[TheClimate.Vote] March 5, 2018 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/March 5, 2018/

[Opinion - Democratic Party Politics]
*A Climate Change Litmus Test For Democrats 
<https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/opinion-goodrich-democrats-climate-change_us_5a9476b7e4b02cb368c4b4af>*
Matthew Miles Goodrich, Guest Writer
One wing of the Democratic Party, represented in 2016 by Clinton, sees 
corporate money like fossil fuel donations as the price of business in 
Washington. The other wing, awakened by Sanders' muscular grassroots 
fundraising operation, views big-pocketed donors as anathema.
These factions will battle each other again in primaries this year. To 
mount the strongest challenge to the party of Trump in November, the 
Democrats will need to energize their young activist base. They must 
commit to what Clinton would not - refusing fossil fuel money. The 
wellbeing of our climate and our communities is at stake...
Democrats need to earn the millennial vote. The party can do this and 
thus minimize its perennial off-year disadvantage - the turnout gap - 
with a simple promise: to refuse fossil fuel money. This commitment 
would signal to young voters that a candidate understood climate change 
as a threat worthy of action...
Democrats need to reckon with the fact that even before Trump, many 
Americans didn't feel represented by their own government. In 2015, the 
Pew Research Center found that politicians being "influenced by special 
interest money" topped voters' concerns with Washington. Trump's 
presidency has only made the situation more dire. According to a recent 
Washington Post-University of Maryland poll, "money in politics" and 
"wealthy political donors" are corroding voters' faith in democracy.
This problem is most acute among young people. Millennials feel uniquely 
alienated from politics - which is understandable given the obstinacy 
our government shows in doing nothing about massacred children, 
crippling debt and devastating hurricanes....
/Matthew Miles Goodrich is a writer and organizer in Brooklyn, New York. 
He serves as digital editor for Guernica and works with the populist 
climate movement Sunrise. He tweets at @mmilesgoodrich./
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/opinion-goodrich-democrats-climate-change_us_5a9476b7e4b02cb368c4b4af


[Cites meeting]
*Cities & Climate Change Science Conference (2018 CitiesIPCC Conference) 
<http://enb.iisd.org/climate/citiesipcc/2018/about.html>*
5-7 March 2018, Edmonton, Canada
The Cities & Climate Change Science Conference (2018 CitiesIPCC 
Conference) will take place from 5-7 March 2018, in Edmonton, Canada. 
The idea for this conference was approved by the Intergovernmental Panel 
on Climate Change (IPCC) in October 2016 and subsequently co-organized 
by a diverse group of organizations, including UN-Habitat, UN 
Environment (UNEP), Cities Alliance, ICLEI – Local Governments for 
Sustainability, Future Earth, the Sustainable Development Solutions 
Network (SDSN) and United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG). This 
event is expected to bring together government representatives, 
academics, researchers, and practitioners in conversation.
The conference comes at a time when cities are increasingly recognized 
as key actors in climate action, as urban areas house half of the 
world's population and use 70% of global energy. It is expected to help 
inspire new data and research on climate impacts and solutions at the 
local level, by assessing the current state of academic and 
practice-based knowledge and identifying key research and knowledge 
gaps. Discussions during the conference will focus on four themes: 
cities, climate change and imperatives for action; urban emissions, 
impacts and vulnerabilities; solutions for the transition to low-carbon 
and climate-resilient cities; and enabling transformative climate action 
in cities.
The outcomes of the CitesIPCC Conference will inform the upcoming IPCC 
reports, most notably the Special Report on Cities and Climate Change 
expected as part of the IPCC's seventh assessment (AR7) cycle 
(2023-2028). In this context, the conference aims to generate a global 
research agenda that gives recognition to the knowledge generated by 
urban stakeholders, to enhance understanding of the impacts of climate 
change and possible responses at the urban level, and to better inform 
climate decision making at the local level.
IISD Reporting Services, through its ENB+ Meeting Coverage, will provide 
daily digital coverage and a summary report from the 2018 CitiesIPCC 
Conference.
http://enb.iisd.org/climate/citiesipcc/2018/about.html


[airline flight adaptation]
*How Climate Change is Altering Air Travel 
<http://www.sixdegreesnews.org/archives/23089/how-climate-change-is-altering-air-travel>*
FRED PEARCE
RISING TIDES, ICY AIR, MELTING PERMAFROST AND AIR THAT IS TOO HOT FOR 
TAKE-OFF ARE CHALLENGING AVIATION AS THE WORLD WARMS.
Phoenix gets hot. But not usually as hot as last June, when the mercury 
at the airport one day soared above 118 degrees F (48 degrees C). That 
exceeded the maximum operating temperature for several aircraft ready 
for take-off. They didn't fly. More than 50 flights were canceled or 
rerouted.
Thanks to climate change, soon 118 degrees F may not seem so unusual. 
Welcome to the precarious future of aviation in a changing climate. As 
the world warms and weather becomes more extreme, aircraft designers, 
airport planners and pilots must all respond, both in the air and on the 
ground. With around 100,000 flights worldwide carrying some 8 million 
passengers every day, this is a big deal.../(more; turbulence, 
hight-altitude icing, soft ground over permafrost runways, runway 
inundation sea level rise )/ 
<http://www.sixdegreesnews.org/archives/23089/how-climate-change-is-altering-air-travel>
http://www.sixdegreesnews.org/archives/23089/how-climate-change-is-altering-air-travel
-
[World Meteorological Organization]*
**Climate change impacts on aviation: An interview with Herbert Puempel 
<https://public.wmo.int/en/resources/bulletin/climate-change-impacts-aviation-interview-herbert-puempel>*
Efforts to reduce fuel burn and thus carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in 
aviation over the past four decades have been impressive. Operational 
measures in line with new air traffic management systems, as well as new 
technological concepts, all have the potential to continue reducing 
these CO2 emissions. The Commission for Aeronautical Meteorology (CAeM) 
supports aviation stakeholders in their efforts to operate under 
changing climate conditions....
Aviation is exposed to weather phenomena not only on the ground, but 
also at levels up to the higher troposphere and lower stratosphere. It 
probably has the strongest tradition of prioritizing safety in the 
transport industry and is thus a prime candidate for developing sound 
and balanced risk management.
Aviation is probably the only reliable means of disaster response and 
relief in cases of large-scale disasters. For example, it will be 
unrealistic to maintain or repair hundreds or thousands of kilometres of 
roads or rail connections across areas affected by flooding, landslides, 
fires or storms in order to bring relief and aid to those affected. 
Adaptation measures and risk management, therefore, need to pay 
particular attention to the hardening of aviation infrastructure to 
ensure a robust and sustainable relief mechanism...(more)
https://public.wmo.int/en/resources/bulletin/climate-change-impacts-aviation-interview-herbert-puempel


[Um, what?]
*We've radically underestimated how vulnerable Americans are to flooding 
<https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/3/2/17070222/us-flood-risk>*
New research claims that official estimates lowballed the risk by, uh, 
about a factor of three.
By David Roberts
So it is somewhat ironic (if that's the word) that this week also 
features the publication of a new paper 
<http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aaac65> in 
Environmental Research Letters showing that Americans are at far greater 
risk from flooding than official estimates reveal - as in, three times 
the risk.
A team of researchers led by PhD student Oliver Wing of the University 
of Bristol in the UK set about to do the first high-resolution, 
national-level assessment of flood risk in the US...
The news is not good. To wit: the analysis reveals that the population 
of Americans exposed to serious flooding risk is "2.6-3.1 times higher 
than previous estimates."
FEMA estimates that around 13 million people are at risk. This is what 
Wing's team found:
     The analysis shows that 40.8 million people (13.3% of the 
population) are currently exposed to a 1 in 100 year (1% annual 
exceedance probability) fluvial or pluvial flood in the [conterminous 
United States], which translates to a GDP exposure of $2.9 trillion 
(15.3% of total GDP).
Louisiana, Arizona, and West Virginia are particularly exposed to risk, 
but Florida is the hot spot. Louisiana has a higher percentage of its 
land at risk (32 versus 28 percent), but Florida has more assets at 
risk, at $714 billion. (California has less land at risk but a whopping 
$763 billion in assets at risk.)
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/3/2/17070222/us-flood-risk


[Processing Grief]
*Southern Californians know: climate change is real, it is deadly and it 
is here 
<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/03/california-climate-change-fires-flood-landslide>*
Nora Gallagher
An earthly paradise is ravaged by inferno and flood, the earth itself 
rising to proclaim a horrifying and deadly new normal...
If you visit, talk to us as if our dose of mega-reality is not some 
singular string of bad luck or an inconvenience to you. Help tether us 
to the reality we are - all of us - living in now and that we in 
southern California don't want to forget in the face of returning to 
"normal". Give us the one gift that will help us: please, let's not go 
back to business as usual.
Nora Gallagher writes memoir and fiction. She's the author recently of 
the memoir Moonlight Sonata at Mayo Clinic and the novel Changing Light
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/03/california-climate-change-fires-flood-landslide


[Population Matters]
*We Have ALL Lost 
<http://www.population-matters.org/2018/03/02/we-have-all-lost/>*
Back in January, 2008 the Durango (Colorado) Herald published a unique 
challenge: "I offer a public wager of $5,000 that the Earth will be 
cooler in 10 years." Dr. Roger Cohen, a physicist, proposed this wager.
I responded, and our bet started the next month. Cohen's rules were 
reasonable, however, I am a Quaker. Members of the Religious Society of 
Friends are admonished to not bet, so I countered with a different 
structure. Each of us would donate $5000 to Durango Nature Studies, and 
the money would be held in escrow until the bet was over. We also agreed 
that the decision would be made by averaging the data for three years 
rather than by comparing 2007 with 2017.
After agreeing on the rules we each pulled out our checkbooks and wrote 
checks. We realized that neither of us would profit from the bet; we 
would just get "bragging rights". The Herald ran an article that 
February: "I think part of Roger's goal was to keep the issue of global 
warming in the public mind.…"
I was curious to know just what Dr. Cohen was thinking. I knew that he 
had been Manager of Strategic Planning at Exxon-which led me to believe 
that he must be quite intelligent. When we got together for an amiable 
lunch I asked him what he really felt about climate change. His answer 
surprised me: the true reason that he wrote the challenge was that he 
wanted people to really think about climate change and to question the 
media. I asked if he thought any of the climate change could be 
anthropogenic. His reply, as I remember, was that yes, maybe about a 
third was human caused. In private Cohen did not seem so sanguine about 
denying climate change...
The Herald printed an update in 2015. "We've all lost" ran the headline, 
accurately quoting me. It stated that Dr. Cohen had conceded that he had 
lost the bet because the climate was, indeed, warmer than in 2007. This 
implied that I had won the wager. My response: 'Grossman, learning of 
the news, was not the least bit pleased or boastful. "I don't think I've 
won," he said. "I think I lost. I think we've all lost."' Indeed, 
climate change is probably the worst challenge that all life will face 
this century...
...Here we are at the beginning of 2018. A decade has passed since Cohen 
wrote his challenge, and sadly he is no longer with us. He died of a 
brain tumor in September, 2016. I would have loved to have asked him 
questions about the wager, but there are some things that we will never 
know.
Perhaps my biggest question is a seeming inconsistency between a 
document that Dr. Cohen wrote in 1981 and his wager that the climate was 
not heating up. Back then he was a scientist at Exxon and was asked to 
criticize a report another person had written. Cohen felt that the other 
person was too optimistic about climate change: "…it is distinctly 
possible that the CPD scenario will later produce effects which will 
indeed be catastrophic (at least for a substantial fraction of the 
earth's population)." CPD probably meant "Continued Product Development".
Later in this same document he wrote that future data gathering and 
science "…may provide strong evidence for a delayed CO2 effect of a 
truly substantial magnitude…."
With the temperature rising, we can consider Earth as having a fever. We 
have overwhelmed the planet's ability to deal with our carbon waste 
emissions. Unfortunately, the fever is a symptom of the illness of 
overpopulation and over consumption. We must do what we can to limit 
these for the sake of our grandchildren.
© Richard Grossman MD, 2018
http://www.population-matters.org/2018/03/02/we-have-all-lost/


[Kids communication]
*Kids Coming at Climate Deniers, Solving Climate Science, Leading the 
Way 
<https://climatecrocks.com/2018/03/03/kids-coming-at-climate-deniers-solving-climate-science-leading-the-way/>*
March 3, 2018
Dr Katharine Hayhoe, "Asum Wang from Vancouver won the Intel science 
fair just last year for
his microbial fuel cells that converts sewage into fuel and the 
environmental
Club at Leicester Vaughn Secondary School in Barbados went one step further
not only did they create their own biodiesel fuel from used vegetable oil
but then they went and sold it to people in their community. Lastly the 
fourth
thing we can do is lead the way just because you're a kid doesn't mean you
don't have a voice did you know that 21 kids are suing the U.S. federal
government for their right to a stable climate the case is going to 
trial this
year here's why Avery McRae from Oregon joined the lawsuit she says I 
want my
government to understand that climate change is real changes are happening
right now and things aren't gonna get better on their own climate change
should be the government's first priority we can all make a difference in
the places where we live..."
I'm only a kid, I can't do anything about climate change.... right? 
<https://youtu.be/PslL9WC-2cQ>
video https://youtu.be/PslL9WC-2cQ
https://climatecrocks.com/2018/03/03/kids-coming-at-climate-deniers-solving-climate-science-leading-the-way/


[Australia analysis]
*While politicians question the reality of climate change, farmers and 
businesses act 
<http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-05/farmers-and-businesses-take-action-on-climate-change/9502320>*
By Michael Brissenden
David Bruer has been growing vines and making wine at his Temple Bruer 
vineyard in the Mount Lofty Ranges in South Australia since 1978. In his 
vineyard laboratory, weather records for every vintage for nearly 40 
years are stacked in plastic folders.
They clearly show a steady increase in maximum temperatures over that 
time of about 1 degree. It might seem like a relatively small change but 
the impact has been dramatic.
Harvested fruit is turning up hotter. The sugar levels are higher and 
the vintage now has to be picked earlier.
"Thirty-four years ago we used to pick in the middle of March," he said.
"We're now picking in the middle of February."
Graziers, fruit growers on the front line of change
The world is getting warmer and from the farm gate to the boardroom 
Australian businesses are no longer waiting for the politicians to 
decide if climate change is real. They're acting now...
In fact wine - one of our most celebrated crops - happens to be one of 
the most sensitive to environmental changes...
Some of the cool climate varieties his family always used to grow here - 
like pinot noir and sparkling whites - have now become too unreliable so 
the company has moved some of its operation to cooler country in Tasmania.
"We decided that we would do our planning in future on a two-degrees 
increase in our vineyard temperatures and that we would have less water 
available," Mr Brown said...
"Making a strategic decision has really changed the way we look at our 
vineyards."
But if average temperature rises go beyond two degrees then, he says, 
the options run out.
"We don't know where to go after Tasmania," he said...
*Corporate Australia has been warned*
It's a shift being seen in boardrooms around the country. Corporate 
Australia has been warned. The changing climate is something they can no 
longer ignore...
Last November, Geoff Summerhayes, an executive member of the Australian 
Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA), told businesses climate change 
posed a material risk to the entire financial system.
His message was that boards and directors had a fiduciary duty to their 
shareholders to take it into account. He cited legal opinion that found 
company directors who failed to consider and disclose climate risk could 
be in breach of the Corporations Act.
"Climate change and society's responses to it are starting to affect the 
global economy," he said.
"Institutions that fail to adequately plan for this transition put their 
own futures in jeopardy, with subsequent consequences for their account 
holders, members or policy holders."
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-05/farmers-and-businesses-take-action-on-climate-change/9502320


[Book review]
*There's Only One Way For Humanity to Survive. Go To Mars. 
<https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/02/there-s-only-one-way-for-humanity-to-survive--go-to-mars-/>*
Futurist Michio Kaku sees humans doing ballet on Mars and projecting 
their brains into the cosmos. And aliens? Oh, they're coming.
Simon Worrall
PUBLISHED MARCH 3, 2018
As a child in Palo Alto, California, he built an atom smasher in the 
garage. He later became one of the founders of string theory. Today, 
with his flowing mane of silver locks, Michio Kaku is one of the most 
recognizable faces of science, with several bestselling books and 
numerous television appearances, including on the Discovery Channel and 
the BBC.
In his new book, The Future Of Humanity, he argues passionately that our 
future lies not on Earth, but in the stars.
When National Geographic caught up with him by phone at his office at 
City College, in New York City, he explained how billionaires like Elon 
Musk are transforming space travel; why laser porting may be the best 
way to reach other galaxies; and how one day there may be ballet dancers 
on Mars...
*Right at the beginning of the book, you make the shocking prediction: 
"Either we must leave the Earth or we will perish." Are humanity's 
prospects really that dire? And doesn't this play into the nihilistic 
feeling that there is nothing we can do to save this planet?*
If you take a look at evolution on Earth, 99.9 percent of all life forms 
have gone extinct. When things change, either you adapt or die. That's 
the law of Mother Nature. We face various hazards. First of all, we have 
self-inflicted problems like global warming, nuclear proliferation and 
bio-engineered germ warfare. Plus, Mother Nature has hurled at the Earth 
a number of extinction cycles. The dinosaurs, for example, didn't have a 
space program. And that's why the dinosaurs are not here today...
On the other hand, we shouldn't use this as an excuse to pollute the 
Earth, or let global warming run amok. We should cure these problems 
without having to leave for Mars or another planet, because it's 
impossible to remove the entire population of Earth to Mars. We're 
talking about an insurance policy-a backup plan in case something does 
happen to the Earth. I once talked to Carl Sagan about this, who said, 
"We live in the middle of a shooting gallery with thousands of asteroids 
in our path that we haven't even discovered yet. So, let's be at least a 
two-planet species, as a backup plan."..
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/02/there-s-only-one-way-for-humanity-to-survive--go-to-mars-/


[video question]
*Trump Steel Tariffs? Good, Bad or Sad for Climate? 
<https://youtu.be/dWacUZO0nqQ>*
Climate State
Published on Mar 4, 2018
During the Great Depression in the 30s, CO2 emissions fell about 30 
percent. However, the 2008 financial crisis only marginal affected CO2 
emissions, followed by a sharp rise. Trade policies have been linked to 
the Great Depression. Could Trump Tariffs yield a similar outcome?
https://youtu.be/dWacUZO0nqQ


<http://video.msnbc.msn.com/all-in-/54589791>*This Day in Climate 
History - March 5, 2014 <http://video.msnbc.msn.com/all-in-/54589791>   
-  from D.R. Tucker*
MSNBC's Chris Hayes discusses the American right's obsession with the 
Keystone XL pipeline.
http://video.msnbc.msn.com/all-in-/54589791
http://video.msnbc.msn.com/all-in-/54589802
/
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