[TheClimate.Vote] November 4, 2018 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Sun Nov 4 09:52:52 EST 2018
/November 4, 2018/
[pleasant vote message]
*Samantha Bee's Soothing Vistas Voter Guide | Fuller Frontaler on TBS
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2pxOoenAqM>*
Full Frontal with Samantha Bee
Published on Nov 2, 2018
We know you're sick of hearing about the midterms, but there are some
things you still need to know. So sit back and enjoy these soothing
images while Sam gives you the lowdown on voting day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2pxOoenAqM
[back to 1959]
*Burning trees for fuel gets U.S. nod
<http://www.nwaonline.com/news/2018/nov/02/burning-trees-for-fuel-gets-u-s-nod-201/>*
Some scientists call idea terrible
By JENNIFER A. DLOUHY - BLOOMBERG NEWS - Posted: November 2, 2018
President Donald Trump's administration endorsed Thursday burning trees
and other biomass to produce energy, vowing to promote a practice some
scientists have declared more environmentally devastating than
coal-fired power.
The Environmental Protection Agency joined the departments of Energy and
Agriculture in a letter to congressional leaders committing to
"encourage the use of biomass as an energy solution." The EPA also
reasserted its view that power plants burning trees and other woody
materials to generate electricity should be viewed as carbon neutral,
because when the plants eventually regrow they remove carbon dioxide
from the air.
- - -
The EPA's own science advisers also warned that assuming biomass
emissions are carbon neutral "is inconsistent with the underlying science."
- - -
The approach could be good news for timber companies and firms that
pelletize wood for power plants, such as Enviva Partners. The American
Forest and Paper Association said the administration was ending "seven
years of policy uncertainty" that "jeopardizes our companies' ability to
invest in biomass and build and upgrade their facilities."
The EPA also has proposed giving utilities credit for cutting carbon
dioxide emissions when they replace some coal in power plants with
biomass. That kind of substitution would qualify as an efficiency
upgrade under the EPA's proposal to relax Clean Power Plan curbs on
greenhouse gas emissions from electricity.
Shifting to biomass increases carbon dioxide emissions "in nearly every
scenario," the Natural Resources Defense Council, Clean Air Task Force
and seven other environmental groups said in comments filed on the plan
this week.
http://www.nwaonline.com/news/2018/nov/02/burning-trees-for-fuel-gets-u-s-nod-201/
[Sports Hero talks Climate Change]
[Brent Suter is a starting pitcher for the Milwaukee Brewers.]
*Fighting climate change should make Americans come together to find
solutions
<https://www.fastcompany.com/90259916/fighting-climate-change-should-make-americans-come-together>*
BY BRENT SUTER - 10.31.18
Baseball is America's pastime. It's part of our identity and our
culture. Americans love the sport, and the national camaraderie the
comes with it, while rooting for their favorite team. That's why I was
proud to pitch for the 2018 National League Central Division Champion
Milwaukee Brewers this year. I saw how my city of Milwaukee came
together to cheer us on towards our goal of the World Series. And while
we lost our bid for the series, there's a bigger test ahead for us. It
requires that we come together, just like we do with sports, to address
the very real threats from climate change.
These threats are impacting every community, including mine. In playing
for the Milwaukee Brewers, I represent a city with a strong heritage in
the beer industry. But get this, climate change is now going to impact
beer as well. Recently, a new study noted that drought, heatwaves, and
extreme weather associated with climate change will drastically reduce
crop yields of barley, a key ingredient in beer. This is going to double
the price of beer for consumers and have a huge impact on my city's beer
industry. But this isn't the only climate change impact that Milwaukee
and Wisconsin are facing. Flooding is on the rise throughout our entire
state due to torrential rains, threatening our neighborhoods and
infrastructure.
These threats are becoming more frequent and formidable for all of
America, not just Milwaukee. Earlier this month, the UN
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that we've got only 12
years to avert total climate catastrophe. And each week, it seems, new
scientific and economic reports highlight the growing threats to
industries and regions from climate change. Amidst these dire reports,
communities around the country continue to bear the brunt of climate
change in the form of hurricanes, storm surges, wild fires, and flooding.
That's why we can't keep kicking the climate action can down the road.
We need to come together to acknowledge climate change and work together
to take real action. While we know that the earth's climate is always in
flux, we also know that the excessive use of fossil fuels is making the
climate change at a faster and faster rate that harms our way of life
and negatively impacts our health, our economy, and our security.
Reducing our overall energy use, making everything more energy
efficient, and transitioning to renewable energy, then, are necessary
steps for us to take.
The low-hanging fruit on this front would be to first get electric and
gas utilities to work together, with our states and local communities,
to transition to lower-carbon power. That's a no-brainer. And then let's
electrify everything, from our buildings to our cars, so they can be
powered by renewable energy.
While doing that, let's invest in our cities and towns so they're better
prepared to respond to the health, economic, and security risks from
floods, storms, and heat waves. They're getting hit hard now and need
our help. But it's not just cities that need support. Let's make sure
our farmers and ranchers are equipped with the most sustainable
practices, so they can continue to feed the world in ways that are less
water, pesticide, and carbon intensive.
Lastly, let's make sure we're wisely using our increasingly threatened
natural resources. We depend on natural resources for everything. Our
entire economy runs on natural capital. So we can't be quite so careless
anymore in how we treat our forests, for example, or even our food
supply. Our forests are the lungs that allow us to breathe by absorbing
and storing carbon dioxide, and indiscriminate deforestation is just
making the planet hotter, drier, and less inhabitable. Protecting and
restoring this asset, then, should be our number-one priority.
We can do this, but the clock is ticking loudly. We have to act fast as
12 years comes quickly. Just 12 years ago, as an example the St. Louis
Cardinals and the Detroit Tigers were playing in the World Series. Both
cities now face serious climate impacts–as do the animals their mascots
represent.
If we want our favorite American pastime to persevere far into the
future, we've got to change the game and fast. And since Americans love
a good competition, this should be an easy challenge and easy test of
our tenacity and teamwork. So, let's do this. Working together we can
win together. And I want us to win.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90259916/fighting-climate-change-should-make-americans-come-together
Opinions
*It's not rocket science: Climate change was behind this summer's
extreme weather
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/its-not-rocket-science-climate-change-was-behind-this-summers-extreme-weather/2018/11/02/b8852584-dea9-11e8-b3f0-62607289efee_story.html?utm_term=.5d6841d2f924>*
Michael E. Mann is director of the Penn State Earth System Science
Center and co-author with Tom Toles of "The Madhouse Effect: How Climate
Change Denial Is Threatening Our Planet, Destroying Our Politics, and
Driving Us Crazy."
Summer 2018 saw an unprecedented spate of extreme floods, droughts, heat
waves and wildfires break out across North America, Europe and Asia. The
scenes played out on our television screens and in our social media
feeds. This is, as I stated at the time, the face of climate change.
It's not rocket science. A warmer ocean evaporates more moisture into
the atmosphere -- so you get worse flooding from coastal storms (think
Hurricanes Harvey and Florence). Warmer soils evaporate more moisture
into the atmosphere -- so you get worse droughts (think California or
Syria). Global warming shifts the extreme upper tail of the "bell curve"
toward higher temperatures, so you get more frequent and intense heat
waves (think summer 2018 just about anywhere in the Northern
Hemisphere). Combine heat and drought, and you get worse wildfires
(again, think California).
Climate scientists have become increasingly comfortable talking about
these connections. Much like how medical science has developed key
diagnostic tools, we have developed sophisticated tools to diagnose the
impact climate change is having on extreme weather events.
One of these tools, "extreme event attribution," can be thought of as
climate science's version of an X-ray. In this case, a climate model is
run both with and without the human effect on climate. One then compares
how often a particular extreme event happens in both the "with" and
"without" cases. If it occurs sufficiently more often (i.e., beyond the
"noise") in the former case, a study can "attribute" and quantify how
climate change affected the extremeness of the event.
The scorching European heat wave this summer, according to one such
study, was made more than twice as likely by global warming. The record
rainfall in North Carolina from Hurricane Florence was, according to
another study, increased by as much as 50 percent by warming oceans.
The climate models used in these sorts of studies represent remarkable
achievements in the world of science. But no tool is perfect. In our
medical analogy, some injuries -- such as soft tissue damage -- are too
subtle to be detected by an X-ray. So medical professionals developed
even more sophisticated tools, such as MRI. Similarly, some
climate-change impacts on extreme weather are too subtle to be captured
by current generation climate models.
In a study my co-authors and I recently published in the journal Science
Advances, we identified a key factor behind the rise in extreme summer
weather events (such as the ones that played out in summer 2018) that --
as we demonstrate in our study -- is not captured by current generation
climate models. Using an alternative approach based on a combination of
models and real-world observations, we showed that climate change is
causing the summer jet stream to behave increasingly oddly. The
characteristic continental-scale meanders of the jet stream (its
"waviness") as it travels from west to east are becoming more pronounced
and are tending to remain locked in place for longer stretches of time.
Under these circumstances -- when, for example, a deep high-pressure
"ridge" gets stuck over California or Europe -- we usually see extreme
heat, drought and wildfire. And typically there's a deep low-pressure
"trough" downstream, stuck over, say, the eastern United States or
Japan, yielding excessive rainfall and flooding. That's exactly what
happened in summer 2018. The spate of extreme floods, droughts, heat
waves and wildfires we experienced were a consequence of such jet stream
behavior.
Our study shows that climate change is making that behavior more common,
giving us the disastrous European heat wave of 2003 (during which more
than 30,000 people perished), the devastating 2011 Texas drought (during
which ranchers ranchers in Oklahoma and Texas lost 24 percent and 17
percent of their cattle, respectively), the 2016 Alberta wildfire (the
costliest natural disaster in Canadian history) and yes, the extreme
summer of 2018.
Just as climate models almost certainly underestimate the impact climate
change has already had on such weather extremes, projections from these
models also likely underestimate future increases in these types of
events. Our study indicates that we can expect many more summers like
2018 -- or worse.
Climate-change deniers love to point to scientific uncertainty as
justification for inaction on climate. But uncertainty is a reason for
even more concerted action. We already know that projections
historically have been too optimistic about the rates of ice sheet
collapse and sea-level rise. Now it appears they are also
underestimating the odds of extreme weather as well. The consequences of
doing nothing grow by the day. The time to act is now.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/its-not-rocket-science-climate-change-was-behind-this-summers-extreme-weather/2018/11/02/b8852584-dea9-11e8-b3f0-62607289efee_story.html?utm_term=.5d6841d2f924
[enabling techno deceit]
*How Big Oil Dodges Facebook's New Ad Transparency Rules*
<https://www.propublica.org/article/how-big-oil-dodges-facebooks-new-ad-transparency-rules>
We've identified 12 ad campaigns in which energy, insurance and other
industries masked their sponsorship of political messages on Facebook.
by Jeremy B. Merrill Nov. 1, 5 a.m. EDT
A Facebook ad in October urged political conservatives to support the
Trump administration's rollback of fuel emission standards, which it
hailed as "our president's car freedom agenda" and "plan for safer,
cheaper cars that WE get to choose." The ad came from a Facebook page
called Energy4US, and it included a disclaimer, required by Facebook,
saying it was "paid for by Energy4US."
Yet there is no such company or organization as Energy4US, nor is it any
entity's registered trade name, according to a search of LexisNexis and
other databases. Instead, Energy4US -- which Facebook says spent nearly
$20,000 on the ads -- appears to be a front for American Fuel &
Petrochemical Manufacturers, a trade association whose members include
ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron and Shell. In 2015, when the Energy4US website
was launched, it was registered to AFPM, which is also first on a list
of "coalition members" on the site. AFPM, which did not respond to calls
and emails for this article, has spent more than $2.5 million this year
lobbying the federal government, including advocating for less stringent
emission standards.
Although Facebook now requires every political ad to "accurately
represent the name of the entity or person responsible," the social
media giant acknowledges that it didn't check whether Energy4US is
actually responsible for the ad. Nor did it question 11 other ad
campaigns identified by ProPublica in which U.S. businesses or
individuals masked their sponsorship through faux groups with
public-spirited names. Some of these campaigns resembled a digital form
of what is known as "astroturfing," or hiding behind the mirage of a
spontaneous grassroots movement. In most cases, Facebook users would
have to click on the ad and scrutinize the affiliated website to find
any reference to the actual sponsor...
- - -
Here are the examples found by ProPublica where Facebook has allowed
advertisers to say their ads are "paid for by" a legally nonexistent group.
* Energy Citizens, Energy Nation and Explore Offshore Coalition,
actually programs of the American Petroleum Institute. "We are in
compliance with Facebook's advertising rules," API spokeswoman
Natalia Sharova said.
* We Stand For Energy, actually a program of the Edison Electric
Institute. EEI spokesman Jeff Ostermayer said, "We have always been
transparent that EEI sponsors We Stand For Energy, and we are
currently in the process of updating all the Facebook ads to reflect
that EEI is sponsoring the ads."
* Energy In Depth, actually a program of the Independent Petroleum
Association of America. Seth Whitehead, a team lead with Energy in
Depth, said, "Our role as an IPAA program is disclosed on every page
of our website and in all our interactions with the media and other
third parties. EID's Facebook profile also clearly notes the
program's affiliation with IPAA. Occasionally, EID will run ads on
Facebook, which is done in full compliance with Facebook's
advertising requirements."
* Energy4US, linked to American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers.
AFPM did not return requests for comment.
* Long Island Coalition for Healthy Lawn and Water, actual advertiser
unknown. Did not respond to a request for comment via Facebook
Messenger.
* Don't Touch My Insurance is "just a name of a campaign" managed by
the Insurance Council of New Jersey, said ICNJ president Christine
O'Brien.
* Americans for Fair Courtrooms, actual advertiser unknown. Did not
respond to a request for comment via Facebook messenger.
* Texans for Natural Gas is a "is a digital advocacy campaign," said a
spokesman, Steve Everley, "As clearly disclosed on our home page,
Texans for Natural Gas receives support from three natural gas
producers," EnerVest, EOG Resources and XTO Energy. XTO Energy is a
subsidiary of ExxonMobil.
* Connect Americans Now is a "Microsoft-supported community." Connect
Americans Now spokesman Zachary Cikanek said.
* Greenlight the Gulch, an ad campaign promoting tax benefits for a
proposed real estate development in downtown Atlanta, is linked to
CIM Group, the project's developer. Spokesman Bill Mendel said that
"all advertising for Greenlight the Gulch -- including on social
media and in print -- directs people to the campaign's website,
which clearly states CIM's developer role."
https://www.propublica.org/article/how-big-oil-dodges-facebooks-new-ad-transparency-rules
[repeal the Laws of Thermodynamics!]
*Using Satire to Communicate Science
<https://undark.org/article/satire-science-communication/>*
10.31.2018 / BY Elizabeth Preston
WE DO NOT care about planet Earth," four French scientists declared in
February in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution. Research shows
that while satire does carry some risks, it can be an effective tool for
communication. Scientists are giving it a go.
If humans are exhausting the planet's resources, they wrote, it's Earth
that needs to adapt -- not us. The authors issued a warning: "Should
planet Earth stick with its hardline ideological stance…we will seek a
second planet."
https://undark.org/article/satire-science-communication/
[lies, liars, pants on fire - video discussion]
*CNN: George Lakoff and a Truth Sandwich
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wK9KCG05HFw>*
greenmanbucket
Published on Nov 2, 2018
Neuro Linguist George Lakoff and panel of journalists discuss how best
to deal with Lies as a Strategy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wK9KCG05HFw
- - -
*Professor George Lakoff on Climate Denial and Logic
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bXBqb5rkaA>*
Published on Feb 24, 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bXBqb5rkaA
[Classic video rant from the Weather Channel]
*A Message to Breitbart from Weather.com
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhdymoRTz6M>*
The Weather Channel
Published on Dec 6, 2016
Note to Breitbart: Earth is not cooling, climate change Is real and
please stop using our video to mislead Americans.
Full article here
https://weather.com/news/news/breitbart-misleads-americans-climate-change?cm_ven=T_WX_CD_120616_2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhdymoRTz6M
*This Day in Climate History - November 4, 2014
<http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/gop-climate-change-denier-has-a-lot-more-power-354795587758#>
- from D.R. Tucker*
November 4, 2014: Republican climate-change deniers seize control of the
United States Senate.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/05/us/politics/midterm-elections.html
http://www.msnbc.com/now/watch/inhofes-climate-views-could-be-a-big-problem-354648643852#
http://www.msnbc.com/the-ed-show/watch/republicans-push-keystone-xl-354739267954#
http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/gop-climate-change-denier-has-a-lot-more-power-354795587758#
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/11/us/politics/republicans-vow-to-fight-epa-and-approve-keystone-pipeline.html
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