[TheClimate.Vote] June 17, 2018 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/June 17, 2018/

[video CBS ]
*Crews fighting Colorado wildfires battle gusty winds, dry conditions 
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3d_uiQbaoYQ>*
CBS Evening News
Published on Jun 14, 2018
Since June 1, firefighters have been battling wildfires in Colorado, 
where nearly 32,000 acres have burned. So far, the 416 Fire is only 15 
percent contained. CBS News correspondent Omar Villafranca reports from 
Durango
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3d_uiQbaoYQ
- - - - -
[Urban wildfire]
*Wildfire threatens urban area in Sweden 
<http://wildfiretoday.com/2018/06/16/wildfire-threatens-urban-area-in-sweden/>*
A wildfire in the Nacka area of Stockholm, Sweden burned close to an 
urban area on Friday. In addition to firefighters on the ground, 
scooping air tankers from Italy were seen working the fire.
Local authorities said Saturday morning that the fire's spread had been 
stopped:
We are in place and work with the remaining fires. It no longer burns up 
in trees or bushes, but down in the vegetation, moss roots and the like. 
We have the fire surrounded and it is controlled, but there is a lot to 
do in the area, "says operative manager Per Tillander, at Sodertorn's 
Fire Defense Association...
http://wildfiretoday.com/2018/06/16/wildfire-threatens-urban-area-in-sweden/
- - - - - -
[dry plus heat]
*The 416 Fire reminds us there's no escape from climate change 
<https://www.hcn.org/articles/wildfire-durangos-416-fire-reminds-us-theres-no-escape-from-climate-change>*
Rumors that a popular tourist train sparked the fire have forced a 
reckoning.
Jonathan Thompson PERSPECTIVE June 15, 2018
Flash forward to June 2018. Much like the Missionary Ridge Fire, the 416 
Fire has been ripping through forests north of Durango since June 1, 
sending up roiling clouds of smoke and diminishing the air quality for 
miles around. The current fire was sparked almost exactly 16 years after 
the former in similar vegetation. This time, though, the flames were no 
surprise. We knew that the dry winter of 2018 would usher in an 
explosive fire season, which is not to say that the region took enough 
precautions...
- - - - -
Thirty years ago, coal trains could run without consequence through the 
"asbestos forest" of the San Juan Mountain high country. The drought of 
2002, however, woke up the railroad's owners to a changing world, one in 
which the ravages of climate change can - and will - affect even a 
quaint little tourist train and the quaint little town that relies on 
it. The railroad adjusted accordingly, having a firefighting team follow 
behind each train to extinguish blazes in their infancy. The 416 Fire - 
particularly if it is found to have been started by the train - will 
prove an even more brutal moment of reckoning, a grim reminder that yet 
more adaptation is needed.
I had my own moment of reckoning following that unusually toasty day 
back in 2002 when Silverton's economy went up in smoke for the remainder 
of that summer. I realized then that Silverton will never become the 
sanctuary from global warming that I dreamed it would. This year the 
point is being driven home. There is no sanctuary, not really. In one 
way or another, the climate catastrophe that we have wrought reaches 
into every corner of our planet and our lives - even at 9,318 feet...
https://www.hcn.org/articles/wildfire-durangos-416-fire-reminds-us-theres-no-escape-from-climate-change


[Melancholia]
*Climate change is creating a new kind of grief, and we're completely 
unprepared for it 
<https://qz.com/1306707/uncovering-the-mental-health-crisis-of-climate-change/>*
The sign on Schapira's booth read: CLIMATE ANXIETY COUNSELING 5 cents 
THE DOCTOR IS IN. Time to earn her pennies.
On that muggy June day, she had set up shop in Kennedy Plaza in downtown 
Providence, Rhode Island. Schapira is not a trained therapist-a fact she 
makes clear to visitors-but she is happy to chat with anyone suffering 
from anxiety about climate change. "A lot of what I do is listen and ask 
questions," she said.
Over the coming decades, rising temperatures will fuel natural disasters 
that are more deadly than any seen in human history, destabilizing 
nations and sending millions to their death. Experts say that we need to 
prepare for a hotter, less hospitable world by building sea walls, 
erecting desalination plants and engineering crops that can withstand 
punishing heat and drought, but few have considered the defenses we need 
to erect in our minds. Some, like Shapira, have called for more talking, 
more counseling to process our grief. But will that be enough? Climate 
change will do untold violence to life on this planet, and we have 
remarkably few tools to deal with its emotional cost.
https://qz.com/1306707/uncovering-the-mental-health-crisis-of-climate-change/


[Aviation in the future]
*Caroline Lucas on Heathrow and climate change: 'The apocalypse is 
happening' 
<https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jun/16/caroline-lucas-on-heathrow-and-climate-change-the-apocalypse-is-happening>*
The Brighton MP may be stepping down as co-leader of the Green party, 
but she is doing so to step up her fight against a third runway and to 
secure a 'people's vote' on the EU
by Decca Aitkenhead.
"If you measured impact on climate change by each individual action then 
you'd never be able to talk about the cumulative impact of a set of 
actions on the climate. We know aviation is one of the fastest growing 
sources of emissions; we know emissions at altitude are a lot more 
damaging to the climate than they are at ground level; we know that if 
Heathrow expands then it's almost like an arms race between the 
different airports across Europe, because they're all in a fight for 
passengers."
- - - - -
But we keep being told we must not concede a competitive advantage to 
rival European airports. She counters wearily: "If you were talking to 
campaigners in Charles de Gaulle [airport in Paris], they'd tell you 
they're told exactly the same thing: don't concede defeat to London! 
We're all being pitted against one another in this incredibly dangerous 
race to the bottom. If we were to follow the logic of those people who 
think every time we build a runway our economy miraculously benefits, 
then why would you not just cover the whole country in concrete? That's 
the logic of that argument. The bottom lines is that aviation is a very 
good example of why you can't say: 'We'll have a demand-led approach' - 
because the demand will go on. I think there needs to be a mature 
conversation about limits to growth. I think we need to ask: growth for 
what?"
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jun/16/caroline-lucas-on-heathrow-and-climate-change-the-apocalypse-is-happening


[linear increase, will be exponential]
*Antarctica Ice Loss Tripled in 5 Years, and That's Raising Sea Level 
Risks 
<https://insideclimatenews.org/news/13062018/antarctica-ice-loss-accelerating-tripled-sea-level-rise-climate-change-nature-study>*
The accelerating ice loss adds half a foot to the sea level rise already 
expected this century, increasing the flooding risks for coastal 
communities.
BY BOB BERWYN, INSIDECLIMATE NEWS - JUN 15, 2018
The most complete assessment to date of Antarctica's ice sheets confirms 
that the meltdown accelerated sharply in the past five years, and there 
is no sign of a slowdown.
That means sea level <http://insideclimatenews.org/topic/sea-level-rise> 
is expected to rise at a rate that will catch some coastal communities 
unprepared despite persistent warnings, according to the international 
team of scientists publishing a series of related studies this week in 
the journal Nature.
The scientists found that the rate of ice loss over the past five years 
had tripled 
<https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/ramp-up-in-antarctic-ice-loss-speeds-sea-level-rise> 
compared to the previous two decades, suggesting an additional 6 inches 
of sea level rise from Antarctica alone by 2100, on top of the2 feet 
already projected 
<https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/faq-5-1.html> from 
all sources, including Greenland.
- - - -
Warm water intrusions are melting the ice from below so much that the 
ice in those channels is cracking. That allows surface meltwater to flow 
into the fractures, which can destabilize the ice shelf and increase the 
chances that big chunks will break off, Greenbaum said.
"These things are conspiring to increase loss of ice," Greenbaum said. 
"It's all a positive feedback system, with the ice getting thinner, more 
strained, and more susceptible to all these processes."
"In a warming climate, we expect to see more and more melting rivers of 
surface meltwater, and if they interact with these fractures, you could 
see more rapid melting," he said. "It could mean we are underestimating 
the magnitude and the speed of the meltdown."
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/13062018/antarctica-ice-loss-accelerating-tripled-sea-level-rise-climate-change-nature-study


[Beaches closed]
*The Eastern Caribbean Is Swamped by a Surge of Seaweed 
<https://www.hakaimagazine.com/news/the-eastern-caribbean-is-swamped-by-a-surge-of-seaweed/https://www.hakaimagazine.com/news/the-eastern-caribbean-is-swamped-by-a-surge-of-seaweed/>*
Massive rafts of floating sargassum are killing wildlife and preventing 
fishers from launching their boats.
Authored by by Ryan Schuessler
June 11th, 2018
Barbados's Long Beach, typically a picturesque vision of white sand and 
blue water, is buried beneath a vast expanse of thick, rotting seaweed. 
It's a stinking nuisance that has turned deadly.
"We have found three dolphins dead," says Carla Daniel, the director of 
public awareness and education with the Barbados Sea Turtle Project. 
Daniel and her colleagues believe the dolphins got caught on June 4 in 
sargassum seaweed that has been washing up on Barbados and across the 
eastern Caribbean in mounds up to two meters thick. A necropsy of one 
dolphin revealed it died of stress.
Seven endangered green sea turtles have also died so far. "For the 
majority of animals, the sargassum can be a problem because it traps 
them," Daniel says.
Under normal conditions, floating sargassum is a thriving ecosystem. It 
provides a vital habitat and food source in the open ocean for fish, 
turtles, and crustaceans. There are even a handful of species found only 
in floating sargassum mats, including the aptly-named sargassum fish. 
But when it grows too thick, the seaweed clumps in dense, tangled mats 
so expansive and impenetrable that sea turtles and other 
surface-breathing animals can't break through.
https://www.hakaimagazine.com/news/the-eastern-caribbean-is-swamped-by-a-surge-of-seaweed


[First video of two on Marine geoengineering]
*A technofix for the climate? Marine geoengineering 
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-iu7po7N6c>*
Heinrich-Boll-Stiftung
Published on Jun 8, 2018
Large-scale technological interventions to "fix" the climate crisis are 
moving up on the political agenda. Some climate scientists are now 
proposing geoengineering interventions in the oceans to halt global 
warming, such as fertilizing the oceans to draw down CO2 or to cover up 
large oceanic areas with synthetic materials to make their surfaces more 
reflective letting them absorb less sunlight and therefore less heat. 
But these schemes to manipulate our ecosystems and global natural 
processes come with great risks and uncertainties, as well as with 
foreseeable adverse impacts on marine ecosystems and human communities.
Part I of "A technofix for the climate?" 
(https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...) presents some of the marine 
geoengineering approaches with a focus on their risks, negative impacts 
and potential side-effects, as well as on the question of governance of 
these technologies. ]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-iu7po7N6c
[2nd video on GeoEngineering]
*A technofix for the climate? Land-based geoengineering (BECCS) 
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLsH84dlV1Y&feature=youtu.be>*
Heinrich-Boll-Stiftung
Published on Jun 15, 2018
Part II of "A technofix for the climate?" 
(https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQoUnPhwq7cz0jZPMean1lzUwbI3gw_En) 
presents BECCS as the posterchild of Carbon Dioxide Removal technologies 
on land. We focus on the risks, negative impacts and potential 
side-effects of BECCS, and address some of the real solutions the land 
sector offers for tackling climate change.
For more background information and analysis on geoengineering, and to 
get involved, please visit http://www.geoengineeringmonitor.org/, a 
civil society information hub on geoengineering, run by ETC Group 
(http://www.etcgroup.org/), Biofuelwatch 
(http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/) and Heinrich Boll Foundation, and our 
website: https://www.boell.de/en/geoengineering.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLsH84dlV1Y&feature=youtu.be
[Other source materials GeoEngineering]
To help navigate fact and fiction on geoengineering, Geoengineering 
Monitor <www.geoengineeringmonitor.org>, a civil society information hub 
run by ETC Group, Heinrich Boll Foundation and Biofuelwatch, has 
released fourteen fact sheets that give up-to-date information on the 
status, key players, and potential impacts of some of most prominent 
geoengineering technologies:
Stratospheric Aerosol Injection 
<http://www.geoengineeringmonitor.org/2018/06/stratospheric_aerosol_injection/> 

Carbon Capture and Storage 
<http://www.geoengineeringmonitor.org/2018/05/carbon_capture_storage/>
Carbon Capture, Use and Storage 
<http://www.geoengineeringmonitor.org/2018/05/carbon-capture-use-and-storage/>
Bioenergy w/ Carbon Capture & Storage 
<http://www.geoengineeringmonitor.org/2018/05/bio-energy-with-carbon-capture-and-storage-beccs/>
Direct Air Capture 
<http://www.geoengineeringmonitor.org/2018/05/direct-air-capture/>
Surface Albedo Modification 
<http://www.geoengineeringmonitor.org/2018/05/surface-albedo-modification-technology-factsheet/> 

Ocean Fertilization 
<http://www.geoengineeringmonitor.org/2018/05/ocean-fertilization/>
Marine Cloud Brightening 
<http://www.geoengineeringmonitor.org/2018/05/marine_cloud_brightening/>
Enhanced Weathering 
<http://www.geoengineeringmonitor.org/2018/05/enhanced-weathering-factsheet/> 

Photosynthesis Enhancement 
<http://www.geoengineeringmonitor.org/2018/05/enhanced-photosynthesis/>
Artificial Upwelling 
<http://www.geoengineeringmonitor.org/2018/06/artificial-upwelling/>
Cirrus Cloud Thinning 
<http://www.geoengineeringmonitor.org/2018/06/cirrus-cloud-thinning/>
Microbubbles 
<http://www.geoengineeringmonitor.org/2018/06/microbubbles-sea-foam/>
Biochar 
<http://www.geoengineeringmonitor.org/2018/05/biochar-technology-factsheet/>
The carefully-researched fact sheets reveal:
*- All geoengineering technologies are hypothetical - none are ready to 
deploy and there is uncertainty about whether they would work*.
To work, each geoengineering technology would need to be deployed at a 
massive scale, with extremely significant environmental, economic and 
social impacts.
*- Each geoengineering technology carries significant negative 
environmental and social impacts.*
- As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change gears up to release 
its Special Report on 1.5C global warming later this year and North 
American geoengineers start to make moves to test their technologies in 
real-world experiments these fact sheets serve as up-to-date information 
and critical analysis of geoengineering technologies to navigating the 
hype.
The fact sheets can be found here 
http://www.geoengineeringmonitor.org/cat/briefings-and-factsheets/ .
The Geoengineering Monitor Team has also released three briefings about 
the proposed geoengineering experiments in Tucson, Arizona 
<http://www.geoengineeringmonitor.org/2017/11/scopex/>; Moss Landing, 
California 
<http://www.geoengineeringmonitor.org/2018/04/marine-cloud-brightening-project-geoengineering-experiment-briefing/>; 
and in the Arctic 
<http://www.geoengineeringmonitor.org/2018/04/ice-911-geoengineering-experiment-briefing/>.
Geoengineering Monitor is a civil society led critical resource on 
geoengineering. Visit www.geoengineeringmonitor.org 
<http://www.geoengineeringmonitor.org/> for more resources.
http://www.geoengineeringmonitor.org


[The Economist $ May]
*Markets may be underpricing climate-related risk 
<https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2018/05/24/markets-may-be-underpricing-climate-related-risk>*
Shareholders reckon that their companies will not suffer-or that they 
will be able to get out in time
https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2018/05/24/markets-may-be-underpricing-climate-related-risk


[A solution is before your eyes right now]
*How can climate policy stay on top of a growing mountain of data? 
<https://www.theguardian.com/science/political-science/2018/jun/12/how-can-climate-policy-stay-on-top-of-a-growing-mountain-of-data>*
Tracking all the relevant publications on climate change has become 
impossible. Climate science and policy need a new approach for an age of 
big literature
When the lines between scientific facts, legitimate disagreements and 
uncertainties about climate change are being deliberately blurred - not 
least by world leaders likeDonald Trump 
<https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/feb/01/its-not-okay-how-clueless-donald-trump-is-about-climate-change>andRecep 
Tayyip Erdogan 
<https://www.ft.com/content/bbef9a42-64c0-11e7-8526-7b38dcaef614>- the 
work of theIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 
<http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/report/WG1AR5_ALL_FINAL.pdf>(IPCC) 
has never been more important. It is the IPCC's task to make sense of 
the landscape of scientific findings, where they agree, and why they may 
differ. The authors of theIPCC's sixth assessment report 
<https://www.ipcc.ch/news_and_events/PR17-IPCC46_Press.shtml>- hundreds 
of scientists across many disciplines - have a massive task on their 
hands, ahead of its publication in 2021.
When the volume of scientific information continues to grow 
exponentially, so does the difficulty of maintaining a clear overview. 
Tracking and reading all of the relevant publications on climate change 
has become impossible, as more emerge in a single year than was 
previously the case over an entire, or multiple, assessment periods. 
Even if there was no further growth over the next three years, the 
relevant literature to be reviewed for the IPCC's sixth assessment will 
be somewhere between 270,000 and 330,000 publications. This is larger 
than the entire climate change literature before 2014. So conducting a 
scientific assessment is increasingly a "big literature" challenge 
<https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1462901117305464>.
Managing the literature is vital if we are to ensure the credibility of 
the IPCC in future. We need to let computers help us to read and digest 
information we can no longer comprehend on our own.
The IPCC needs to lead the way towards a new era of computer-assisted 
assessments. Machine learning and natural language processing must be 
used to understand and synthesise a huge volume of relevant material. 
New categories of experts - fromscientometrics 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientometrics>,computational linguistics 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_linguistics>and data 
analytics - will need to be involved.
Decision-makers also want knowledge from the research community that can 
contribute to meaningful solutions. But systematic progress in learning 
about climate solutions has been limited within the IPCC to date. The 
quest to understand what policies work well - and under what conditions 
- remains in its infancy.
This problem is particularly acute in the social sciences. 
<https://www.nature.com/news/climate-change-embed-the-social-sciences-in-climate-policy-1.17206>Some 
argue that social science evidence doesn't lend itself to 
generalization. But a bigger challenge is the lack of appreciation for 
research synthesis as a scientific endeavor in its own right. The dearth 
of synthetic evidence in policy and social science literatures makes it 
impossible for the IPCC to aggregate the knowledge that is diffused 
across thousands of individual studies.


  Sign up for Lab Notes - the Guardian's weekly science update

Read more

Changing the culture of the social sciences to better support scientific 
assessment and accumulated learning about climate change solutions won't 
be easy. While the IPCC can act as a catalyst, any shift will also 
require more capacity in synthesis methods, and support for 
collaborative networks. Research funders and governments also need to 
direct more funding towards research synthesis.
The good news is that there are models for such a transformation. 
Researchers in medicine, education and psychology have been forced to 
grapple with similar challenges over recent decades -and systematic 
research synthesis is now well established within these fields as a 
basis for policy advice.
The misleading impression that any single scientific study has the same 
standing as all others is toxic for a culture of evidence-informed 
policymaking. By elevating research synthesis to the gold standard of 
scientific policy advice - and using big data and machine learning 
techniques to deliver it - we can strengthen the IPCC and provide a 
stronger response to the Trumps and Erdogans of this world, who want to 
cherry-pick evidence to suit their own agendas.
/Jan Minx <https://www.mcc-berlin.net/en/about/team/minx-jan.html>is 
head of the working group on applied sustainability science at 
theMercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change 
(MCC)<https://www.mcc-berlin.net/>in Berlin, and professor of climate 
change and public policy at thePriestley International Centre for 
Climate <http://climate.leeds.ac.uk/>at the University of Leeds./
https://www.theguardian.com/science/political-science/2018/jun/12/how-can-climate-policy-stay-on-top-of-a-growing-mountain-of-data


*This Day in Climate History - June 17, 2010 
<http://youtu.be/Gv0siXm2cpc>, 2011 
<http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/latest-columns/20110617-steve-chapman-republicans-must-return-to-pro-environmental-roots-.ece>, 
2014 
<http://www.politico.com/story/2014/06/2014-elections-koch-brothers-super-pac-107926.html#ixzz34tEWZRGh> 
- from D.R. Tucker*
June 17, 2010: Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) apologizes to BP.
http://youtu.be/Gv0siXm2cpc
- - - -
June 17, 2011: Syndicated columnist Steve Chapman notes that at some 
point, Republicans will have to knock it off with climate-change denial 
and propose solutions to the problem:

    "Conservatives fear liberals will use climate change to justify
    heavy-handed intrusive regulation and wasteful subsidies, and they
    are right to worry. But that’s no excuse for pretending global
    warming is a myth or refusing to do anything about it. It’s an
    argument for devising cost-effective, market-based remedies that
    minimize bureaucratic control.
    "If today’s Republican attitude had prevailed four decades ago,
    Americans would not have such vital measures as the Clean Air Act
    and the Clean Water Act. Then, many people worried that
    environmentalism would strangle economic growth and personal
    freedom. But both have survived and even flourished.
    "Conservatives once understood that corporations are not entitled to
    foul the environment, any more than individuals have the right to
    dump garbage in the street. Barry Goldwater, the 1964 GOP
    presidential nominee, wrote, 'When pollution is found, it should be
    halted at the source, even if this requires stringent government
    action.'"

http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/latest-columns/20110617-steve-chapman-republicans-must-return-to-pro-environmental-roots-.ece 

- - - -
June 17, 2014:
Politico.com reports:

    "During a closed-door gathering of major donors in Southern
    California on Monday, the political operation spearheaded by the
    Koch brothers unveiled a significant new weapon in its rapidly
    expanding arsenal — a super PAC called Freedom Partners Action Fund.
    "The new group aims to spend more than $15 million in the 2014
    midterm campaigns — part of a much larger spending effort expected
    to total $290 million, sources told POLITICO."

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/06/2014-elections-koch-brothers-super-pac-107926.html#ixzz34tEWZRGh 


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