[TheClimate.Vote] November 23, 2018 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

Fri Nov 23 09:38:06 EST 2018

/November 23, 2018/

[Wildfire Today]
*Are planned communities safe from wildfires? 
<https://wildfiretoday.com/2018/11/20/are-planned-communities-safe-from-wildfires/>*
And, can we learn to adapt to fire?
Bill Gabbert - Posted on November 20, 2018
Today I was reading an article about how the communities in Northern 
California are dealing with the risk from wildfire. One item that got my 
attention was where a "forestry and wildfire specialist" was quoted 
describing the Fountaingrove area of Santa Rosa which was devastated by 
the Tubbs Fire in October of last year.
…a housing development in a rural area that had been built following the 
highest fire safety standards. Vegetation had been cleared as required, 
and the homes were built of fire-resistant materials.
The article correctly stated that the development had been "reduced to 
ashes by the Tubbs Fire".
"How could that have happened?", I thought. Fire resistant building 
standards and cleared vegetation? Firefighters know that if those two 
characteristics can be checked off, a structure has a much better chance 
of survival. So how did the community get wiped out?...
more at - 
https://wildfiretoday.com/2018/11/20/are-planned-communities-safe-from-wildfires/

[6 min video lecture on Land use]
*Farming + Land use Cause 24% of Greenhouse Gas Emissions 
<http://climatestate.com/2018/11/22/farming-land-use-cause-24-of-greenhouse-gas-emissions/>*
Posted November 22, 2018
Nov. 8, 2018 - Pete Smith of University of Aberdeen presents 
"Agriculture, Climate Change, and Biodiversity."
Farming will Negatively impact Biodiversity
Farming + Land use Cause 24% of Greenhouse Gas Emissions
What can we do about it?
Learn more about the Raymond and Beverly Sackler U.S. - U.K. Scientific 
Forum at http://www.nasonline.org/programs/sackler-forum/
http://climatestate.com/2018/11/22/farming-land-use-cause-24-of-greenhouse-gas-emissions/

[get in line]
*Vanuatu says it may sue fossil fuel companies and other countries over 
climate change 
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/22/vanuatu-says-it-may-sue-fossil-fuel-companies-and-other-countries-over-climate-change>*
Vanuatu says it is desperate for financial assistance to deal with 
extreme weather and global warming
"Vanuatu's brave announcement today is part of a global wave of legal 
action against oil, gas, and coal companies and laggard governments," 
Jennifer Morgan, the executive director at Greenpeace International, said.
Richie Merzian is the climate and energy program director at the 
Australia Institute and a former Australian government negotiator to the 
UN on loss and damage from climate change.
He said Vanuatu's announcement was a sign of growing frustration among 
countries vulnerable to climate change over the loss and damage 
mechanisms within UN climate forum.
"These countries are desperate and they're looking for support and 
instead of finding a friend they're finding a closed door," he said. 
"It's great Vanuatu is looking for every option available to make their 
case and there are a number of test cases around the world that they can 
learn from."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/22/vanuatu-says-it-may-sue-fossil-fuel-companies-and-other-countries-over-climate-change

[New discovery]
*Twentieth-century contribution to sea-level rise from uncharted 
glaciers <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0687-9>*
David Parkes & Ben Marzeion
Naturevolume 563, pages551-554 (2018)
Abstract

    Global-mean sea-level rise (GMSLR) during the twentieth century was
    primarily caused by glacier and ice-sheet mass loss, thermal
    expansion of ocean water and changes in terrestrial water storage.
    Whether based on observations2 or results of climate models,
    however, the sum of estimates of each of these contributions tends
    to fall short of the observed GMSLR. Current estimates of the
    glacier contribution to GMSLR rely on the analysis of glacier
    inventory data, which are known to undersample the smallest glacier
    size classes. Here we show that from 1901 to 2015, missing and
    disappeared glaciers produced a sea-level equivalent (SLE) of
    approximately 16.7 to 48.0 millimetres. Missing glaciers are those
    small glaciers that we expect to exist today, owing to regional
    analyses and theoretical scaling relationships, but that are not
    represented in the inventories. These glaciers contributed
    approximately 12.3 to 42.7 millimetres to the historical SLE.
    Additionally, disappeared glaciers (those that existed in 1901 but
    had melted away by 2015, and that therefore cannot be included in
    modern global glacier inventories) made an estimated contribution of
    between 4.4 and 5.3 millimetres. Failure to consider these uncharted
    glaciers may be an important cause of difficulties in closing the
    GMSLR budget during the twentieth century: their contribution is on
    average between 0.17 and 0.53 millimetres of SLE per year, compared
    to a budget discrepancy of about 0.5 millimetres of GMSLR per year
    between 1901 and 1990. Although the uncharted glaciers will have a
    minimal role in sea-level rise in the future, and are less important
    after 1990, these findings imply that undiscovered physical
    processes are not required to close the historical sea-level budget.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0687-9

[Plenty to read]
*Essential reading on climate change 
<https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/19/essential-reading-on-climate-change>*
George Monbiot and Keith Kahn-Harris are thought-provoking, says 
Penelope Maclachlan, while Peter Wheeler believes natural climate 
solutions are the way forward
George Monbiot's observations (The Earth is in a death spiral. The only 
hope is radical action 
<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/14/earth-death-spiral-radical-action-climate-breakdown>, 
14 November) are well worth reading and thought-provoking. At one point 
he writes: "Academics, afraid to upset their funders, have bitten their 
lips."
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/19/essential-reading-on-climate-change 

*This Day in Climate History - November 23, 2015 
<http://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-fg-keystone-reversal-canada-renewable-20151122-story.html> 
- from D.R. Tucker*
November 23, 2015: The Los Angeles Times reports:

    "After getting a 'major wake-up call' from the U.S. government in
    its rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline project, the leader of the
    Canadian province of Alberta announced an aggressive climate-change
    plan Sunday that sets emission limits for the oil sands and begins
    the transition from coal to renewable electricity sources.

    "'This is the day we step up, at long last, to one of the world's
    biggest problems -- the pollution that is causing climate change,'
    Rachel Notley, the premier of the western Canadian province, said at
    the announcement in Alberta's capital, Edmonton. 'This is the day we
    stop denying there is an issue.*'*

    "Under the plan, as recommended by a Climate Change Advisory Panel
    appointed by Notley's left-of-center New Democrat government after
    its election six months ago, Alberta plans to phase out all coal
    emissions by 2030 and replace two-thirds of coal-generated
    electricity with renewable energy sources, primarily wind power.

    "Alberta will also introduce an economy-wide carbon tax of 20
    Canadian dollars per ton on carbon-dioxide emissions starting in
    2017, increasing to 30 Canadian dollars per ton the year after -- a
    price hike estimated to be slightly less than 2 cents per gallon of
    gasoline. The tax will apply to a wide range of carbon sources,
    including vehicles and home furnaces.

    "Currently, only companies producing more than 100,000 tons of
    carbon annually have to pay a levy."

http://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-fg-keystone-reversal-canada-renewable-20151122-story.html
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