[TheClimate.Vote] September 18, 2018 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/September 18, 2018/

[blessed positive news - a breeze, a few videos]
Climate Denial Crock of the Week with Peter Sinclair
*How a Big Coal Based Utility Pivots to Wind, Renewables 
<https://climatecrocks.com/2018/09/17/how-a-big-coal-based-utility-pivots-to-wind-renewables/>*
September 17, 2018
Up until just a few years ago, Detroit based DTE, the second largest 
utility in Michigan, and a classic example of a big, coal-heavy rust 
belt electric producer, was still pushing back on efforts to decarbonize 
and enact more ambitious Renewable Portfolio standards in the state.
Then something happened.
Confess I'm not sure exactly what - but it might have something to do 
with the great performance of the wind farms the utility has been 
putting up in recent years, and the increasingly obvious results of 
economic models from across the county that show renewables 
outperforming fossil fuels in coming decades, and perhaps an enlightened 
self interest in realizing that there's no fighting a technological 
disruption of this magnitude.
- - -
My jaw dropped when a company official affirmed commitment to the Paris 
Initiative, and a low carbon profile by mid-century.
I get it - it's not enough. But given the progress of the last 5 years, 
and the rapid pace of technological change, I don't think it's naive to 
imagine even more ambitious goal setting in the not to distant future.
Above, and below, the company is touting it's success with robust wind 
development throughout the state, and the spectacular benefits to local 
communities.
https://climatecrocks.com/2018/09/17/how-a-big-coal-based-utility-pivots-to-wind-renewables/


["managed retreat as adaptation strategy"]
*'Retreat, or perish in place.' First-hand accounts of sea level rise 
<https://soundcloud.com/kuow/retreat-or-perish-in-place-first-hand-accounts-of-sea-level-rise>*
As sea levels rise and coastal populations increase, more people are 
subject to flooding. Author Elizabeth Rush compiled research and the 
stories of people affected by sea level rise for her new book *"Rising: 
Dispatches from the New American Shore."* On her website 
<http://elizabethrush.net>, Rush says "My work chronicles communities 
being irrevocably changed by late capitalist industrialization."
Rush teaches creative nonfiction at Brown University. She spoke at The 
Elliott Bay Book Company on August 17.
  KUOW's Jennie Cecil Moore recorded the event.
https://soundcloud.com/kuow/retreat-or-perish-in-place-first-hand-accounts-of-sea-level-rise
- - - -
[NYTime$ Book Review]
*Searching for Language to Capture How Climate Change Has Altered Our 
World 
<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/17/books/review/rising-elizabeth-rush.html>*
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/17/books/review/rising-elizabeth-rush.html

[The Climate Vote]
*Talking climate change with voters 
<https://www.greenbiz.com/article/talking-climate-change-voters>*
Terry F. Yosie
Monday, September 17, 2018 - 12:42am
Following years of extremely high and low temperatures, catastrophic 
hurricanes, droughts, floods, forest fires and sea-level rises eating 
away at valuable shorelines, the American people share a growing 
awareness of climate change.

According to recent results in Yale's Climate Opinion Maps, 73 percent 
of all registered voters believe that climate change is happening, and 
59 percent of voters think it is mostly caused by human activity. 
Thirty-eight percent agree that a candidate's position on climate change 
will be very important in deciding who to elect in the 2018 
Congressional midterm elections. (You can find the methodology behind 
the data here 
<http://climatecommunication.yale.edu/visualizations-data/ycom-us-2018/>.)

Why, then, has government policy and consumer behavior lagged behind 
these and other public opinion research showing similar trends?

Beyond acknowledging that people's beliefs don't always yield immediate 
concrete actions, it is important to unbundle the several dimensions of 
the climate change conversation that generally go unrecognized. Engaging 
voters on climate change must account for the following factors:

    *1. The scientific community and environmental advocates communicate
    climate change as an abstract, complex and impersonal issue.* This
    contrasts with consistently high levels of public understanding and
    support for air and water quality and waste controls. These issues
    all exist in a "pollution" framework that is seen to present
    personal risk. Given that most of the public believes that climate
    change is already underway, translating the public dialogue from
    "climate change" to "carbon pollution" is more likely to expedite
    the sense of immediacy and personal relevance of the issue.

    Presenting the co-benefits of controlling carbon pollution (and
    methane and other major greenhouse gases) in the form of air and
    water quality improvements, energy efficiency and protection of
    natural resources and property also communicates that shorter-term
    societal benefits are achievable as well as those that require more
    time. People do frequently vote their pocketbooks and their
    interests, but these are often defined by their experiences and
    sense of personal well-being rather than primarily scientific facts.

    *2. Reducing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is an outcome, not a
    goal.* All too often, climate policy advocates disconnect their
    proposed solutions from economic investment strategies, workforce
    training and skills development, or the consequences to people and
    communities from eliminating high-wage jobs in the fossil-fuels
    industry.

    An alternative strategy would recognize the value of leveraging
    public and private sector investments in critical economic
    infrastructure and technologies that are both more climate-friendly
    and create longer-term employment at higher wages. The chemical
    industry, for example, has proposed that West Virginia serve as a
    major infrastructure hub for the natural gas industry in the eastern
    United States. Such a plan would offset lost (and never returning)
    coal-mining jobs and provide an opportunity to lock in greenhouse
    gas reductions by mandating best industry best practices across the
    value chain.

    *3. The climate change debate -- like civil rights, health care and
    immigration -- is less about the level of scientific certainty,
    regulation or taxation and more about choice, change and equity.* It
    has become a lens through which to examine the nation's priorities
    and whether fair and efficient solutions can be developed to guide
    decision making without limiting our capacity to innovate new
    technologies or place disproportionate risks upon future
    generations. Fossil-fuels advocates, evangelical preachers,
    renewable energy entrepreneurs, environmentalists and local
    communities all belong in the climate conversation, but defense of
    the status quo does not because it is already being overtaken by
    events directly associated with climate change. And there are more
    impacts to come. In the words of climate analyst Joseph Romm, "It
    seems likely that climate change will transform the lives of your
    children more than the internet has."

    *4. Climate change and other decisions are based on personal
    values.* Education, career planning, partner selection and residency
    location have both immediate and long-term impacts on ourselves and
    our families. So, do climate change choices that we directly make
    through a series of purchasing, lifestyle and voting decisions.
    Individually or collectively, we can shape our future or abdicate
    having a voice in the outcome.

Much of the current crisis in America's economic and social system -- 
wage stagnation, growing inequality, social despair through growing 
rates of addiction and suicide, and carbon pollution -- reflects the 
fact that the post-World War II economic engine we rode in on is no 
longer sufficient to support our values and our future.

The late historian David Potter wrote that "economic abundance is 
conducive to political democracy." Debating and resolving the climate 
challenge is less about addressing the remaining technicalities and more 
about recreating abundance that is environmentally more friendly, more 
equitable and restorative of our democracy. Whether a voter supports 
Donald Trump or the Paris climate agreement is subordinate to choosing 
an economic and social future that is resilient beyond our own 
generation and in which climate solutions emerge as a significant 
by-product. Only we the voters can make those decisions.
https://www.greenbiz.com/article/talking-climate-change-voters


[from our elder statesman scientist]
*Global Warming and East Coast Hurricanes 
<http://www.columbia.edu/%7Ejeh1/mailings/2018/20180917_August2018TemperatureUpdate.pdf>*
17 September 2018
James Hansen and Makiko Sato
Wally Broecker suggested decades ago that freshwater injection onto the 
North Atlantic could cause shutdown of the overturning ocean circulation 
(AMOC, Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation). Rahmstorf et al. 
(2015)1 present evidence that a 20th century trend toward the cooling 
southeast of Greenland was due to a slowdown of AMOC, linking the trend 
to observed freshening of the North Atlantic surface water that may have 
been due to some combination of anomalous sea ice export from the 
Arctic, Greenland melt, and increased precipitation and river runoff.

In our paper on ice melt, sea level rise and superstorms we conclude 
from multiple lines of evidence that a 21st century slowdown of AMOC is 
underway.  Ocean surface temperature response to AMOC slowdown, in 
addition to cooling southeast of Greenland, includes warming off the 
U.S. East Coast, a temperature pattern emerging from high ocean 
resolution simulations (Saba et al., 2015).

So, does global warming have a hand in the magnitude of the Hurricane 
Florence disaster on the U.S. East Coast?  Yes, we can say with 
confidence, it contributes in several ways.

    *First, there is the fact that sea level rise due to global warming
    is already well over a foot along the U.S. East Coast. * Ice melt
    due to global warming accounts for about 20 cm (8 inches) global
    average sea level rise (Fig. 29 in our Ice Melt paper2).  Slowdown
    of the Gulf Stream, which is a part of the AMOC slowdown, adds to
    East Coast sea level.  The slowdown reduces the west-to-east upward
    slope of the ocean surface across the Gulf Stream, causing piling up
    of water on the East Coast.  The combined sea level rise from these
    effects, which is also responsible for "sunny day flooding" on the
    Eastern Seaboard, makes hurricane storm surges greater.

    *Second, the warmer ocean surface and atmosphere result in greater
    rainfall amounts*. Of course the primary
    reason for extraordinary rainfall amounts from Florence was the
    storm's slow movement.

    *Third, warmer ocean surface provides more fuel for tropical storms
    and expands the ocean area able to generate**
    **and maintain these storms.* Part of a given hurricane's strength
    can be attributed to such extra warming of the
    ocean surface. That effect was pronounced in the case of Hurricane
    Sandy, which maintained hurricane wind
    speeds all the way to New York City because of the unusually warm
    sea surface off the United States East Coast.

What about the track of Florence and the fact that it stalled, resulting 
in huge local rainfall totals? The track and
speed of a given hurricane depend on large scale mid-latitude weather 
patterns that are largely a matter of chance.
As the area in which "tropical" storms can form expands poleward, the 
opportunity for a mid-latitude high
pressure system to push a storm westward may increase, but we are 
unaware of specific studies. What we can say
is that historical hurricane tracks may not be an accurate picture of 
future tracks.

The number of hurricanes striking the continental U.S. does not show a 
notable trend (Fig. 2). Indeed, the current
decade has only the rest of this year and next year to add to its total 
to avoid being the decade with the smallest
number of hurricanes hitting the continental United States. This small 
reduction in landfalls seems to be a matter
of chance.

  Damage per hurricane is more important. Global warming already has a 
large impact on damage for
reasons given above. Those impacts, especially those arising from 
increasing sea level, may accelerate
exponentially, if high fossil fuel emissions continue.
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2018/20180917_August2018TemperatureUpdate.pdf


[lots of still pictures Florence mess]
HURRICANE CENTRAL
*Allegiant Airlines Flight Takes Unusual Florence Flight Path 
<https://weather.com/storms/hurricane/news/2018-09-15-allegiant-airlines-flight-hurricane-florence>*
By Pam Wright
While thousands of commercial airlines gave Hurricane Florence a wide 
berth on Friday as the then-Category 1 hurricane slammed into the 
Carolinas, an Allegiant Airlines flight took a different track.
Images captured from Flight Aware and shared via Twitter appeared to 
show the flight path of Allegiant Flight 2237 traveling through the 
hurricane while flying from Bangor, Maine, to Orlando, Florida. But the 
airline says the flight was actually flying well above Florence.
Flight data indicates that the McDonnell Douglas MD-80 flew through the 
storm at 34,000 feet, at a ground speed of up to 580 mph, the Points Guy 
reported.
Storm activity topped out between "20,000 and 25,000 feet," and so 2237 
had "10,000 (feet) of clearance," according to Hilarie Grey, director of 
corporate communications for the airline.
"Crew reported an entirely smooth, turbulence-free flight," Grey said. 
For comparison, hurricane hunters with the Air Force's 53rd Weather 
Reconnaissance Squadron fly planes through a hurricane no faster than 
200 mph and no higher than 10,000 feet, hurricane hunter Capt. Ben Blair 
told the Wall Street Journal.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration hurricane hunter flights 
also fly through the core of hurricanes, but also have another plane, 
called the Gulfstream IV that flies at higher altitudes, between 35,000 
and 45,000 feet, said weather.com meteorologist Jonathan Belles.
https://weather.com/storms/hurricane/news/2018-09-15-allegiant-airlines-flight-hurricane-florence


[Author Elizabeth Rush reads from her book]
*'Retreat, or perish in place': First-hand accounts of sea level rise 
<https://www.kuow.org/stories/retreat-or-perish-in-place-first-hand-accounts-of-sea-level-rise>*
BY John O'Brien
SEP 16, 2018
- hour long audio of reading 
<https://soundcloud.com/kuow/retreat-or-perish-in-place-first-hand-accounts-of-sea-level-rise> 
https://soundcloud.com/kuow/retreat-or-perish-in-place-first-hand-accounts-of-sea-level-rise
Throughout history and pre-history, humans have gravitated toward 
coastlines. NASA estimates over one-third of all humans live within 60 
miles of an ocean. The majority of the world's megacities are in coastal 
zones.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 
nearly 40 percent of the U.S. population lives in "relatively 
high-population-density coastal areas."

 From a NOAA report: 'The two major causes of global sea level rise are 
thermal expansion caused by warming of the ocean (since water expands as 
it warms) and increased melting of land-based ice, such as glaciers and 
ice sheets. The oceans are absorbing more than 90 percent of the 
increased atmospheric heat associated with emissions from human activity."

As sea levels rise and coastal populations increase, more people are 
subject to flooding. Author Elizabeth Rush compiled research and the 
stories of people affected by sea level rise for her new book, "Rising: 
Dispatches from the New American Shore." On her website, Rush says, "My 
work chronicles communities being irrevocably changed by late capitalist 
industrialization."
Rush teaches creative nonfiction at Brown University. She spoke at The 
Elliott Bay Book Company on August 17. KUOW's Jennie Cecil Moore 
recorded the event.
https://www.kuow.org/stories/retreat-or-perish-in-place-first-hand-accounts-of-sea-level-rise
- - - -
[NYTimes book review]
*Searching for Language to Capture How Climate Change Has Altered Our 
World 
<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/17/books/review/rising-elizabeth-rush.html>*
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/17/books/review/rising-elizabeth-rush.html


[with concrete recommendations ]
*Q&A: Why cement emissions matter for climate change* 
<https://www.carbonbrief.org/qa-why-cement-emissions-matter-for-climate-change>
If the cement industry were a country, it would be the third largest 
emitter in the world.
In 2015, it generated around 2.8bn tonnes of CO2, equivalent to 8% of 
the global total - a greater share than any country other than China or 
the US.
Cement use is set to rise as global urbanisation and economic 
development increases demand for new buildings and infrastructure. Along 
with other parts of the global economy, the cement industry will need to 
dramatically cut its emissions to meet the Paris Agreement's temperature 
goals. However, only limited progress has been made so far...
- - - -
Cement emissions depend largely on the proportion of clinker used in 
each tonne of cement. The type of fuel and efficiency of equipment used 
during clinker production also have an impact.
Meanwhile, the floor area of the world's buildings is projected to 
double in the next 40 years. This means cement production is set to grow 
to around 5bn tonnes by 2030, a 25% increase from today, reaching over 
four times 1990 levels.

Efficiency gains alone will, therefore, not be enough to significantly 
cut the sector's emissions...
- - - -
The IEA and the industry-led Cement Sustainability Initiative (CSI) 
recently released a new low-carbon roadmap, showing how it considers 
emissions can be cut in line with a "2C" scenario and a "below 2C" 
scenario. The roadmap assumes cement demand will increase 12-23% by 2050.
For a 2C scenario - in line with 50% chance of limiting global 
temperature rise to 2C above pre-industrial levels by 2100 - the roadmap 
says a 24% cut in cement emissions is needed. (It is worth noting this 
is not in line with the Paris Agreement, which calls for temperature 
rise to stay "well below" 2C at the very least.)...
- - - -
The recently launched Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA) also 
wants to improve the environmental credentials of the sector. It is set 
to take on the sustainability work done by the CSI in January 2019.
Several cement firms have also already introduced an internal carbon 
price, or have plans to introduce one.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/qa-why-cement-emissions-matter-for-climate-change


[Rock stars]
*Warmth against global warming: Patti Smith, Lucinda Williams, Talib 
Kweli and more at the Ace 
<http://buzzbands.la/2018/09/17/warmth-against-global-warming-patti-smith-lucinda-williams-talib-kweli-and-more-at-the-ace/>*
STEVE HOCHMAN on September 17th, 2018
Global warming is what brought people together for the Pathway to Paris 
concert at the Theater at the Ace Hotel on Sunday. The multi-artist show 
-- topped by Patti Smith and featuring Talib Kweli, Lucinda Williams, 
Karen O, Eric Burdon, Jim James, Dhani Harrison, Flea and Tenzin 
Choegyal among the acts -- was put on by the titular organization, 
campaigning since 2014 for the goals of (and more recently, against our 
government's break from) the climate crisis-focused Paris Accord.

The warmth in the room, though, was a different kind, that of family and 
friends and community and purpose, radiating from the stage, embracing 
the audience, and circling back around to the clearly inspired 
performers. Smith's rock-poet maternal nature was in full flower, not 
just with the extended family of fans she always embraces so tightly, 
but literally as Pathway was co-founded by her daughter Jesse Paris 
Smith with Rebecca Foon, the two of them serving as co-hosts of the 
concert and performers on piano and cello, respectively...
- - - -
Of course there were some speeches and films promoting Pathway and 
spotlighting the issues at hand -- most profoundly Bill McKibben of the 
environmental group 350.org showing some "vacation slides" of a recent 
trip to Greenland, a cell phone video he took from a helicopter as a big 
chunk of the ice sheet there calving into the sea stating the case more 
strongly than any words could. Though words of the current record storms 
sweeping across the Eastern U.S. and the Philippines and China gave 
shape to the ideas as well.
And also of course, the night finished with all hand on deck to join 
Patti Smith for "People Have the Power" (co-written by Jesse's late dad, 
Fred "Sonic" Smith of the MC5), audience on its collective feet, voices 
collectively raised, fists collectively pumped. Heart-warming.
http://buzzbands.la/2018/09/17/warmth-against-global-warming-patti-smith-lucinda-williams-talib-kweli-and-more-at-the-ace/


*This Day in Climate History - September 18, 2006 
<http://blogsofbainbridge.typepad.com/ecotalkblog/2006/09/ecotalk_daily_s.html> 
- from D.R. Tucker*
September 18, 2006: Air America's "EcoTalk with Betsy Rosenberg" becomes 
the first radio show focused on green/climate change issues to go to a 
daily format in 40 markets.
http://blogsofbainbridge.typepad.com/ecotalkblog/2006/09/ecotalk_daily_s.html

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