[TheClimate.Vote] November 28, 2018 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

Wed Nov 28 09:04:40 EST 2018

/November 28, 2018/

[warmer]
*Climate-warming El Nino very likely in 2019, says UN agency 
<https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/27/climate-warming-el-nino-very-likely-in-2019-says-un-agency>*
Natural cycle has major influence on global weather, bringing droughts 
and floods
There is a 75-80% chance of a climate-warming El Nino event by February, 
according to the latest analysis from the UN's World Meteorological 
Organization...
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/27/climate-warming-el-nino-very-likely-in-2019-says-un-agency

[Another new report]
*CO2 emissions on the rise for first time in four years, UN agency warns 
<https://news.un.org/en/story/2018/11/1026691>*
Climate Change - 27 November 2018
A new report released on Tuesday by the United Nations Environment 
Programme (UNEP) shows that global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions rose 
again during 2017 after a three year hiatus, highlighting the imperative 
for countries to deliver on the historic Paris Agreement to keep global 
warming to below 2C above pre-industrial levels.

The report comes just days before the key UN climate change conference 
known as COP 24, taking place in Katowice, Poland, with the agency 
urging nations to triple their efforts to curb harmful emissions.

The UNEP report comes hot on the heels of the watershed 
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on global 
warming, released in October, which cautioned that emissions had to stop 
rising now, in order to keep temperature increases below 1.5C, and 
reduce the risks for the well-being of the planet and its people.

"If the IPCC report represented a global fire alarm, this report is the 
arson investigation," said UNEP's Deputy Executive Director Joyce Msuya. 
"The science is clear; for all the ambitious climate action we've seen - 
governments need to move faster and with greater urgency. We're feeding 
this fire while the means to extinguish it are within reach."...
more at: https://news.un.org/en/story/2018/11/1026691

[Different kind of dirty fuel]
*End of an era as Ireland closes its peat bogs 'to fight climate change' 
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/27/ireland-closes-peat-bogs-climate-change>*
Shift to renewables is too late say campaigners as peatlands will still 
emit greenhouse gases
When the semi-state company that harvests Ireland's peatlands recently 
announced the closure of 17 bogs, the news was greeted as the end of an 
era. Turning the soggy landscape that covers much of Ireland's midlands 
into a fuel source had been a great national project, an ambitious 
undertaking launched by the republic's founding fathers in the 1930s. 
Draining and cutting hundreds of thousands of hectares of turf on an 
industrial scale generated desperately needed jobs and reduced 
dependence on oil imports for almost a century.
So there was some nostalgia last month when Bord na Mona, the 
peat-harvesting company, announced it was closing 17 of its "active 
bogs" and would close the remaining 45 within seven years. Nostalgia but 
also acceptance, given the growing awareness that harvesting peat emits 
greenhouse gases that worsen climate change, requiring a shift to 
renewable energy. "Decarbonisation is the biggest challenge facing this 
planet," said Tom Donnellan, the company's chief executive...
- - -
So there was some nostalgia last month when Bord na Mona, the 
peat-harvesting company, announced it was closing 17 of its "active 
bogs" and would close the remaining 45 within seven years. Nostalgia but 
also acceptance, given the growing awareness that harvesting peat emits 
greenhouse gases that worsen climate change, requiring a shift to 
renewable energy. "Decarbonisation is the biggest challenge facing this 
planet," said Tom Donnellan, the company's chief executive...
- - -
Peatlands, formed by the accumulation of decayed vegetation, help 
regulate the climate by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and 
storing carbon within the peat. As fuel, it is more damaging than coal, 
generating less energy when burned while producing higher carbon 
emissions. Depending on how it is calculated, the peat industry 
contributes between 3m and 6m of the 62m tonnes of greenhouse gases that 
Ireland emits each year.
more at - 
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/27/ireland-closes-peat-bogs-climate-change

[October 2018]
*Thawing permafrost makes big trouble for world's northernmost town 
<https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/arctic/2018/10/thawing-permafrost-troubles-longyearbyen>*
Houses are sagging in Longyearbyen and the unstable ground around the 
famous seed vault is now frozen artificially while the entrance to the 
tunnel is being re-built...
- - -
Temperatures in the Arctic continue to soar. For 2017, average 
temperatures in Longyearbyen were 4.5C higher than normal.
- - -
Over the last 94 months, temperatures measured at Longyearbyen airport 
have been above average since measurements started in 1936. This year, 
spring came abnormally early, with a mean temperature of 1.8C in May. 
That is 6C above normal in a month where the frost should still remain.
No strange the ground is melting underneath people's houses.
Permafrost is defined as ground where the temperature is below zero 
degrees Celsius for a minimum two years in succession. In summer at 
Svalbard, the upper one-meter of soil thaws and plants can grow. It is 
this one-meter that now melts deeper, making the traditional wooden 
pillars houses in Longyearbyen are build on unstable.
Two snow avalanches and landslides, in 2015 and 2017, is another reason 
some houses nearest to the steep mountain have to be moved. The 
avalanches are also linked to climate changes as the snow piles and 
warmer weather cause higher risk for avalanches....
https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/arctic/2018/10/thawing-permafrost-troubles-longyearbyen

[audio and transcript]
*French Protesters Demonstrate Against Rising Fuel Prices 
<https://www.npr.org/2018/11/27/671090413/french-protesters-demonstrate-against-rising-fuel-prices>*
November 27, 2018 - Heard on Morning Edition
Eleanor Beardsley
The protesters are calling attention to an increase in fuel taxes. The 
movement is demanding that President Macron drop a tax on gas and diesel 
fuel that is key to his energy strategy.

    JEAN JOURDAIN: (Speaking French).
    BEARDSLEY: OK. His name is Jean Jourdain (ph). He says, "we're
    waiting for concrete action from Macron." He says, "we are sick of
    the government pitting the French people worried about the end of
    the world with people like us, who are just worried about the end of
    the month." He says, "we're living on debt and credit, we can't make
    ends meet, and the end of the month comes 12 times a year."

    Rachel, that basically sums it up. There are two Frances. There are
    the better-off people who live in the cities who can afford to think
    about climate change and then those living in the rural areas, the
    small towns - you know, a lot of blue-collar workers. They can't
    make ends meet, and this is where the movement came from. It rose up
    from the French heartland...

more at: 
https://www.npr.org/2018/11/27/671090413/french-protesters-demonstrate-against-rising-fuel-prices

[Another "D" word]
*Global Warming: Denial is Depraved 
<https://tamino.wordpress.com/2018/11/27/global-warming-denial-is-depraved/>*
Posted on November 27, 2018
Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman has an opinion in the New 
York Times about denialists, aka deniers, those who deny global 
warming's reality, its cause (us), or its danger. What he calls them is: 
depraved.
He notes their association with politics of the Republican party. As 
Krugman says,

    "Denying climate change, no matter what the evidence, has become a
    core Republican principle. And it's worth trying to understand both
    how that happened and the sheer depravity involved in being a
    denialist at this point."

Krugman is pretty clear there: denialists aren't just depraved, they're 
sheer depravity. He finds their depravity thus:

    Wait, isn't depravity too strong a term? Aren't people allowed to
    disagree with conventional wisdom, even if that wisdom is supported
    by overwhelming scientific consensus?

    Yes, they are — as long as their arguments are made in good faith.
    But there are almost no good-faith climate-change deniers. And
    denying science for profit, political advantage or ego satisfaction
    is not O.K.; when failure to act on the science may have terrible
    consequences, denial is, as I said, depraved.

The culprits, he finds, are three: money, ideology, and ego. Motives, 
says Krugman, matter:

    And these motives matter. If important players opposed climate
    action out of good-faith disagreement with the science, that would
    be a shame but not a sin, calling for better efforts at persuasion.
    As it is, however, climate denial is rooted in greed, opportunism,
    and ego. And opposing action for those reasons is a sin.
    Indeed, it's depravity, on a scale that makes cancer denial seem
    trivial. Smoking kills people, and tobacco companies that tried to
    confuse the public about that reality were being evil. But climate
    change isn't just killing people; it may well kill civilization.
    Trying to confuse the public about that is evil on a whole different
    level. Don't some of these people have children?

You might agree that "depravity, on a scale that makes cancer denial 
seem trivial" are some pretty strong words. So are "kill civilization" 
and "Trying to confuse the public about that is evil on a whole 
different level."
Krugman closes with a damning indictment of the Republican party:

    And let's be clear: While Donald Trump is a prime example of the
    depravity of climate denial, this is an issue on which his whole
    party went over to the dark side years ago. Republicans don't just
    have bad ideas; at this point, they are, necessarily, bad people.

That's quite a set of strong opinions from Krugman.
Regarding his early thesis, I agree with him that there are almost no 
good-faith climate-change deniers.
The motives he identifies make sense to me. Certainly money is involved, 
the Koch brothers and Exxon and BP just start the list of those with a 
lot on the line. Ideology is also at stake; facing up to global warming 
means environmental regulations, free-market ideologues don't like that. 
And ego? Damn right.
Kill civilization? I hope not. But I realize that it's possible. And 
even if civilization isn't killed, global warming will hurt. A lot. What 
to do, is an open question. But deny science to avoid having to face it? 
That's deranged.
Is it really a Republican-party thing? You bet it is.
So on the whole, I'll agree with Krugman that "depraved" is an 
appropriate term.
https://tamino.wordpress.com/2018/11/27/global-warming-denial-is-depraved/

[take a survey from Yale SUS College]
*Survey on Reproduction and Climate Change 
<https://yalenus.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_cSBZ1RrOoFyllBj>*
Welcome to the survey on reproduction in the age of climate change. The 
goal of this research is to gather information about the decision that a 
growing number of young people are facing: whether to have children (and 
how many) as we face the unprecedented challenge of global climate 
change. The results of this survey will form the backbone of a book on 
this subject, intended to help educate the public about climate change's 
impact on the choices and sacrifices of concerned young people, and to 
help aid young people who are considering this question. Your 
participation is very much appreciated.

This survey is being run by Dr. Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, an assistant 
professor at Yale-NUS College. You will be asked to answer 
multiple-choice questions as well as open-ended questions, and the 
survey should take 30 to 45 minutes to complete, depending on the length 
of your responses. If you have any questions or concerns about being in 
this study, please contact Dr. Schneider-Mayerson at 
schneider-mayerson at yale-nus.edu.sg.
Who Should Take This Survey:
- This survey is open to people who are
- Concerned about climate change;
- Between the ages of 27 and 60 (inclusive);
- Connecting climate change to their reproductive choices -- now or in 
the past.
The survey begins with six short "pre-screen" questions. If you are 
found to be ineligible for the survey, your participation will end at 
that point.
https://yalenus.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_cSBZ1RrOoFyllBj

[More than CO2]
*A new permafrost gas mystery 
<http://sciencenordic.com/new-permafrost-gas-mystery>*
November 27, 2018 - 06:25
You might have heard that the Arctic permafrost may burp up large 
amounts of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane upon thawing. 
But did you know that hundreds of other climate-relevant gases might 
also be released?...
- - -
To our surprise we found not just a couple of overlooked gases, but 
several hundred different types of gases oozing out of the thawing 
permafrost. Many of them truly smell, but in the lab we discovered many 
more that are just as odorless as they are invisible.
http://sciencenordic.com/new-permafrost-gas-mystery

*This Day in Climate History - November 28, 2014 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/28/opinion/paul-krugman-pollution-and-politics.html?ref=opinion&_r=0> 
- from D.R. Tucker*
November 28, 2014: In the New York Times, Paul Krugman observes:

    "Of course, polluters will defend their right to pollute, but why
    can they count on Republican support? When and why did the
    Republican Party become the party of pollution?

    "For it wasn’t always thus. The Clean Air Act of 1970, the legal
    basis for the Obama administration’s environmental actions, passed
    the Senate on a bipartisan vote of 73 to 0, and was signed into law
    by Richard Nixon. (I’ve heard veterans of the E.P.A. describe the
    Nixon years as a golden age.) A major amendment of the law, which
    among other things made possible the cap-and-trade system that
    limits acid rain, was signed in 1990 by former President George H.W.
    Bush.

    "But that was then. Today’s Republican Party is putting a conspiracy
    theorist who views climate science as a 'gigantic hoax' in charge of
    the Senate’s environment committee. And this isn’t an isolated case.
    Pollution has become a deeply divisive partisan issue.

    "And the reason pollution has become partisan is that Republicans
    have moved right. A generation ago, it turns out, environment wasn’t
    a partisan issue: according to Pew Research, in 1992 an overwhelming
    majority in both parties favored stricter laws and regulation. Since
    then, Democratic views haven’t changed, but Republican support for
    environmental protection has collapsed.

    "So what explains this anti-environmental shift?

    "You might be tempted simply to blame money in politics, and there’s
    no question that gushers of cash from polluters fuel the
    anti-environmental movement at all levels. But this doesn’t explain
    why money from the most environmentally damaging industries, which
    used to flow to both parties, now goes overwhelmingly in one
    direction. Take, for example, coal mining. In the early 1990s,
    according to the Center for Responsive Politics, the industry
    favored Republicans by a modest margin, giving around 40 percent of
    its money to Democrats. Today that number is just 5 percent.
    Political spending by the oil and gas industry has followed a
    similar trajectory. Again, what changed?

    "One answer could be ideology. Textbook economics isn’t
    anti-environment; it says that pollution should be limited, albeit
    in market-friendly ways when possible. But the modern conservative
    movement insists that government is always the problem, never the
    solution, which creates the will to believe that environmental
    problems are fake and environmental policy will tank the economy.

    "My guess, however, is that ideology is only part of the story — or,
    more accurately, it’s a symptom of the underlying cause of the
    divide: rising inequality."

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/28/opinion/paul-krugman-pollution-and-politics.html?ref=opinion&_r=0 

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