[TheClimate.Vote] June 26, 2018 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Tue Jun 26 10:22:23 EDT 2018
/June 26, 2018/
[Courts back down - bigger challenge]
*Judge Tosses Climate Change Lawsuits Against Big Oil Companies
<https://www.thedailybeast.com/judge-tosses-climate-change-lawsuits-against-big-oil-companies>*
A federal judge in California on Monday tossed out lawsuits that sought
to hold several big oil companies accountable for climate change, saying
he believes*Congress and President Trump are best positioned to address
the issue of fossil fuels.* U.S. District Judge William Alsup, who
raised some eyebrows in March when he held a hearing with climate change
experts to educate himself on the issue, said the lawsuits against
Chevron, Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips, BP, and Royal Dutch Shell demand
more attention than a judge can give. "The problem deserves a solution
on a more vast scale than can be supplied by a district judge or jury in
a public nuisance case," he said. Alsup's ruling came in response to
lawsuits filed by authorities in San Francisco and Oakland who accused
oil companies of promoting fossil fuels as environmentally safe despite
knowing the risks they pose.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/judge-tosses-climate-change-lawsuits-against-big-oil-companies
[Yikes! Ick! Tick!]
*Global Warming and Tick-Borne Diseases
<https://tamino.wordpress.com/2018/06/25/global-warming-and-tick-borne-diseases/>*
Posted on June 25, 2018
The tick population has exploded in Maine over the last 20 years. The
reason? Global warming.
Yes, the reason is global warming. Since 1895, average temperature in
Maine has risen about 3.6F (2C). More relevant is the fact that very
cold temperatures have risen much more. Both winter faster than summer,
and nighttime faster than daytime, have greatly reduced the
effectiveness by which cold temperature helps control the tick
population in Maine.
Overnight low temperature during the winter season (Dec-Jan-Feb) in
Maine has already risen by a whopping 6.3F (3.5C).
Ticks have migrated further north, not just because they are better able
to survive hard freeze when there's so much less hard freeze. It's also
because their primary host species have migrated further north.
The best-known disease spread by ticks is Lyme disease. In 2001 Maine
recorded 108 cases (according to the Maine CDC Infectious Disease
Program). By 2017 that number had risen to 1,844 - seventeen times as
many. More relevant is the number per capita, usually given as the rate
per 100,000 people, which has risen from 8.4 to 138.5 - a "mere" sixteen
and a half times as big.
Lyme isn't the only disease spread by ticks, and it isn't the only
disease that has risen dramatically in Maine. The year 2001 saw no cases
of anaplasmosis and only 1 case of babesiosis in the state, but 2017
brought 663 anaplasmosis infections and 118 of babesiosis. The rates of
these rarer diseases were higher in Maine in 2017 than the rate of Lyme
disease was in 2001.
Yes, the tick population has exploded. Yes, the rates of infectious
disease spread by ticks have exploded. Yes, Mainers are suffering dread
diseases, yes it costs money for medical treatment, yes it costs time
and money for lost work and lost wages, yes it sometimes causes death.
And yes, it's because of global warming.
It's just one more reason that the politicians who obstruct aggressive
action about global warming are working against the health and wellbeing
of people. It's time to make climate change your #1 issue in the voting
booth.
Until we do, we're living the joke about the word "politics" being the
union of two words: "poly" meaning many, and "ticks" meaning
blood-sucking parasites.
https://tamino.wordpress.com/2018/06/25/global-warming-and-tick-borne-diseases/
[video from Cornell University seminars]
*Do We Fully Understand the Challenges and Implications of Climate
Change Scenarios?
<http://www.atkinson.cornell.edu/media/yviewer.php?VideoID=QuNQX7D47kA>*
Patrick Reed (Civil and Environmental Engineering) presented in the 2018
Cornell University Climate Change Seminar Series.
http://www.atkinson.cornell.edu/media/yviewer.php?VideoID=QuNQX7D47kA
[no wood burning, nice try]
*Push to Burn Wood for Fuel Threatens Climate Goals, Scientists Warn
<https://insideclimatenews.org/news/21062018/forest-biomass-renewable-energy-paris-climate-change-emissions-logging-wood-pellets-electricity>*
Scientists say a new EU renewable energy policy on biomass is
'misleading' and will raise emissions. U.S. forests are being turned
into wood pellets to feed demand.
By Bob Berwyn
The European Union declared this week that it could make deeper
greenhouse gas cuts than it has already pledged under the Paris climate
agreement. But its scientific advisors warn that the EU's new renewable
energy policy could undermine that goal because it fails to fully
account for the climate impacts of burning wood for fuel.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/21062018/forest-biomass-renewable-energy-paris-climate-change-emissions-logging-wood-pellets-electricity
[New terms from a retired politician]
*Climate change disputers are actually innovation pessimists
<http://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/393718-climate-change-disputers-are-actually-innovation-pessimists>*
BY FORMER REP. BOB INGLIS, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR -
Climate action is being blocked more by pessimism about innovation than
skepticism about causation. Scratch a climate skeptic, and you'll find
an innovation pessimist. They don't believe it can be done. Overwhelmed
by the scale of the problem, they assume that we can't change our
trajectory. Secretly, they're depressed about it. They need hope.
Had these pessimists been in the stadium at Rice University in September
of 1963, they might have chanted "No way" when President Kennedy said of
the Mariner spacecraft then on its way to Venus, "The accuracy of that
shot is comparable to firing a missile from Cape Canaveral and dropping
it in this stadium between the 40-yard lines."
Innovation pessimists are right to point out that the drive for
innovation was more immediate and more visible in 1963. The Soviet's
launch of Sputnik had raised the specter of a goose-stepping, hostile
power in control of space. We were unified, and our response was
completely within our control.
Climate change crawls and creeps; it doesn't goose step. Addressing
it requires a coordinated global response, and innovation pessimists are
right to doubt the ability of the United Nations and the ability of the
regulatory state to solve the problem.
But the innovation pessimists are missing the dynamism that comes from
the internalization of negative externalities, and they're
underestimating the strength of the American market.
Internalizing negative externalities involves adding the health and
climate damages to the price of fossil fuels. This accountability would
shatter the illusion that energy from fossil fuels is cheap. In a
transparent, accountable energy market, consumers - not regulators, not
mandates, not fickle tax incentives - would drive demand for clean
energy. Entrepreneurs would race to supply that demand, and we'd power
our lives with the fuels of the future.
Most simply, this could be accomplished through a carbon tax applied at
the mine and at the pipeline. The revenue raised from the carbon tax
should then be returned to taxpayers in cuts to existing taxes or in the
form of dividend checks to ensure no growth of government.
The strength of the American market would become evident when we applied
our carbon tax to imports from countries lacking the same price on
carbon dioxide. This border adjustment would entice our trading partners
to enact their own carbon taxes. Why pay a tax on entry into the U.S.
when you could have paid that same tax to your home country, enabling
your goods to enter the U.S. without a carbon tax adjustment?
If innovation pessimists need hope, there's a further category that
needs correction. They're innovation opponents. They're vested
politically or financially in fossil fuels. They don't want a level
playing field. They don't want transparency. Sometimes they even conjure
up national security arguments so that the fossils can continue to
socialize their soot.
Such is the case with Secretary of Energy Rick Perry. It was reported
earlier this month that the Department of Energy has reached back to the
Cold War-era Defense Production Act to draft a plan that would enable
the DOE to direct operators to purchase electricity from coal and
nuclear facilities that are at risk of retirement.
There's no red army getting ready to invade. The army marching on coal
is natural gas. While, there may be an argument for continuing subsidies
for emission-less nuclear power, there's no argument for favoring
dirtier-burning coal over cleaner-burning natural gas.
Had innovation opponents like Perry been in the Rice stadium that day in
1963, they would have gone beyond pessimism toward the innovation speech
of the century - they would have tried to scramble the signal from the
microphone.
They would have wanted to silence the credo of American exceptionalism
spoken by Kennedy: "Those who came before us made certain that this
country rode the first waves of the industrial revolutions, the first
waves of modern invention, and the first wave of nuclear power, and this
generation does not intend to founder in the backwash of the coming age
of space. We mean to be a part of it - we mean to lead it."
Backwash indeed: frozen piles of coal, coal ash slurries, mountain top
removal, asthma and other lung diseases, climate damages. Innovation is
not your friend if you're wed to the past or if you've made promises you
can't keep to people who trusted you to protect them from a future that
you cannot hold back.
To the innovation pessimists, we can offer hope. To the innovation
opponents, we must offer correction.
Former Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.) directs republicEn.org, a community
committed to free enterprise action on climate change. He served in
Congress from 1993-1999 and 2005-2011.
The Center for Climate & Security
*Climate and Security Week in Review: June 19-25
<https://climateandsecurity.org/2018/06/25/climate-and-security-week-in-review-june-19-25/>*
by Caitlin Werrell and Francesco Femia
EEAS_ClimatePeaceSecurity_2018
EU External Action Service High level event on Climate, Peace and
Security, Friday, 22 June in Palais d'Egmont, Brussels
Here are a list of notable headlines and comments on climate and
security matters from the past week. If we've missed any, let us know.
RELEASE:*
At Critical Juncture for the EU, Experts Unveil "Europe's Responsibility
to Prepare"*
Framework for Climate and Security
https://climateandsecurity.org/2018/06/20/release-at-critical-juncture-for-the-eu-experts-unveil-europes-responsibility-to-prepare-framework-for-climate-and-security/
https://climateandsecurity.org/2018/06/25/climate-and-security-week-in-review-june-19-25/
[History: Fundamental Classic climate videos from Peter Sinclair]
*Not Just Hansen: What We Knew in '82
<https://climatecrocks.com/2018/06/24/not-just-hansen-what-we-knew-in-82/>*
June 24, 2018
My first real-live teacher on climate science was long time planetary
researcher, Physicist Mike MacCracken, then of Livermore Lab.
His '82 lecture on Climate at Sandia Labs could, in large part, have
been delivered last week.
*Global Warming: What We Knew in 82 <https://youtu.be/OmpiuuBy-4s>*
greenman3610
Published on Mar 26, 2012 https://youtu.be/OmpiuuBy-4s
Join the conversation and support this series at
http://www.climatecrocks.com
In 1982, Mike MacCracken, then a senior researcher at Livermore
Laboratory, gave a lecture at Sandia Labs on the subject of global
climate change.
I talked to Dr. MacCracken not long ago at the University of
Michigan,and asked him, if he were to give the lecture today, what
would be changed, and what would be the same.
Mike's lecture starts here, 1 of 6
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYIk4cjsMb0>
Dr. Michael MacCracken - 1982 Climate Change Presentation - Part 1 of 6
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYIk4cjsMb0
James Hansen at TED
<https://climatecrocks.com/2012/03/08/james-hansen-at-ted/>
https://climatecrocks.com/2012/03/08/james-hansen-at-ted/
More on Global Sea Ice (2010)
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRc_9nNTZg0>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRc_9nNTZg0
Dr. Julienne Stroeve on Polar ice, 2012
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwdnqWL1YkY>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwdnqWL1YkY
Andrew Dessler on Water Vapor feedback
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JpcfzxrL4M>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JpcfzxrL4M
Andrew Dessler on Water Vapor and Clouds
<https://phys.org/news/2010-12-decade-clouds-positive-climate-feedback.html>
https://phys.org/news/2010-12-decade-clouds-positive-climate-feedback.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CavtDvGk8mM
https://climatecrocks.com/2018/06/24/not-just-hansen-what-we-knew-in-82/
*This Day in Climate History - June 26, 2006 - from D.R. Tucker*
June 26, 2006: The Associated Press reports:
"The Supreme Court agreed Monday to consider whether the Bush
administration must regulate carbon dioxide to combat global
warming, setting up what could be one of the court's most important
decisions on the environment.
"The decision means the court will address whether the
administration's decision to rely on voluntary measures to combat
climate change are legal under federal clean air laws.
"'This is the whole ball of wax. This will determine whether the
Environmental Protection Agency is to regulate greenhouse gases from
cars and whether EPA can regulate carbon dioxide from power plants,'
said David Bookbinder, an attorney for the Sierra Club.
"Bookbinder said if the court upholds the administration's argument
it also could jeopardize plans by California and 10 other states,
including most of the Northeast, to require reductions in carbon
dioxide emissions from motor vehicles.
"There was no immediate comment from either the EPA or White House
on the court's action.
"’Fundamentally, we don't think carbon dioxide is a pollutant, and
so we don't think these attempts are a good idea,’ said John Felmy,
chief economist of the American Petroleum Institute, a trade group
representing oil and gas producers.
"A dozen states, a number of cities and various environmental groups
asked the court to take up the case after a divided lower court
ruled against them.
"They argue that the Environmental Protection Agency is obligated to
limit carbon dioxide emissions from motor vehicles under the federal
Clean Air Act because as the primary ‘greenhouse'’ gas causing a
warming of the earth, carbon dioxide is a pollutant.
"The administration maintains that carbon dioxide -- unlike other
chemicals that must be controlled to assure healthy air -- is not a
pollutant under the federal clean air law, and that even if it were
the EPA has discretion over whether to regulate it.
"A federal appeals court sided with the administration in a sharply
divided ruling.
"One judge said the EPA's refusal to regulate carbon dioxide was
contrary to the clean air law; another said that even if the Clean
Air Act gave the EPA authority over the heat-trapping chemical, the
agency could choose not to use that authority; a third judge ruled
against the suit because, he said, the plaintiffs had no standing
because they hadn't proven harm.
"Carbon dioxide, which is release when burning fossil fuels such as
coal or gasoline, is the leading so-called 'greenhouse' gas because
as it drifts into the atmosphere it traps the earth's heat -- much
like a greenhouse. Many scientists cite growing evidence that this
pollution is warming the earth to a point of beginning to change
global climate."
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/26/washington/AP-Scotus-Greenhouse-Gases.html?pagewanted=print
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