[TheClimate.Vote] August 24, 2019 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Sat Aug 24 09:39:55 EDT 2019
/August 24, 2019/
[International and interactive map]
*Global Forest Watch Fires *
https://fires.globalforestwatch.org/home/
https://fires.globalforestwatch.org/map/#activeLayers=viirsFires%2CactiveFires&activeBasemap=topo&activeImagery=&planetCategory=null&planetPeriod=null&x=0.000000&y=40.000000&z=3
- - -*
**Share information on fires*
http://fires.globalforestwatch.org/story/
[German media on G7 summit agenda]
*What to expect from the 2019 G7 summit in Biarritz? | DW News*
DW News
Published on Aug 23, 2019
The G7 summit is set to start in Biarritz today. French President
Emmanuel Macron is suggesting putting the Amazon fires on the summit's
agenda.
Macron will lead talks by leaders of the world's major economies on a
wide range of topics, from tension over Iran to protests in Hong Kong
and the bleak outlook for the world economy.
But the main theme of this year's meeting will be the fight against
global inequality. France has deployed more than 13,000 police to
protect the gathering.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gn4FxZXz6D8
[Europe to get more heat]
*Europe to see third major heat wave this summer, as temperatures soar
from France to Scandinavia*
It's the latest in a series of extreme heat events demonstrating the
influence of a warming world.
For the third time this summer, parts of Europe will soon be dealing
with another heat wave. Temperatures will climb some 20 degrees above
average in spots beginning this weekend, baking much of Eastern Europe
and Scandinavia in unseasonable warmth.
The culprit for the hot weather will again be a strong area of high
pressure aloft, or heat dome, that will set up an atmospheric
squeeze-play of sorts between low pressure on either side. This will
draw a flow of unusually warm air northward...
- - -
It could enhance sea ice melt heading into early September, and sea ice
extent is already running near a record low.
The surge of warmth will bulge the atmosphere upward as the warm air
expands. This will raise the halfway point of the atmosphere, above and
below which rests half of the atmosphere's mass, upward by 800 feet...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2019/08/22/europe-see-third-major-heat-wave-this-year-temperatures-soar-france-scandinavia/
[science review videos from Beckwith - 15 min each]
*Browning of the Earth: Land Plant Growth Decline Since 1998: Part 1 of 2*
Paul Beckwith
Published on Aug 23, 2019
Earth stopped getting greener 20 years ago. A new research study used
satellite images to determine that plant growth on land increased in the
1980s and 1990s, but reached a turning point in 1998, and has since been
decreasing. The decrease is mostly attributed to decreasing moisture in
the air, as measured by a Vapour Pressure Deficit (VPD) parameter; which
is the difference between the actual amount of moisture in the air
versus the maximum amount of moisture possible in the air (saturation)
at the given temperature.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_JDdpFPv2c
- - -
*Atmospheric Drying Reducing Terrestrial Vegetation Growth Since 1998:
Part 2 of 2*
Published on Aug 23, 2019
It is well known that global vegetation decline is worsening from
land-use forest clearing, wildfires, desertification, drought, soil
degradation,... but some regions like the Arctic are greening. We also
know that the maximum amount of moisture air can hold at saturation goes
up by 7% per degree C temperature rise. This temperature rise increases
atmospheric water vapour content via ocean, lakes, rivers, and soil
water evaporation and evapotranspiration from plants. If this increase
is under 7%, a Vapour Pressure Deficit occurs, plant stomata shrink, and
vegetation growth slows reducing global primary productivity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2h2gvYU_WI
- - -
[Important to know VPD]
*Vapour-pressure deficit*
Vapour-pressure deficit, or VPD, is the difference (deficit) between the
amount of moisture in the air and how much moisture the air can hold
when it is saturated. Once air becomes saturated, water will condense
out to form clouds, dew or films of water over leaves. It is this last
instance that makes VPD important for greenhouse regulation. If a film
of water forms on a plant leaf, it becomes far more susceptible to rot.
On the other hand, as the VPD increases, the plant needs to draw more
water from its roots. In the case of cuttings, the plant may dry out and
die. For this reason the ideal range for VPD in a greenhouse is from
0.45 kPa to 1.25 kPa, ideally sitting at around 0.85 kPa. As a general
rule, most plants grow well at VPDs of between 0.8 and 0.95
kPa.[citation needed]
In ecology, it is the difference between the actual water vapour
pressure and the saturation water vapour pressure at a particular
temperature. Unlike relative humidity, vapour-pressure deficit has a
simple nearly straight-line relationship to the rate of
evapotranspiration and other measures of evaporation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vapour-pressure_deficit
- -
[More about VPD]
*VPD vs Humidity Concept Video*
Argus Controls
Published on Feb 1, 2018
A video outlining the concepts of VPD and Humidity and how they work
with Argus products.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aj0QzkhilHQ
[Wildfire Smoke Factsheet]
*Indoor Air Filtration*
When wildfire smoke gets inside your home it can make your indoor air
unhealthy, but there are steps you can take to
protect your health and improve the air quality in your home. Reducing
indoor sources of pollution is a major step toward
lowering the concentrations of particles indoors. For example, avoid
burning candles, smoking tobacco products, using
aerosol products, and avoid using a gas or wood-burning stove or
fireplace. Another step is air filtration. This fact sheet
discusses effective options for filtering your home's indoor air to
reduce indoor air pollution.
https://www3.epa.gov/airnow/smoke_fires/indoor-air-filtration-factsheet-508.pdf
[David Koch - half legacy]
*David Koch Was the Ultimate Climate Change Denier*
How a playboy billionaire built a political army to defend his fossil
fuel empire.
- - -
Koch Industries realized early on that it would be a financial disaster
for the firm if the American government regulated carbon emissions or
made companies pay a price for releasing carbon into the atmosphere. The
effects of such a policy would be measured over decades for Koch. The
company has billions of dollars sunk into the complex and expensive
infrastructure of crude-oil processing. If a limit on greenhouse gas
emissions were imposed, it could dampen demand for oil and diminish the
value of those assets and their future sales. The total dollar losses
would likely be measured in trillions over a period of 30 years or more.
In the face of this political problem, David Koch and his brother
Charles built a political influence machine that is arguably unrivaled
by any in corporate America.
Construction on the Koch political machine began in the 1970s, after
Charles Koch took over the family company. He and David began funding
and orchestrating a political project to restrain government power in
the United States through lobbying, think tanks and political donations.
The effort accelerated in the 1990s after a Senate committee, following
a long investigation, accused Koch Industries of stealing oil from
Native American reservations where the company was operating. That
experience convinced David and Charles Koch that they needed to have a
stronger presence in Washington to fend off their critics.
The machine reached full fruition in 2008, when Barack Obama was elected
president. The machine is so effective because it is multifaceted. In
addition to one of the largest registered corporate lobbying offices in
the country, located about two blocks from the White House, there is a
constellation of Koch-funded think tanks and university centers. They
all convey a consistent message: that government programs can only cause
more harm than good and that market forces alone must shape human
society. And their work is bolstered by a private network of donors that
David and Charles Koch assembled over the years, a network that gives
donations at levels rivaling a political party...
- - -
Since the 2016 election, and in the face of more urgent scientific
warnings about climate change and a growing popular movement for action,
the Koch network has tried to build a Republican Party in its image: one
that not only refuses to consider action on climate change but continues
to deny that the problem is real. Just this week, Senator John Cornyn,
Republican of Texas, dismissed data about climate change by pointing out
on Twitter: "It's summer." In doing so, he reflected the politics of a
party -- and a world -- that has been profoundly shaped by David Koch.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/23/opinion/sunday/david-koch-climate-change.html
- - -
[Opinion "The evil that men do lives after them, the good, oft interred
with their bones"]
*David Koch Escaped the Climate Hell He Helped Create*
Brian Kahn
David Koch is dead.
The billionaire died this week at age 79 of causes yet unknown. While he
certainly enjoyed the fruits of his labors to deregulate U.S. industry
and reduce taxes on the super-wealthy like himself, he will never have
to experience the consequences of his biggest achievement: putting the
entire planet on the brink of crisis in the service of enriching himself
and a few other fossil fuel billionaires. And we, the people and future
generations who are going to live with the fallout, will never see him
or the small cadre of wealthy conservatives who funded decades of
climate denial face any form of justice.
Koch's death was first reported by the New Yorker's Jane Mayer Friday
morning and confirmed by his surviving brother, Charles, shortly
thereafter. The two brothers were tied as the 11th richest people on the
planet on the Forbes 100, with an estimated net worth of $50.5 billion
each. They amassed so much wealth in part through business savvy--you
likely don't go a day without coming in contact with something made by
some subsidiary of their privately owned Koch Industries
conglomerate--and in part because they spent a comparative pittance of
that fortune on turning our political system into a fucking nightmare.
Funding astroturf groups like Americans for Prosperity and conservative
politicians has led to widespread deregulation and huge tax breaks for
their businesses, allowing them to take an even bigger share of the pie.
If ratcheting up inequality were all the Kochs did, they would still be
arch-villains. But the Koch brothers' businesses from fossil fuel
extraction and refining to petrochemical and fertilizer production all
rely on being able to emit carbon pollution with abandon. In the 1990s,
as the world moved toward an awakening on climate change and the need to
address it, the Koch machine moved to block any regulations or price on
carbon that would cut into their profits by funding doubt and denial.
Greenpeace estimates the brothers spent $127 million from 1997 to 2017
funding 92 organizations that muddied the waters on climate change, a
move that helped make international efforts to combat climate change,
like the Kyoto Protocol, worthless. They funded a network of overlapping
climate denial organizations to kill a 2009 bill that would have created
a cap and trade system, a very business-friendly climate solution they
rejected on principle.
Now David Koch is dead. And he will never have to live with the
consequences of his actions, all of which were for, I don't know, making
a point as part of some libertarian 101 seminar or maybe just plain old
greed. (You could can argue the two are synonymous). Ditto for the other
largely anonymous small cadre of conservative billionaires and fossil
fuel executives who have peddled climate denial over the years all while
making the problem worse by extracting more poison from the ground and
putting it in the atmosphere. They'll likely die long before things get
really bleak, and the profits they made as one of the biggest market
failures in human history will almost certainly ensure their descendants
are insulated from the worst impacts.
If David Koch and his brother hadn't funded denial--as Charles is likely
to continue to do--it's possible that the world would have taken steps
to drawdown carbon pollution decades ago. If the world began cutting
emissions in 2000, it would have had to do so at a rate of 4 percent per
year to keep warming under the 1.5 degree Celsius (2.7 degrees
Fahrenheit) threshold. Starting today means "monumental" cuts. If we
don't do anything for 10 years, we're in deep trouble. All the funding
Koch kicked in for arts and cancer research won't matter if the world
burns down, a thing that's actively happening to the Amazon rain forest
on the same week he passed away.
David Koch will never have to watch the world struggle to climb the
steepening curve he helped propel into existence. And he'll never have
to live with the consequences if we don't. If the world misses the 1.5
degrees Celsius goal, the impacts will be severe. Coral will likely
disappear. Large swaths of island nations could become uninhabitable by
midcentury. Millions of more people who rely on rainfed agriculture will
face hunger as the weather becomes more erratic. Livelihoods will
disappear. Societies will vanish. People, in short, will die.
There is deep injustice in David Koch's death. Journalist Kate Aronoff
has made the case that fossil fuel executives should be tried for crimes
against humanity. Those trials--if they happen--would be unlikely to
snare some of the biggest perpetrators of those crimes because they too
will already be dead. Climate change is a form of violence that will
largely affect people with little power to address it or relatively
little role in creating it. Death is an escape hatch for David Koch
while the rest of us are left scrambling for the emergency brake before
we go over the cliff.
https://earther.gizmodo.com/david-koch-escaped-the-climate-hell-he-helped-create-1837505612
- - -
[See the "What If" chart -- if we had started in 1980. ]
CO2 Mitigation Curves for 1.5 degrees C - plotted from 1980 through 2100
https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--VrYG9pzx--/c_scale,f_auto,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/baczor9ic24smai3fdgw.png
- - -
[Last year intrigue]
*One Koch Brother Forces the Other Out of the Family Business*
An arch-conservative political machine will be down one billionaire but
have more clout than ever.
By Jane Mayer June 7, 2018
The retirement of David Koch from Koch Industries will make it easier to
see more clearly what has been true from the start: Charles and David
Koch, who came to be known as "the Koch brothers," were equals in
bloodlines and in wealth, but Charles has always been the brains behind
the brothers' vast corporate and political operations. Those who know
the brothers well predict that David's retirement will have scant
impact, particularly in the political realm, where the Kochs exert
enormous influence...
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-meaning-of-a-koch-brothers-retirement
[Water expert and MacArthur Genius Award-winner Peter Gleick has just
published a tongue-in-cheek op-ed - Sarcasm on:]
*Climate change and the Titanic*
By Peter Gleick, August 23, 2019
Ship designer: "I think we should make sure that the Titanic is designed
with safeguards against possible future climate changes."
Ship owners: "That would cost way too much money and is unnecessary."
Navigator: "Captain, there is a possibility there are climate changes
ahead on our current course."
Captain: "Don't worry, there are no climate changes ahead. Full speed
ahead."
Radio operator: "Captain, we're getting initial reports from weather
forecasters that climate changes are indeed possible on our current course."
Captain: "Don't be silly. It's impossible to predict the weather."
Radio operator: "Captain, we now have direct reports from other ships
that the waters ahead do have climate changes.
Captain: "Don't worry, you can't trust the instruments on those other
ships."
Lookout: "Captain, we're beginning to see climate changes in the seas
ahead."
Captain: "Don't worry, this ship was built to handle the climate changes
we've seen throughout history."
Lookout: "Captain, we're beginning to see unusually large climate
changes around us."
Helmsman: "Captain, should we change course?"
Captain: "Don't worry, we won't hit them, and it would cost too much to
change course."
Passengers: "Captain, some of us are getting worried about the large
numbers of climate changes we're clearly seeing in the waters around us.
We request you take immediate action to avoid the climate changes while
there's still time."
Captain: "I'm the captain and stop bothering me with your climate change
worries."
Lookout: "Captain, major climate changes, dead ahead."
Helmsman: "Captain, I recommend we change course to avoid climate
changes while we still have time. There are some clear paths we can take."
Captain: "Don't worry, this ship is practically unsinkable. Also, I
forbid you from using the term "climate change" anymore."
Engineer and ship designer: "Captain, we've reviewed the ship's plans
and it turns out there are several serious vulnerabilities in our design."
Captain: "Don't worry. Climate changes have never been a problem in the
past, and a little climate change might even be good. Also, we can pick
up more ice for the champagne."
First Mate: "Captain, we've struck a major climate change and the ship
is filling with water. Should we plug the hole and alert the passengers?"
Captain: "Don't worry, it's just a small hole and the ship will be fine.
Besides, it would cost too much to fix the hole."
First Mate: "Captain, the ship is sinking, and it turns out we only have
lifeboats for some of the passengers. Should we abandon ship?"
Captain: "Well, tell the first-class passengers they might want to put
on life jackets and get in the lifeboats. The passengers in steerage can
fend for themselves. Also, build a wall between the first-class
passengers and everyone else."
Radio operator: "Captain, I've sent out an SOS, but it turns out there's
no one out there to help us."
Rich passenger: "Maybe we could build a plane and fly a couple of us to
another ship."
Captain: "Yes, let's go."
First Mate, helmsman, and lookout: "Wait, doesn't tradition say the
captain should go down with his ship?"
Captain: "Not anymore. I'm out of here. Also, it's all your fault for
not warning me in time."
https://thebulletin.org/2019/08/climate-change-and-the-titanic/
*This Day in Climate History - August 24, 2010 - from D.R. Tucker*
August 24, 2010: MSNBC's Keith Olbermann interviews Lee Fang of Think
Progress regarding Fang's coverage of the Koch Brothers.
http://youtu.be/tRbLXN4j7Do
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