandy and found that the
anxiety lasted more than a year.
Jessica Lamond, a professor at University of West England Bristol, who
studies flooding in the United Kingdom, said that she has found people
have anxiety about rain as much as five years after severe flooding.
In addition to stress, people might also experience post-traumatic
stress disorder, especially in cases where a friend was in danger or the
water started reaching them, Taioli said...
- - - -
For Carney and Radinsky, the psychological impacts may be worse. Taioli
found that people who had gone through flooding before Hurricane Sandy
fared worse than the people who were experiencing their first flood.
A second flood can be demoralizing, said Richard Tedeschi, professor of
psychology at University of North Carolina Charlotte. But having gone
through a flood might mean that people know how to handle it and what
the recovery process is.
With such psychological impacts - and the threat of more flooding, will
the residents and business owners try to rebuild?...
- - - -
A sense of community can play into the decision to stay or leave. And
community members can also help people with their mental health. Paul
Hudson, a doctor of psychology at the University of Potsdam in Germany,
found that floods can bring communities together and help people rebuild.
Psychologists recommend the community members not affected by the flood
be a listening ear for people who need to talk. It can help them work
through the traumatic event, they said.
http://www.dailyclimate.org/mental-health-impact-of-ellicot-city-floods-2575939674.html
*
*[a little learning]*
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine says he changed his mind on the
existence of man-made climate change because he "read a lot."
<http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/391050-nasa-chief-on-changing-view-of-climate-change-i-heard-a-lot-of>*
By Aris Folley - 06/06/18
"I heard a lot of experts, and I read a lot," Bridenstine told The
Washington Post on Tuesday. "I came to the conclusion myself that carbon
dioxide is a greenhouse gas that we've put a lot of it into the
atmosphere and therefore we have contributed to the global warming that
we've seen. And we've done it in really significant ways."
The former congressman from Oklahoma had long denied the scientific
consensus on climate change and said in a 2013 speech on the House floor
that "global temperatures stopped rising 10 years ago."
In May, Bridenstine first announced publicly that he now believes human
activity is the main cause of climate change.
"The National Climate Assessment that includes NASA, and it includes the
Department of Energy and it includes NOAA, has clearly stated it is
extremely likely - is the language they use - that human activity is the
dominant cause of global warming," he said at a Senate Appropriations
Committee subpanel's hearing last month.
President Trump and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott
Pruitt have not made similar pronouncements, however.
Trump has long denied climate change is real, once saying without
evidence that it was "created by and for the Chinese in order to make
U.S. manufacturing noncompetitive."
Last December, the president tweeted during a period of cold weather
that "perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming."
In March, Pruitt told CNBC that he didn't think humans were a primary
contributor to climate change, saying there's "tremendous disagreement
about the degree of impact."
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/391050-nasa-chief-on-changing-view-of-climate-change-i-heard-a-lot-of
[Global Water Forum]
*Improving irrigation management in conditions of scarcity: Myth vs
Truth
<http://www.globalwaterforum.org/2018/05/22/improving-irrigation-management-in-conditions-of-scarcity-myth-vs-truth/>*
AGRICULTURE GOVERNANCE
May 22nd, 2018
Dr. Chris Perry, Emeritus Editor in Chief, Agricultural Water Management
"Often, myths serve the rhetorical purposes of particular
stakeholders. And they persist because our public policy debates are
not sufficiently grounded in solid technical and scientific
information about how we use and manage water."
Across the developed and developing world, important issues are widely
misunderstood, misrepresented or "mythologised" in the irrigation
sector. The result is excessive debate (and investment) based on
misconceptions - or the hope that different outcomes will be achieved if
the same experiment is repeated enough times. To improve analysis,
policy, and investments we must understand what science actually reveals
about the use and management of water in the irrigation sector. This
article will examine five myths that permeate the sector and contribute
to misunderstandings about how to tackle water scarcity within agriculture.
*Myth 1: There is an impending water crisis.*
In most places where irrigation is required, the fear of an impending
water crisis was accurate some decades ago. Today we are often well
beyond the threshold of physical sustainability: current demand exceeds
the renewable supply. A global study by Wada et al. concluded that
around 18% of current water consumption in irrigation depends on
groundwater depletion.2,3 This means that we need, on average, an 18%
reduction in irrigated crop water consumption just to restore the
balance between recharge and abstraction from aquifers...
- - - -
*Truth 1: We are already in a water crisis,* and the challenge for
irrigation is not about restricting additional future water consumption,
but rather reducing current consumption to restore balance and health to
rivers and aquifers.
*Myth 2: Large quantities of water can be saved by more "efficient"
irrigation.*
Irrigation systems deliver water to projects, farms, and fields. A
proportion of that water is "consumed" by crop transpiration and
evaporation from wet surfaces, leaving the local hydrological system as
water vapour. The rest of the water returns to the environment,
percolating into the soil or running off to drains. The FAO Report 43
reveals water "losses" at the local level often reappear as "sources" at
the catchment or aquifer level...
- - - -
*Truth 2: More "efficient" irrigation typically increases local water
consumption.*
*Myth 3: The productivity of irrigation water can be substantially
improved.*
This myth is half true, but separating the elements of truth from myth
is vital.
It is true that an improved irrigation service (better timing, higher
reliability, precise matching to the differentiated needs of a variety
of crops, etc.) facilitates conversion to higher value agriculture -
more water-sensitive, higher yielding cultivars, or a switch from basic
grains to vegetables or fruit...
- - - -
*Truth 3: Increased water productivity depends on multiple factors and
does not automatically follow from an improved irrigation service.*
*Myth 4: Water demand will fall as irrigation efficiency and water
productivity improve.*
Myth 4 is perhaps the most commonly believed.
Value added by irrigated agriculture can be maintained with lower water
consumption if the multiple interventions required to improve water
productivity are introduced. But because these enhancements generally
result in higher returns to water delivered to the farmer, water demand
and consumption are likely to increase: pumping will become more
affordable, marginal land more productive, and so on.
*Truth 4: As long as water is scarce, demand tends to increase as
irrigation efficiency and water productivity improve.*
*Myth 5: Pricing alone can fix water overconsumption issues.*
Broadly, two types of intervention can restrict and reduce water
consumption - pricing and some form of rationing.
Irrigation services are often provided at less than the cost of delivery
and far less than the value of water to the farmer. Moreover, most water
pricing regimes are designed so that the marginal cost is zero, which
means that there is no extra cost for each additional unit of water used.
- - - -
*Truth 5: While positive marginal pricing, if technically and
administratively feasible, will induce a reduction in demand, quotas
will inevitably be required to ensure that demand is constrained to
sustainable levels - which is why no country relies on pricing alone to
balance supply and demand in the irrigation sector.*
Conclusion
It is clear that popular assumptions about irrigation and water fail to
accurately convey the facts about irrigation. So, why do these myths
about the potential benefits of hi tech irrigation persist?
1. Farmers approve because the myths increase their (own) income and
save labour and chemicals.
2. Engineers approve because they like modern infrastructure and
money to spend on it.
3. Equipment suppliers approve because that is what they sell.
4. Politicians approve because they can claim to be saving the
environment, helping food security, and pleasing their constituents
all in one go.
5. (Some) planners and environmentalists approve because they
believe water will be released from irrigation to other uses,
including restoration of ecosystems.
6. "Experts" approve because they can recommend something and give
optimistic presentations with upward trending graphs at conferences.
7. Donors like it because they can fund something: policy reform is
cheap, hard, and slow. Modern equipment is expensive, easy, and quick.
8. Environmentalists often approve because they are told that water
will be released for ecosystems and sustainability improved.
*Thus, those who deny the myths have trouble gaining a foothold among
these groups.*
http://www.globalwaterforum.org/2018/05/22/improving-irrigation-management-in-conditions-of-scarcity-myth-vs-truth/
[Academic interest]
*The Seneca Effect: What It Is and Why It Is Important For Us
<https://thesenecatrap.blogspot.com/>*
Posted by Ugo Bardi
by Ugo Bardi
About 2,000 years ago, the Roman philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca wrote
to his friend Licilius noting that "growth is slow, but ruin is rapid".
It was an apparently obvious observation, but one of those observations
that turns out to be not obvious at all if you just think a little about it.
For example, do you remember Newton's apple? Everyone knows that apples
fall from the trees, but it took Newton to get out of this well-known
thing something that was not at all obvious: the law of universal
gravitation. It is the same thing for Seneca's observation that "ruin is
rapid." Everyone knows that it is true, think of a house of cards. But
why is it like this?
It turns out that Seneca's observation - which I dubbed "The Seneca
Effect" (or the "Seneca Cliff" or the "Seneca Collapse") is one of the
key elements we need to understanding the developments of what we now
call the "science of complexity." In the space of a few decades,
starting since the 60s of the twentieth century, the development of
digital computing has allowed us to tackle problems that, at the time of
Newton (not to mention those of Seneca) could not be studied except in a
very approximate way.
This new science has allowed us to penetrate a world that in a certain
sense was familiar to us: the world of real things that are born, grow,
and sometimes collapse in a ruinous way. But it was also a world that
once upon a time scientists, accustomed to describing everything with
equations, found it difficult to understand and which - in practice -
ignored. But there are no equations for certain natural phenomena such
as earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, or even for seemingly
simple things like the bursting of a balloon. Nor are there any
equations for phenomena such as the collapse of the empires, the
collapse of the stock market, the disappearance of political parties,
and many other things...
https://thesenecatrap.blogspot.com/
- - - -
[Ancient History]
*New Data Reveal the Hidden Mechanisms of the Collapse of the Roman
Empire
<http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2018/05/new-data-reveal-hidden-mechanisms-of.html>*
he Ancient Romans never understood what hit them. Nor did later
historians: there exist literally hundreds of theories on what caused
the fall of the Roman Empire. In 1984 Demandt listed 210 of them,
ranging from moral decline to the diffusion of Christianity. Today, some
historians still say that the fall is a "mystery" and some attribute it
to the improbable piling up of several independent factors which,
somehow, happened to gang up together.
Why is it so difficult to understand something that was so massive as
the fall of the Western Empire? There is more than one reason, but one
is the lack of data. We have scant written material about the last
centuries of the Empire and very little has arrived to us in terms of
quantitative data. Things are changing, though. Modern archaeology is
generating astonishing results telling us a lot about the mechanisms of
the collapse of the ancient Empire...
- -- -
So, you see how the Roman system went down in a cascade of effects that
was originated by the depletion of their precious metal mines. It was
slow and it wasn't recognized by the Roman themselves, nor by modern
historians. But it was unavoidable: no mine can last forever. It is
what's happening to us, today, with our "black gold," petroleum.
Depletion may well cause crude oil production to go through a "Seneca
Collapse" not because we are running out of oil, but because extracting
it is becoming progressively more expensive. A new perturbation, such as
a regional war, could be the straw that breaks the oil industry's back.
And that could have devastating consequences on the modern empire we
call "globalization".
http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2018/05/new-data-reveal-hidden-mechanisms-of.html
[all scientists: 11 min clip American Geophysical Union meeting Dec 2017]
*Scientist openly talks 2.5 meter Sea Level Rise by 2100
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMbMrcaZ7JE>*
Climate State - summary presentation
Published on Mar 23, 2018
Excerpts from the AGU 2017 Fall Meeting summary presentation of the
Climate Science Special Report, the Fourth National Climate Assessment.
First part on U.S. xtremes, second part discusses sea level rise.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMbMrcaZ7JE
Speakers
David R Easterling, NOAA Asheville
Robert E Kopp, Rutgers University, Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences
[and 1.5 feet by mid century]
[Original source videos - first hour series of presentations]
*(full video)2017 Fall Meeting - U23A: Climate Science Special Report
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDJP5RgKkj4>*
U23A: Climate Science Special Report: An Assessment of the Science
Focusing on the United States
Tuesday, 12 December 2017 *starts about 10:22 in*
Donald J Wuebbles, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign
Patrick C Taylor, NASA Langley Research Center
David R Easterling, NOAA Asheville
Robert E Kopp, Rutgers University, Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences
Michael F Wehner, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Benjamin Joseph DeAngelo, US Global Change Research Program
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDJP5RgKkj4
*
*[Realism meets Midwestern Can-Do attitude]
*Carl Pope | Keynote Session | Saint Louis Climate Summit
<http://www.ninenet.org/climate-summit-archive/>*
Nine Network
http://www.ninenet.org/climate-summit-archive/
Published on May 29, 2018
Carl Pope was a keynote speaker of the Saint Louis Climate Summit.
Carl Pope worked at the Sierra Club for nearly 30 years before stepping
down as its Executive Director in 2012. More recently, he is better
known for having written the insightful book, Climate of Hope: How
Cities, Businesses, and Citizens Can Save the Planet, which was
co-authored by Michael Bloomberg, former mayor of New York City. Climate
of Hope resonates with the message that even though we are "in a time
when national leadership seems bent on denying the facts of climate
change, and has failed to plan for its likely consequences,
smaller-scale efforts will achieve the desired results, by empowering
cities, regions, businesses, and citizens to accelerate the progress
they are already making on their own."
http://www.ninenet.org/climate-summit-archive/carl-pope-keynote-session/
- - - -
[Summit - 12 video speeches - to public audiences]*
2018 Saint Louis Climate Summit
<http://www.ninenet.org/climate-summit-archive/>
*Videos from the "Saint Louis Climate Summit"
On April 22-24, Saint Louis University in Missouri, USA hosted the
"Saint Louis Climate Summit: Working to Fulfill Pope Francis' Call to
Unite in Care of our Common Home." The Summit brought together some of
the most authoritative minds in climate science, ecology, sustainable
development, and related disciplines. Cardinal Peter Turkson, Mary
Evelyn Tucker, Heather Eaton, Richard Cizik, Peter Raven, Peter Gleick,
and many others participated. You can watch videos from the "Saint Louis
Climate Summit" here.
http://www.ninenet.org/climate-summit-archive/availability-of-water-and-sea-level-rise/
https://youtu.be/F97lI6jaGwU
*This Day in Climate History - June 8, 1990
<http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-8177663.html> - from D.R. Tucker*
June 8, 1990: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology hosts a
global-warming debate between climate scientist Stephen Schneider and
climate denier Dick Lindzen. Reporting on the debate the next day, the
Boston Globe notes:
"A long-anticipated showdown at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology yesterday between two prominent voices in the
global-warming debate brought little agreement about the reliability
of current predictions for the rate and magnitude of climate change.
But despite the seriousness of the topic, the event did provide a
theatrical and sometimes humorous presentation of the arguments on
either side.
"Underscoring the range of scientific opinion on the issue, the
organizers put MIT meteorologist Richard Lindzen on one side and
climate researcher Stephen Schneider of the National Center for
Atmospheric Research on the other side of a table divided down the
middle. Schneider, who believes there is a better-than-even chance
of 'unprecedentedly fast climate change' in the next century, sat at
the red end in front of a palm tree, while Lindzen, one the most
vocal skeptics, commanded the blue extreme before a scraggly spruce.
The moderator straddled the border.
"These models are made up of equations that are meant to represent
the important physical processes - such as motion and heat transport
in the atmosphere -- that work together to create weather and
climate. Based on the work of five climate modeling teams in the
United States and Britain and forecasts of energy use, scientists
have projected that the earth's average temperature will rise
between 3 and 9 degrees Fahrenheit by the middle of the next
century. While such a temperature rise might not sound like much,
climate researchers say that such a sharp rise in global temperature
in such a short time almost certainly would cause major shifts in
climate."
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-8177663.html
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