[TheClimate.Vote] September 2, 2018 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Sun Sep 2 11:22:29 EDT 2018
/September 2, 2018/
[video]
Alberta exits climate plan until pipeline back on track
<https://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/federal-court-of-appeals-quashes-trans-mountain-pipeline-approval-process/110370/>
Friday, August 31, 2018, 9:20 AM - Alberta will pull out of Prime
Minister Justin Trudeau's national climate change plan until
construction of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion gets back on
track, Premier Rachel Notley said Thursday after the Federal Court of
Appeal quashed approvals for the project.
"As important as climate action is to our province's future I have also
always said that taking the next step, in signing on to the federal
climate plan, can't happen without the Trans Mountain pipeline,"...
https://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/federal-court-of-appeals-quashes-trans-mountain-pipeline-approval-process/110370/
- - - - -
[BC pipeline rejected]
*Five things about the Trans Mountain pipeline ruling
<https://vancouversun.com/business/energy/five-things-to-know-about-todays-trans-mountain-pipeline-court-ruling>*
The Federal Court of Appeal has quashed the approval of the $9.3-billion
Trans Mountain oil pipeline expansion. Here's what you need to know.
LORI CULBERT - August 30, 2018
The Federal Court of Appeal on Thursday released its long-anticipated
decision on the Kinder Morgan Trans Canada pipeline. The ruling pleased
environmentalists and other anti-pipeline protesters, and shocked
proponents of the project such as business and trade organizations. Here
are five key details:
- The pipeline is owned by U.S. and Canada-based Kinder Morgan Ltd., but
the federal Liberal government announced in the spring it's plans to buy
Trans Mountain and Kinder Morgan Canada's core assets for $4.5 billion
to ensure the oilsands pipeline expansion gets built...
-The court decision was clear that Ottawa must re-do its consultations
with First Nations before the project can be considered for approval again..
-Premier John Horgan said Thursday that the ruling vindicates the
criticisms that the National Energy Board approval process was flawed
because, in part, marine traffic was not adequately considered...
https://vancouversun.com/business/energy/five-things-to-know-about-todays-trans-mountain-pipeline-court-ruling
*Ousted Australian PM: This government cannot address climate change
<http://www.climatechangenews.com/2018/08/24/ousted-australian-pm-government-cannot-address-climate-change/>*
Published on 24/08/2018, 9:36am
Turnbull says party is captured by ideologues with views not based in
'engineering and economics'. He is replaced by treasurer who brought
lump of coal to parliament
By Karl Mathiesen
Australia's governing party cannot agree a climate policy because of
anti-science forces within, the outgoing prime minister said just
moments after being deposed in a party room coup on Friday.
Malcolm Turnbull will be replaced by Scott Morrison, his treasurer, who
defeated challenger Peter Dutton 45 votes to 40 for the leadership of
the governing right-wing Liberal party.
One of the most dramatic weeks in Australia's political history began
with Turnbull's admission that he could not pass his signature energy
reform - the National Energy Guarantee (Neg). Rebels in his party, led
by former prime minister and arch conservative Tony Abbott, had refused
to back a policy that would have set - relatively weak - emissions
targets for the power sector.
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2018/08/24/ousted-australian-pm-government-cannot-address-climate-change/
[Climate Diplomacy journal]
*Climate Change - A Global Security and Humanitarian Challenge
<https://www.climate-diplomacy.org/publications>*
The European Security and Defence Union Journal
QUICK ACCESS <http://www.daten.behoerdenspiegel.eu/esdu_30.pdf> PDF
http://www.daten.behoerdenspiegel.eu/esdu_30.pdf
The latest issue of the European Security and Defence Union Journal
looks into the security challenges brought by climate-related impacts.
The issue addresses climate change as a risk multiplier in fragile
contexts. Environmental stress, the weaponization of water, monitoring
technologies and the role of armed forces are some of the topics.
https://www.climate-diplomacy.org/publications
[ of course]
*The Looming Health Crisis in the Aftermath of the California Wildfires
<https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-looming-health-crisis-in-the-aftermath-of-the-california-wildfires>*
The summer of wildfires is only the beginning-expect a wave of asthma,
lung disease, and heart attacks, even in areas further east.
Tanya Basu - 08.31.18
"I felt like I was drowning," Crosbie recalled.
Days later, she still couldn't breathe properly and went to the doctor,
who used a spirometer to measure how well she could inhale and exhale.
The result was shocking: Crosbie had lost 20 percent of her lung
capacity, even though she was a non-smoker, physically active, and
otherwise healthy. Simply inhaling and exhaling fire-tinged air had
crippled her breathing.
The United States is now in the midst of its worst wildfire season ever,
with record-breaking, deadly flames ripping across the West. The Carr
and Mendocino Complex fires have burned swaths of northern California to
ash. Parts of Oregon and Washington state have been ablaze, while the
Cascades and British Columbia have active wildfires.
The fires pose a risk not just to lives and property in their path but
to people much further away. That's because wildfires shoot plumes of
smoke into the atmosphere carried away by a combination of jet streams
and eastward winds.
According to experts, people as far away as Montana and Idaho are
inhaling particulates, or nearly invisible bits of liquids or
solids-burnt debris from wildfires, for instance-that can have
detrimental health effects.
Particulate matter is categorized by size. A PM 10, for example, means
the particulate is 10 microns in diameter, or ten millionths of a meter.
That's one-fifth the width of a human hair.
The smaller the particulate, the more dangerous. And the wildfires are
producing really small matter.
"The smallest we've tracked is PM 2.5, or less than 2.5 microns in
diameter," said Tracey Holloway, a professor in the Department of
Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison,
where she also leads NASA's Health and Air Quality Applied Sciences
Team, or HAQAST.
"They are super small and can penetrate deeper into lungs and cause more
damage," Holloway said. "The bigger particles can settle out from
gravity but the 2.5s can stay for days and get transported"-all the way
up your nose or mouth into the crevices of your lungs.
And that can be bad for your health. Jia Coco Liu, an environmental
epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University who studies how air pollution
affects health, said her research shows that wildfire days can bring
levels of PM 2.5 that are 10 times the concentration of non-wildfire
days, with "high proportions of organic carbon, elemental carbon, [and]
... small proportions of metals."
These are pushed forward by what she calls "smoke waves," or "intense
wildfire smoke pollution episodes," which have high levels of PM 2.5 and
last at least two days...
- - - - -
Respiratory effects were clear-asthma, difficulty breathing-but was the
cardiac system at risk, too?
He says it was. Five months of data and over a million ER visits showed
clear associations between a five-day exposure to wildfires and heart
attacks, particularly for those over the age of 65.
That may sound elementary, but Wettstein said it's far from simple.
"It's a complex physiological process by which someone has a heart
attack or stroke," he said. "There has to be plaque in the heart, and
there has to be an increase in blood pressure and inflammation that
could cause this plaque to rupture. Smoke itself is accelerating the
timeline. Exposure to high levels of smoke at a particular time might
make these events happen, or happen sooner."
Liu's research found that females are more likely to fall sick after
being affected by smoke waves than males are, and that children are
potentially more vulnerable than adults. "A possible reason for these
results is that women have smaller lung volumes and maximal expiratory
flow rates compared to men," she said, explaining that would make
females more likely to be affected by PM 2.5s.
Because heart attacks are fairly rare under the age of 18, children were
left out of the study design, though Wettstein said there is no reason
to think that wildfires don't affect kids' cardiovascular health, as
well. Kids also don't visit the ER as much as adults do, but that
doesn't mean they are not experiencing symptoms that deserve medical
treatment...
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-looming-health-crisis-in-the-aftermath-of-the-california-wildfires
- - - -
[Heart study]
*Cardiovascular and Cerebrovascular Emergency Department Visits
Associated With Wildfire Smoke Exposure in California in 2015
<https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/JAHA.117.007492>*
Zachary S. Wettstein , Sumi Hoshiko , Jahan Fahimi , Robert J. Harrison
, Wayne E. Cascio , and Ana G. Rappold
Journal of the American Heart Association. 2018;7:e007492
*Abstract*
Wildfire smoke is known to exacerbate respiratory conditions; however,
evidence for cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events has been
inconsistent, despite biological plausibility.
*Methods and Results*
A population‐based epidemiologic analysis was conducted for daily
cardiovascular and cerebrovascular emergency department (ED) visits and
wildfire smoke exposure in 2015 among adults in 8 California air basins.
A quasi‐Poisson regression model was used for zip code‐level counts of
ED visits, adjusting for heat index, day of week, seasonality, and
population. Satellite‐imaged smoke plumes were classified as light,
medium, or dense based on model‐estimated concentrations of fine
particulate matter. Relative risk was determined for smoky days for lag
days 0 to 4. Rates of ED visits by age‐ and sex‐stratified groups were
also examined. Rates of all‐cause cardiovascular ED visits were elevated
across all lags, with the greatest increase on dense smoke days and
among those aged ≥65 years at lag 0 (relative risk 1.15, 95% confidence
interval [1.09, 1.22]). All‐cause cerebrovascular visits were associated
with smoke, especially among those 65 years and older, (1.22 [1.00,
1.49], dense smoke, lag 1). Respiratory conditions were also increased,
as anticipated (1.18 [1.08, 1.28], adults >65 years, dense smoke, lag
1). No association was found for the control condition, acute
appendicitis. Elevated risks for individual diagnoses included
myocardial infarction, ischemic heart disease, heart failure,
dysrhythmia, pulmonary embolism, ischemic stroke, and transient ischemic
attack.
*Conclusions*
Analysis of an extensive wildfire season found smoke exposure to be
associated with cardiovascular and cerebrovascular ED visits for all
adults, particularly for those over aged 65 years.
- - - - -
[air pollution]
*World Health Organization: Outdoor Air Pollution Causes Cancer
<https://www.cancer.org/latest-news/world-health-organization-outdoor-air-pollution-causes-cancer.html>*
https://www.cancer.org/latest-news/world-health-organization-outdoor-air-pollution-causes-cancer.html
- - - - -
[get the App]
*Smoke Sense Study: A Citizen Science Project Using a Mobile App
<https://www.epa.gov/air-research/smoke-sense-study-citizen-science-project-using-mobile-app>*
Download the Smoke Sense App today.
EPA researchers are conducting a citizen science study called Smoke
Sense to:
-Determine the extent to which exposure to wildland fire smoke affects
health and productivity
-Develop health risk communication strategies that protect public health
during smoke days
Individuals who want to contribute to science can participate in the
study by using the Smoke Sense app, a publicly available mobile
application on Google Play Store and App Store.
- - - -
Important Information for Smoke Sense App Users Concerning an Upgrade
The Smoke Sense research team has used feedback from the 2017 pilot
season participants to make updates to the app. A new version will be
released as soon as the updates and the necessary testing is complete.
If you have downloaded the app on your mobile device, you will see an
update notification. New users can download the current app and get a
notification as well when the update is completed. Please note, the
current app that is available for download has limited functionality
while the updates are in progress.
Updates that you can look forward to include:
Your current air quality dashboard will display concentrations of
fine particulate matter and ozone with the time stamp of last
measurement.
Incorporated EPA health behavior messages on the Dashboard.
Access to the most current information about individual fires.
Hourly forecasts of smoke and ozone across the continental US.
Educational component called Smoke Smarts to test your knowledge of
wildfire smoke exposure.
Upgraded graphics.
Streamlined user tutorials and information buttons.
Additional information about the new features will be made available
here when the updated Smoke Sense App is released.
https://www.epa.gov/air-research/smoke-sense-study-citizen-science-project-using-mobile-app
[video: aspirations]
*Sustaining peace in a warming climate - lessons learned
<https://youtu.be/x4b1qha5X3k>*
adelphi, Berlin - Aug 29, 2018
How can peace and security be achieved and sustained in times of a
warming climate? Which are core things that development, humanitarian
and peacebuilding initiatives must consider and how can solutions be
scaled? In brief, what works?
In this video, international experts share insights on what they have
learned through fieldwork and research. The connection between climate
change and peacebuilding is becoming ever more evident, but conflict
dynamics depend on specific regional contexts. Therefore programmes need
to address local drivers of conflict and climate change impacts jointly
in order to cross sectoral lines and be more holistic.
The video includes interviews with: Henk-Jan Brinkman (UNPBS), Larry
Attree (Saferworld), Mohamed Yahya (UNDP), Rachel Slater (ODI), Robert
Ricigliano (Omidyar Group) and Alexandre Marc (World Bank), and Janani
Vivekananda (adelphi).
https://youtu.be/x4b1qha5X3k
FOOD AND FARMING
*Rising CO2 levels could push 'hundreds of millions' into malnutrition
by 2050
<https://www.carbonbrief.org/rising-co2-levels-could-push-hundreds-of-millions-into-malnutrition-by-2050>*
27 August 2018
An additional 290 million people could face malnutrition by 2050 if
little is done to stop the rise of greenhouse gas emissions, a study finds.
The increased presence of CO2 in the atmosphere could cause staple crops
to produce smaller amounts of nutrients such as zinc, iron and protein,
the researchers say.
Using international datasets of food consumption, the study estimates
that these changes could cause an additional 175 million people to be
zinc deficient and an additional 122 million people to be protein
deficient by 2050.
The findings show that malnutrition is most likely to affect parts of
the world that are already grappling with food insecurity, such as
India, parts of North Africa and the Middle East, the lead author tells
Carbon Brief.
Growing problems
Climate change is known to threaten food security by increasing the
chances of extreme weather events such as heatwaves and drought - which
can cause crop failures.
However, climate change could also threaten food security by worsening
malnutrition.
Across the world, humans get the majority of the key nutrients they need
from plants. Crops, including cereals, grains and beans, provide humans
with 63% of their protein, which is needed to build new body tissue.
Plants also provide humans with 81% of their iron, a nutrient that
facilitates the flow of blood around the body, and 63% of their zinc, a
nutrient that helps fight off disease. (Other sources of these nutrients
include meat and dairy.)
However, recent experiments show that, when food crops are exposed to
high levels of CO2, they tend to produce lower amounts of these three
key nutrients.
The reason why this happens is still not well understood, says Dr
Matthew Smith, a researcher in environmental health from Harvard
University and lead author of the new study published in Nature Climate
Change. He tells Carbon Brief:
"The prevailing theory for many years has been that higher CO2
causes a faster growth rate [in crops] - which favours carbohydrates
rather than other nutrients important for human health that cannot
be taken up quickly enough by the roots."
However, there is also evidence that suggests not all nutrients decrease
under higher CO2, notes Smith, meaning the extent of the impact is still
an "open question".
At present, more than two billion people are estimated to be deficient
in one or more of these nutrients. If crops become less nutritious,
these people are likely to face more severe deficiencies, the
researchers say, with serious impacts for their health.
Severe iron deficiency, for example, is associated with anemia, a
condition where the body lacks enough red blood cells to carry adequate
oxygen to body tissue. The condition causes weakness and tiredness and,
in extreme cases, can affect the heart and lungs.
Severe zinc deficiency can be fatal if left untreated, while severe
protein deficiency can lead to kwashiorkor - a condition causing
swelling under the skin that can also be fatal...
https://www.carbonbrief.org/rising-co2-levels-could-push-hundreds-of-millions-into-malnutrition-by-2050
[DW is a German public broadcast service]
*How are we impacting our planet? - Adapting to climate change - DW
Documentary <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2r9PxN3Hwg>*
DW Documentary Published on Aug 31, 2018
The impact of human activity on our planet has surpassed all natural and
geological forces. What could climate change adaptation look like?
[Online until: 29.09.2018]
Our domination of the Earth has had dramatic consequences. A
geological era, the Holocene, is coming to an end. It's being
replaced by something completely new: the Anthropocene. Man-made
greenhouse gas emissions, the acidification of the oceans, the
exploitation of resources, and deforestation are changing the face
of the Earth forever. Human activity is altering the Earth's
ecosystems and impacting the climate. Tens of thousands of species
are threatened with extinction. Eventually, humankind itself may be
on the endangered list. Yet we steadfastly ignore the warning signs,
as if climate change were a fiction. Societies have been threatened
by climate change before. Some found solutions, others collapsed.
The challenge we face today is the same as in the past: Can we
adapt? Will climate change force us to re-evaluate our way of life?
Once we no longer deny that our actions affect future life on this
planet, we can finally deal with the implications of what we have
wrought. Human societies have always had to cope with climate
change. Although they had not caused it themselves, they had no
choice but to react and adjust. So how did the Mayans and Vikings
deal with changing weather conditions, and what can we learn from
them today? Geologists working in the field of stratigraphy - the
study of geological strata - have observed that in the future, the
combination of species extinction, global migrations of species and
the widespread displacement of natural vegetation by agricultural
monocultures will be seen as unmistakable characteristics of our
age. An expert group set up by the International Stratigraphic
Commission (ICS) has examined human, climatic, biological and
geochemical footprints in sediments and ice cores. They now believe
that a functionally and stratigraphically distinct era of geological
time emerged in the mid-20th century, which they call the
Anthropocene. In millions of years, the geological footprint of
humankind will still be visible on Earth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2r9PxN3Hwg
[lobsters are called "bugs"]
*Waters off New England warming at record pace
<http://www.salemnews.com/news/state_news/waters-off-new-england-warming-at-record-pace/article_ba128e58-eaa1-57ab-a67f-42e95929225b.html>*
By Patrick Whittle
PORTLAND, Maine - The waters off of New England are already warming
faster than most of the world's oceans, and they are nearing the end of
one of the hottest summers in their history.
That is the takeaway from an analysis of summer sea surface temperatures
in the Gulf of Maine by a marine scientist with the Gulf of Maine
Research Institute in Portland. The average sea surface temperature in
the gulf was nearly 5 degrees Fahrenheit above the long-term average
during one 10-day stretch in August, said the scientist, Andy Pershing,
who released the work Thursday.
Aug. 8 was the second warmest day in recorded history in the gulf, and
there were other sustained stretches this summer that were a few degrees
higher than the average from 1982 to 2011, Pershing said. He
characterized this year as "especially warm" even for a body of water
that he and other scientists previously identified as warming faster
than 99 percent of the global ocean.
"We're seeing really unusual conditions all over the planet this year.
Wildfires and heatwaves. Unusual conditions. The Gulf of Maine is part
of that story," Pershing said.
The Gulf of Maine is a body of water that resembles a dent in the
coastal Northeast, and it touches Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts
and Atlantic Canada. It's the nerve center of the U.S. lobster fishing
industry, an important feeding ground for rare North Atlantic right
whales and a piece of ocean that has attracted much attention in recent
years because of its rapid warming.
The gulf warmed at a rate of about 0.1 degrees Fahrenheit over the past
30 years, which is more than three times the global average, Pershing
said. That rate has jumped to more than seven times the global average
in the past 15 years, he said.
The warming of the gulf is happening at a time when the center of the
U.S. lobster population appears to be tracking northward. America's
lobster catch is still high, but rising temperatures threaten to
"continue to disrupt the marine ecosystem in this region," said John
Bruno, a marine ecologist with the University of North Carolina who was
not involved in Pershing's work.
"Warming in the GOM has been pushing out native species like cod, kelp
and lobster, and fostering populations of species typically found in the
Carolinas," Bruno said. "Although it's an extreme example, it mirrors
what we're seeing across most of the world."
The gulf has seen temperatures above the 90th percentile for more than
five consecutive days this year, which constitutes a "marine heatwave,"
Pershing said. It has set 10 daily temperature records this summer after
setting 18 over the winter, he said.
- - - -
It's symptomatic of warming oceans all over the world, Runge said.
"There are very large, not regional, drivers for this change," he said.
"Until we work on the global drivers of warming, I don't see any way to
stop this."
http://www.salemnews.com/news/state_news/waters-off-new-england-warming-at-record-pace/article_ba128e58-eaa1-57ab-a67f-42e95929225b.html
<September%202,%202005:%20Climate%20scientist%20Stephen%20Schneider%20appears%20on%20%22Real%20Time%20with%20Bill%20Maher%22%20to%20discuss%20climate%20change%27s%20role%20in%20Hurricane%20Katrina.,,http://youtu.be/H9mWZZ2U6EQ>*This
Day in Climate History - September 2, 2005
<September%202,%202005:%20Climate%20scientist%20Stephen%20Schneider%20appears%20on%20%22Real%20Time%20with%20Bill%20Maher%22%20to%20discuss%20climate%20change%27s%20role%20in%20Hurricane%20Katrina.,,http://youtu.be/H9mWZZ2U6EQ>
- from D.R. Tucker*
September 2, 2005: Climate scientist Stephen Schneider appears on "Real
Time with Bill Maher" to discuss climate change's role in Hurricane Katrina.
http://youtu.be/H9mWZZ2U6EQ
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