[TheClimate.Vote] October 12, 2018 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Fri Oct 12 10:11:39 EDT 2018
/October 12, 2018/
[hurricane now a cyclone]
*Tropical Storm Michael Spreads Flooding Rain, Wind Into Carolinas, East
After Historic Category 4 Florida Panhandle Landfall
<https://weather.com/storms/hurricane/news/2018-10-11-tropical-storm-michael-carolinas-northeast-forecast>*
Michael is rapidly moving northeast and offshore.
Heavy rain is triggering flash flooding in parts of the Carolinas and
mid-Atlantic.
Additional power outages are possible through early Friday with remnant
winds.
Michael was the first Category 4 hurricane to make landfall on the
Florida Panhandle.
https://weather.com/storms/hurricane/news/2018-10-11-tropical-storm-michael-carolinas-northeast-forecast
[follow the money]
*Report: Climate Risk, Real Estate, and the Bottom Line
<http://427mt.com/2018/10/11/climate-risk-real-estate-investment-trusts/>*
Posted on October 11, 2018
OCTOBER 11, 2018 - BOSTON, MA - Four Twenty Seven & GeoPhy Release First
Global Dataset on Real Estate Investment Trusts' Exposure to Climate
Change.
Four Twenty Seven and GeoPhy announced that they have scored 350 Real
Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) for their exposure to physical impacts
of climate change globally. The data product is being launched today at
the Urban Land Institute Fall Meeting in Boston, MA, accompanied by a
white paper that lays out the implications of climate risk for the real
estate sector.
Four Twenty Seven applied its scoring model of asset-level climate risk
exposure to GeoPhy's database of REITs' holdings to create the first
global, scientific assessment of REITs' exposure to climate risks. The
dataset includes detailed, contextualized projections of climate impacts
from floods due to extreme precipitation and sea level rise, exposure to
hurricane-force winds, water stress and heat stress for over 73,500
properties owned by 350 listed REITs.
"Real estate is on the frontline of exposure to climate change" said
Emilie Mazzacurati, founder and CEO of Four Twenty Seven. "Many valuable
locations and markets are often coastal or near bodies of water, and
therefore are going to experience increases in flood occurrences due to
increases in extreme rainfall and to sea level rise." she noted. "These
risks can now be assessed with great precision -- the availability of
this data provides investors with an opportunity to perform
comprehensive due diligence which reflects all dimensions of emerging
risks," she concluded.
"The market has begun to price in the potential impacts of fat-tail
climate events" noted Dr. Nils Kok, Chief Economist of GeoPhy.
"Properties exposed to sea level rise in some parts of the United States
are selling at a 7% discount to those with less exposure, and the value
of commercial real estate is expected to equally reflect these risks.
Leveraging forward-looking data on risk exposure can allow REIT
investors to anticipate changes in market valuations and react accordingly."
Learn more: Webinar on climate risk in Real Estate Investment Trusts
Four Twenty Seven and GeoPhy will host a webinar to present the data and
key findings on October 23, 17:00 CET / 11am EST / 8am PST.
Key findings from the report:
-- 35 percent of REITs properties globally are exposed to climate
hazards. Of these, 17 percent of properties are exposed to inland
flood risk, 6 percent to sea level rise and coastal floods, and 12
percent exposed to hurricanes or typhoons
-- U.S. markets most exposed to sea level rise include New York, San
Francisco, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and Boston. The Top 3 REITs most
exposed to sea level rise in the U.S. are Vornado Realty Trust,
Equity Residential, and CapitaLand.
-- Globally, REITs concentrated in Hong Kong and Singapore display
the highest exposure to rising seas. Sun Hung Kai Properties, worth
$56 billion, has over a quarter of its properties exposed to coastal
flooding.
-- 37 Japanese REITs have their entire portfolio exposed to the
highest risk for typhoon globally, representing $264.5 billion at
risk in properties in Tokyo and other Japanese cities.
Read the report: Climate Risk, Real Estate and the Bottom Line
<http://427mt.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/ClimateRiskRealEstateBottomLine_427GeoPhy_Oct2018-1.pdf>
and learn more about the data.
http://427mt.com/2018/10/11/climate-risk-real-estate-investment-trusts/
[Explaining why the Paris 2 degree limit is sensible,video lecture 45 mins]
*Climate change: What if paris fails?
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IuiejMc5uQ>*
Published on Sep 26, 2018
KIT Climate Lecture 2018 | *Prof. Thomas Stocker*, Division Climate and
Environment Physics, University of Bern, Switzerland
0:00:00 Start
0:00:38 Article 2
0:03:53 IPCC Assessment Reports since 1990: WGI Contribution
0:11:31 know the present
0:11:43 CO2 Mauna Loa, Hawaii
0:13:42 CO2 concentration of the past 800000 years
0:14:58 Temprature Change: Annual Mean
0:16:06 Summer tempratures in switzerland
0:19:26 Acceleration of global mean sea level rise
0:21:48 Jakobshaven Isbrae
0:23:18 Estimate the future
0:23:20 Global mean surface temprature change
0:24:32 Change in average temprature
0:25:12 Emergence of marine heat waves
0:25:54 Land and marine heat waves
0:29:13 Carbon Budget for 2c target: 790 bill t C
0:31:53 What do we lose?
0:31:59 Climate change is a resource problem
0:33:53 Resource health: Dangerous heat
0:37:03 Resource water: drought and water stress
0:38:03 Resource Land: Loss of Home and Habitat
0:39:35 Resource Biodiversity: Compound CC Impacts
0:41:04 Synergy of ambitions
0:41:14 Climate change is a threat to sustainable development
0:42:05 Climate change must be limited to achieve these Sustainable
Development Goals
0:43:51 Fundamental Links and synergies between Sustainability and
Climate Change
0:44:35 Conclusions
http://webcast.kit.edu
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IuiejMc5uQ
[threats]
*Time to Use Our Fear as Fuel: Three Takeaways from the IPCC's New
Report
<https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/10/10/time-use-our-fear-fuel-three-takeaways-ipccs-new-report>*
More and more people are coming to the conclusion that this escalating
crisis, ever-harder to deny, can galvanize change on the scale that is
really needed. Nothing less will do.
by Avi Lewis
The new Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report is out, and it
is a dramatic development . The threat advisory from the world's
scientific climate community just went from orange to flashing red.
But here's the key takeaway: limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is
still possible, and will require a rapid transformation of our
economy.The great news is that this need for fundamental change is now
recognized by the world's leading climate scientists, who advise the
United Nations. And as we've been arguing for years, the wider
opportunities and benefits of that unprecedented transition are vast: a
global green new deal, millions of new jobs, deep change anchored in
justice.
The call to action in this report is why we started The Leap.
Transforming our economy and society on the scale this crisis requires
is the most powerful opportunity we've ever had to build a more caring,
liveable planet.
So don't look away. While the understandable reaction is to avoid,
avoid, avoid (hey, we have this feeling too!) we find relief in engaging
with the facts. Here are 3 takeaways from The Leap on this unprecedented
UN report.
*1. Don't doubt what your senses are telling you.*
Yes, the climate crisis is unfolding even faster and more furiously than
expected. At current emissions rates, we could hit 1.5C of global
warming as soon as 2030 -- and we're on track for far more. If that
happens, the worst impacts of climate change -- previously predicted to
take place closer to the end of the century -- will likely begin within
our lifetime. Food and water shortages across the globe. The death of
all coral reefs. Hundreds of millions of people impacted by deadly heat
or rising waters. And a predicted economic cost counted in tens of
trillions of dollars. Trillions. Overall, the more than 6,000 scientific
papers behind this report are telling us that 1.5C is more dangerous
than previously predicted, and it's all happening sooner than we
thought. We have less than a decade to turn our global emissions trends
around.
*2. Beware of doom merchants.*
After this report, get ready to start hearing two new angles from
pundits and deniers. First, that we're doomed anyways, so … let's not do
anything at all. We got a first glimpse of this tactic in August, from
the Trump administration. In a draft environmental impact statement, it
argued that warming of 4C is indeed on its way -- so the fact that the
administration was axing fuel efficiency standards for cars and light
trucks didn't really matter [2].
The second take we can expect to hear more of is the idea of the
"moonshot." That things are so dire that it's time to start radical
climate experiments, or "geo-engineering" to counteract global warming.
These sci-fi schemes include terrifying ideas like dimming the sun by
releasing sulfur into the upper atmosphere.
The good news is: this report doesn't back such doomsday approaches. It
warns against the substantial risks of untested geoengineering
strategies. And it is up front about the fact that while the situation
is dire -- responses based on hopelessness are not what we need.
*3. We can still turn this around. And it's going to take a leap.*
With this report, the UN has suddenly reached the very realization that
gave rise to The Leap Manifesto in 2015: the only thing that can save us
now is the total transformation of our political and economic system. Of
course, there's a clear implication of this fact that the UN is not yet
ready to admit: system change requires taking power away from the people
most responsible for this crisis, from bringing about a managed decline
of the fossil fuel industry to bringing the high-emitting billionaire
class down to earth.
Consider, for some perspective, this take from climate and energy expert
Kevin Anderson: "almost 50% of global carbon emissions arise from the
activities of around 10% of the global population…. Impose a limit on
the per-capita carbon footprint of the top 10% of global emitters,
equivalent to that of an average European citizen, and global emissions
could be reduced by one third in a matter of a year or two."
Of course, cracking down on the emissions of the high-carbon global
class would not be that simple -- but instead of wasting another decade
on market-friendly tweaks and silver bullet technologies, we certainly
can mobilize for real, democratic control over every part of our economies.
This is the most hopeful note: more and more people are coming to the
conclusion that this escalating crisis, ever-harder to deny, can
galvanize change on the scale that is really needed. Nothing less will
do. The idea of a "Green New Deal" is gaining momentum around the world.
This is white-knuckle terrifying stuff, but don't turn away: the report
makes clear that the worst effects of global warming can still be
prevented, and the urgency of transformative change should excite and
empower all of us who are fighting for justice anyway.
This is a time to use our fear as fuel, and ratchet up our
determination. Let's take a good, hard, clear-eyed look at the fucked-up
future we are headed for, and decide -- collectively -- to leap to a
safer, better place.
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/10/10/time-use-our-fear-fuel-three-takeaways-ipccs-new-report
[It's the economy stupid]
*Climate change will make the next global crash the worst
<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/11/climate-change-next-global-crash-world-economies-1929>*
Larry Elliott
The storm clouds are gathering, but the world's economies now have far
fewer shelters from disaster than they did in 1929
Late last month Indonesia was hit by a devastating earthquake and
tsunami that left thousands of people dead and missing. This week the
International Monetary Fund arrived in the country to hold its annual
meeting on the island of Bali.
On the day when the IMF issued a warning
<https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/oct/09/trumps-trade-war-with-china-and-europe-will-hit-global-growth-imf>
about trouble ahead for the global economy, the latest report
<https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/08/global-warming-must-not-exceed-15c-warns-landmark-un-report>
from the UN's intergovernmental panel on climate change said the world
had only a dozen years left to take the steps necessary to prevent a
global warming catastrophe. The message is clear for those willing to
hear it: get ready for a time when economic failure combines with
ecological breakdown to create the perfect storm.
Even without the added complication of climate change, the challenge
facing the finance ministers and central bank governors gathered in Bali
would be significant enough. The IMF has cut its forecast for global
growth, but the chances are that next year will be a lot worse than is
currently forecast. The risks, the IMF says, are skewed to the downside.
You bet they are...
- - - -
Here's a brief checklist. For the past 10 years, the world economy has
been surviving on a diet of low interest rates and money creation by
central banks, but that stimulus is now being gradually withdrawn. In
the United States, growth has been further pumped up by Donald Trump's
tax cuts for individuals and companies, but only temporarily. The impact
will start to fade next year as higher interest rates start to bite.
Trump is already berating the Federal Reserve, America's central bank,
for increasing borrowing costs.
In Europe, a colossal row is brewing between Italy's populist government
and the fiscal conservatives at the European commission because the
budget proposed by Rome runs completely counter to the EU's fiscal
rules. Officials in Brussels are more worried about Italy than they are
about Brexit, and with good reason. Italy's banks are awash with bad
debts and could not survive the sort of financial crisis that appears to
be in prospect. It is a much bigger country than Greece, and far too big
for Europe to bail out if the worst happens.
The standoff between Rome and Brussels is happening as Europe's growth
rate has started to slow. One reason is that its export-driven economies
are already being hurt by the early skirmishes in Trump's trade war. As
the IMF noted this week, protectionism is a key risk to global growth.
China, the world's second biggest economy, has always been Trump's main
target, and it has been affected by new US tariffs, as its domestic
economy was already slowing. Elsewhere, in the past few months the IMF
has been called in to help Argentina, there has been a run on the
Turkish lira, and inflation in Venezuela threatens to hit Weimar
Germany-style levels.
In better times, oil-rich Venezuela might have been well placed to
benefit from the rising price of crude oil, which is heading steadily
towards $100 a barrel. Every big recession in the global economy has
been prefigured by a jump in the cost of crude, which makes it somewhat
curious that share prices on Wall Street are so high. Traditionally,
stock markets anticipate trouble, but the mood currently is to dismiss
higher interest rates, rising oil prices, Italy and trade wars as
somehow unimportant. Ominously, next year is the 90th anniversary of the
Wall Street Crash. The Great Depression that followed that market
meltdown led to new economic thinking. It spawned full employment
policies, increased spending on welfare, and a new set of multilateral
organisations...
Turn the clock forward to 2018 and the parallels are obvious.
International cooperation has broken down, economic failure has damaged
mainstream political parties, and belief in the invisible hand of the
free market has been shattered. But the threat posed by global warming
means the current crisis of capitalism is more acute than that of the
1930s, because all that was really required then was a boost to growth,
provided by the New Deal, cheap money, tougher controls on finance and
rearmament. In today's context, a plain vanilla go-for-growth strategy
would be suicidal.
Even so, there are countries that are prepared to self-immolate their
economies in pursuit of growth at all costs. America is one. Australia
appears to be another. At the other end of the spectrum are those who
say there will be a future for the planet only if the idea of growth is
ditched altogether. Politically, this has always been a hard sell, and
has become even more difficult now that populations in the west have
experienced an entire decade of flatlining living standards.
In the developing world, the problem has been too little growth rather
than too much. Tackling global population growth is a no-brainer from a
climate-change perspective, and most of the projected increase comes
from low-income countries, most notably in Africa. The reason is simple:
poor families have more children. Birthrates fall as countries become
richer.
Between the two extremes are those who think the circle can be squared
by carbon-free growth, made possible by the dramatic fall in the cost of
renewable energy. Technology will ride to the rescue, they insist.
This sounds like a cost-free (or at least relatively cheap) option, and
that's why almost all politicians pay lip service to green growth. But
then they act in ways that make achieving global warming targets harder
- by building new roads and expanding airports. And always for the same
reason: because doing so will be good for growth. This is called a
balanced approach, but it is nothing of the sort. If the IPCC is even
close to being right about its timeline, speeding up the transition from
fossil fuels to renewables is vital.
Can that be done? One of the winners of this year's Nobel prize for
economics - William Nordhaus - says it can, if policymakers get serious
about a carbon tax set high enough to price oil, coal and gas out of the
market.
Here, though, the breakdown in international cooperation and trust
becomes really damaging. Ideally, existing global institutions - the
IMF, the World Bank, the UN and the World Trade Organization - would be
supplemented by a new World Environmental Organisation with the power to
levy a carbon tax globally. Even in the absence of a new body, they
would be working together to face down the inevitable opposition to
change from the fossil fuel lobby.
Instead, the response to climate change looks similar to the response to
the financial crisis: fail to recognise there is a problem until it is
too late; panic; then muddle through. That's a sobering prospect.
more at-
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/11/climate-change-next-global-crash-world-economies-1929
[less chill]
*Arctic Sea Ice Is the Thinnest and Youngest It's Been in 60 Years
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFFvJYpg4xk>*
NASA Goddard
Published on Oct 11, 2018
Working from a combination of satellite records and declassified
submarine sonar data, NASA scientists have constructed a 60-year record
of Arctic sea ice thickness. Right now, Arctic sea ice is the youngest
and thinnest its been since we started keeping records. More than 70
percent of Arctic sea ice is now seasonal, which means it grows in the
winter and melts in the summer, but doesn't last from year to year. This
seasonal ice melts faster and breaks up easier, making it much more
susceptible to wind and atmospheric conditions.
Music: Galore by Lee Groves [PRS], Peter George Marett [PRS]
This video is public domain and along with other supporting
visualizations can be downloaded from the Scientific Visualization
Studio at: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/13089
[Classic music video]
*Dear Future Generations: Sorry
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRLJscAlk1M>*
Prince Ea
Published on Apr 20, 2015
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRLJscAlk1M
*This Day in Climate History - October 12, 2016
<http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/12/opinion/las-quest-to-cut-fossil-fuels.html?ref=opinion>-
from D.R. Tucker*
October 12, 2016: The New York Times editorial page observes:
"Los Angeles has suffered the worst ozone pollution of any American
city for three years running.
"Coastal areas of the city could be swallowed by the Pacific by the end
of the century as a warming climate causes sea levels to rise. A natural
gas leak in northwestern Los Angeles, finally plugged in February, was
the most disastrous in American history.
"Small wonder that Los Angeles is joining a growing movement to confront
environmental challenges at the local level. As the former New York
mayor Michael Bloomberg realized early in his tenure, cities, with their
concentrated populations, can play an important role in addressing local
air pollution as well as global climate change. (Mr. Bloomberg helped to
lead a delegation of mayors from various countries at last December’s
global climate summit meetings in Paris, and their presence had much to
do with pushing a final agreement over the finish line.)
"Moreover, it has proved easier to act locally than to push legislation
through Congress, many of whose members publicly question the existence
of human-caused climate change, and whose recalcitrance has forced
President Obama to use his executive powers to get anything done on
climate change or, for that matter, any environmental issue.
"Last month, the Los Angeles City Council took an important step toward
getting 100 percent of the city’s energy from renewable sources. It is
only at the beginning of the process. There is no timeline, but the
Department of Water and Power has been ordered to study how the city
could reach that goal."
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/12/opinion/las-quest-to-cut-fossil-fuels.html?ref=opinion
/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
//Archive of Daily Global Warming News
<https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote/2017-October/date.html>
//
/https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote//
///
///To receive daily mailings - click to Subscribe
<mailto:subscribe at theClimate.Vote?subject=Click%20SEND%20to%20process%20your%20request>
/to news digest. /
*** Privacy and Security: * This is a text-only mailing that
carries no images which may originate from remote servers.
Text-only messages provide greater privacy to the receiver and
sender.
By regulation, the .VOTE top-level domain must be used for
democratic and election purposes and cannot be used for
commercial purposes.
To subscribe, email: contact at theclimate.vote with subject:
subscribe, To Unsubscribe, subject: unsubscribe
Also youmay subscribe/unsubscribe at
https://pairlist10.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/theclimate.vote
Links and headlines assembled and curated by Richard Paulifor
http://TheClimate.Vote delivering succinct information for
citizens and responsible governments of all levels. List
membership is confidential and records are scrupulously
restricted to this mailing list.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote/attachments/20181012/280ee89d/attachment.html>
More information about the TheClimate.Vote
mailing list