[TheClimate.Vote] August 27, 2019 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Tue Aug 27 09:15:33 EDT 2019
/August 27, 2019/
[Severe alert Pacific NW]
*Southwest Interior Severe Watches & Warnings*
...Fire Weather Watch in effect from Wednesday morning through
Wednesday evening for hot, dry, and unstable conditions for fire
weather zones 658 and 659...
The National Weather Service in Seattle has issued a Fire Weather
Watch for hot, dry, and unstable conditions, which is in effect
from Wednesday morning through Wednesday evening.
- - -
Precautionary/preparedness actions...
A Fire Weather Watch means that there is a potential for critical
fire weather conditions to develop. Monitor the forecasts for
possible red flag warnings.
https://www.wunderground.com/US/WA/504.html?hdf=1
[words from our fearless leader]
*Scoop: Trump suggested nuking hurricanes to stop them from hitting U.S.*
"President Trump has suggested multiple times to senior Homeland
Security and national security officials that they explore using nuclear
bombs to stop hurricanes from hitting the United States."
https://www.axios.com/trump-nuclear-bombs-hurricanes-97231f38-2394-4120-a3fa-8c9cf0e3f51c.html
- - -
[National Geographic from 2016]
*Nuking Hurricanes: The Surprising History of a Really Bad Idea*
Hurricane season comes to an end today [November 30], but the myth of
bombing Mother Nature into submission endures.
- - -
Today, international law prohibits us from even trying. The Peaceful
Nuclear Explosions Treaty, signed and ratified by the United States in
1990, limits the yield of weapons for non-military purposes to 150
kilotons--a formal acknowledgement that you can't fight Mother Nature,
especially with nukes.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2016/11/hurricanes-weather-history-nuclear-weapons/
- -
[NOAA keeps this page open for this question]
Frequently Asked Questions
*Back to Tropical Cyclones Myths Page*
Why don't we try to destroy tropical cyclones by nuking them?
Contributed by Stan Goldenberg and Hugh Willoughby
During each hurricane season, there always appear suggestions that one
should simply use nuclear weapons to try and destroy the storms. Apart
from the fact that this might not even alter the storm, this approach
neglects the problem that the released radioactive fallout would fairly
quickly move with the tradewinds to affect land areas and cause
devastating environmental problems. Needless to say, this is not a good
idea.
Now for a more rigorous scientific explanation of why this would not be
an effective hurricane modification technique. The main difficulty with
using explosives to modify hurricanes is the amount of energy required.
A fully developed hurricane can release heat energy at a rate of 5 to
20x10 to the 13th watts and converts less than 10% of the heat into the
mechanical energy of the wind. The heat release is equivalent to a
10-megaton nuclear bomb exploding every 20 minutes. According to the
1993 World Almanac, the entire human race used energy at a rate of 10 to
the 13th watts in 1990, a rate less than 20% of the power of a hurricane.
If we think about mechanical energy, the energy at humanity's disposal
is closer to the storm's, but the task of focusing even half of the
energy on a spot in the middle of a remote ocean would still be
formidable. Brute force interference with hurricanes doesn't seem promising.
In addition, an explosive, even a nuclear explosive, produces a shock
wave, or pulse of high pressure, that propagates away from the site of
the explosion somewhat faster than the speed of sound. Such an event
doesn't raise the barometric pressure after the shock has passed because
barometric pressure in the atmosphere reflects the weight of the air
above the ground. For normal atmospheric pressure, there are about ten
metric tons (1000 kilograms per ton) of air bearing down on each square
meter of surface. In the strongest hurricanes there are nine. To change
a Category 5 hurricane into a Category 2 hurricane you would have to add
about a half ton of air for each square meter inside the eye, or a total
of a bit more than half a billion (500,000,000) tons for a 20 km radius
eye. It's difficult to envision a practical way of moving that much air
around.
Attacking weak tropical waves or depressions before they have a chance
to grow into hurricanes isn't promising either. About 80 of these
disturbances form every year in the Atlantic basin, but only about 5
become hurricanes in a typical year. There is no way to tell in advance
which ones will develop. If the energy released in a tropical
disturbance were only 10% of that released in a hurricane, it's still a
lot of power, so that the hurricane police would need to dim the whole
world's lights many times a year.
https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/C5c.html
[Bird's eye view]
*Drone footage reveals aftermath of Amazon fires*
Guardian News
Published on Aug 26, 2019
Aerial footage shows the desolation left in the wake of fires that have
swept the Amazon rainforest over the last month. Six states in Brazil's
Amazon region requested military help to combat record fires that are
tearing through the rainforest. Environmentalists have said farmers
clearing land for pasture were responsible for the uptick in fires. The
Amazon is the world's largest tropical rainforest and its protection is
seen as vital to the fight against climate change because of the vast
amounts of carbon dioxide it absorbs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5giZRtzMyaM
- -
[from 2018]
*What If We CLEARED the Amazon?*
Atlas Pro
Published on Sep 3, 2018
This was supposed to be a bizarre hypothetical but now I'm not so sure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hb3b-A6QAc8
[MIT embraces KOCH over a future.]
*Column: How MIT whitewashed the climate change denialism of a major
donor, David Koch*
Obituary writers have been struggling for days with the task of
balancing the philanthropic record of billionaire David H. Koch with his
baleful influence on democratic electoral principles and the science of
climate change.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology seems to have found a solution to
the challenge. In its send-off to Koch published Friday, the day of his
death, the university went on at length about his donations to MIT in
the fields of cancer research, child care and even basketball. Of his
role in suppressing the facts of climate change, fighting access to
medical coverage for low-income Americans and undermining the expansion
of renewable energy, MIT was completely, utterly silent.
- - -
Essentially, they were willing to let him fund an agenda that makes the
world a worse place," Shames observed, "in exchange for making MIT
better. As an alumnus, that makes me really sad."
Michael Hiltzik
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael Hiltzik writes a daily blog
appearing on latimes.com. His business column appears in print every
Sunday, and occasionally on other days. As a member of the Los Angeles
Times staff, he has been a financial and technology writer and a foreign
correspondent. He is the author of six books, including "Dealers of
Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age" and "The New
Deal: A Modern History." Hiltzik and colleague Chuck Philips shared the
1999 Pulitzer Prize for articles exposing corruption in the
entertainment industry.
Aug. 26,
2019https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-08-26/how-mit-whitewashed-david-koch
[Kidney disease from global warming]*
Whatever Happened To ... The Mysterious Kidney Disease Striking Central
America?*
August 26, 2019
Heard on All Thigs Considered
JASON BEAUBIEN
In 2014 and 2015, NPR reported on a mysterious form of kidney disease
that has killed tens of thousands in Central America, many of them in
their 30s and 40s. Now there's a new theory about a possible cause.
Dr. Cecilia Sorensen in an editorial in the current issue of The New
England Journal of Medicine calls this new mysterious form of kidney
failure "a sentinel disease" in the era of climate change...
"We know that climate change is exacerbating a lot of different human
diseases. It exacerbates cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease,"
says Sorensen, an emergency medicine physician who also teaches at the
University of Colorado School of Medicine. "But this is one of the first
identified where we can say this disease probably wouldn't have occurred
if it weren't for the extreme global temperatures that we're seeing."..
- - -
Pearce also has looked for CKDu in other places with similar climatic
conditions to Central America's Pacific coastal plains — northern Peru
and Malawi, for example — and hasn't found it....
"If you go to south India there's these villages that are very close to
each other, and some of them are getting CKDu and some of them are not.
They're both equally hot, and they're not the hottest parts of India,"
he says. "Yes, there's something very strange going on. It's really
interesting scientifically and obviously tragic in terms of the death
and illness that it's caused."
Sorensen in her editorial doesn't claim to have the exact answer to
what's causing CKDu. But she and just about everyone else studying this
disease agree that it's related to hard physical labor in intense
tropical heat. As global temperatures rise, she warns that health
professionals should be thinking about how the changing climate might be
driving what seem to be "mysterious" new ailments.
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/08/26/753834371/whatever-happened-to-the-mysterious-kidney-disease-striking-central-america
[cool the ashes]
*After the wildfire: treating the mental health crisis triggered by
climate change*
In 2017, thousands of homes in Santa Rosa, California, were wiped off
the map. Now the community is helping residents cope with the trauma
Dean Kuipers in Santa Rosa
Mon 26 Aug 2019
- - -
The climate crisis is manifesting as ever-bigger wildfires, hurricanes,
floods and heat waves; and cities are just starting to grapple with the
mental impact of the emergency. A climate task force of the American
Psychological Association, citing scores of studies over the last
decades, reports that survivors of these human-enhanced disasters are
experiencing dramatic increases in depression, post-traumatic stress
disorder (PTSD), anxiety disorders, suicide and suicidal thoughts,
violent behavior and increased use of drugs and alcohol. A Rand study
found that one-third of the adult survivors of California wildfires in
2003 suffered depression and one-quarter suffered PTSD...
- - -
"Long story short, I went through a lot of PTSD," Leal says, as we tour
his nearly rebuilt home in Santa Rosa's Coffey Park neighborhood.
Wildfires are not uncommon in the mountains outside of this northern
California town, but residents can't remember one like this: the fire
jumped six lanes of Highway 101, into the city, and licked up about
1,300 of the suburb's 2,000 homes as if they'd just evaporated. Leal
thought, I live in the city; it's not supposed to burn.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/26/climate-change-mental-health-wildfires-santa-rosa?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
- - -
[California based:Yoga for trauma victims]
*Wildfire Mental Health Collaborative*
To access supportive services call: 866.960.6264
The Wildfire Mental Health Collaborative
(The Collaborative) is a community-wide
initiative committed to mental health recovery
care for wildfire survivors.
Everyone affected by the fires can learn to
recognize the signs of distress and access
mental health services to aid short- and
long-term coping and healing.
The Collaborative currently provides:
To mental health professionals:
1. Skills for Psychological Recovery (SPR)
training for Mental Health Professionals
To fire survivors:
2. Free group outreach sessions conducted
by SPR mental health professionals
3. Free yoga and meditation classes
4. Free individual counseling
5. Free self-guided resilience training
6. mysonomastrong.com: A w
https://www.mysonomastrong.com/
[the full report from 2009]
*Psychology and Global Climate Change: Addressing a Multi-faceted
Phenomenon and Set of Challenges*
Report of the American Psychological Association Task Force on the
Interface Between Psychology and Global Climate Change
https://www.apa.org/science/about/publications/climate-change
- -
[Read the Executive Summary]
*Psychology& Global Climate Change addressing a multifaceted phenomenon
and set of challenges*
A Report Of the American Psychologcal Association
Task Force on the Interface Between Psychology and Global Climate Change
*Conclusion*
We conclude by summarizing the value of a psychological approach
to studying climate change and research contributions. We discuss
the importance of being attuned to the diversity of human experience
in climate change analyses because various understandings of and
responses to climate change will be influenced by a person's worldview,
culture, and social identities. We also discuss how APA ethical standards
provide motivation for psychologists' engagement in climate change
issues and challenges. Finally, we recommend that psychologists adopt
the following principles to maximize the value and use of psychological
concepts and research for understanding and informing effective
responses to climate change thereby maximizing their contribution to the
science of climate change:
1. Use the shared language and concepts of the climate research
community where possible and explain differences in use of language
between this community and psychology;
2. Make connections to research and concepts from other social,
engineering, and natural science fields;
3. Present psychological insights in terms of missing pieces in climate
change analyses;
4. Present the contributions of psychology in relation to important
challenges to climate change and climate response;
5. Prioritize issues and behaviors recognized as important climate
change causes, consequences, or responses. Be cognizant of the
possibility that psychological phenomena are context dependent;
6. Be explicit about whether psychological principles and best practices
have been established in climate-relevant contexts;
7. Be explicit about whether psychological principles and best practices
have been established in climate-relevant contexts; and
8. Be mindful of social disparities and ethical and justice issues that
interface with climate change.
https://www.apa.org/science/about/publications/executive-summary.pdf
- -
The full set of policy recommendations can be found at
http://www.apa.org/science/climate-change/policy-recommendations.pdf
*This Day in Climate History - August 27, 1989, 2004 - from D.R. Tucker*
August 27, 1989: The New York Times reports:
"Top Soviet and American scientists, environmentalists,
policymakers, industry leaders and artists today urged President
Bush and President Mikhail S. Gorbachev of the Soviet Union to form
an 'environmental security alliance' to reverse what they fear could
be a catastrophic warming of the planet.
"The gathering urged that the superpowers promote energy-efficient
technologies and phase out production and use of chlorofluorocarbons
no later than the year 2000. The group said the countries should
'substantially reduce' carbon dioxide emissions, reduce the loss of
forests and promote tree planting worldwide. Participants asked that
the two leaders appeal directly to their citizens to help.
"The joint letter avoided specific goals to achieve a compromise
between the Soviet and American participants and within the American
contingent, even though some participants had wanted specific
numerical and time goals on cutting emissions. But it represented
the most concerted Soviet-American action yet over fears that the
emission of industrial chemicals into the atmosphere is causing a
worldwide warming trend, or 'greenhouse effect.'
"'Soviet and U.S. scientists agreed that continued buildup of
greenhouse gases at present rates will insure that global
temperatures rise before the middle of the next century above
anything in human history,' an accompanying report stated. The
report said disruptions in agriculture and rising sea levels would
cause 'massive refugee problems.'"
http://www.nytimes.com/1989/08/27/us/summit-of-sorts-on-global-warming.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
- -
August 27, 2004: The New York Times reports that in an interview the
previous day with President George W. Bush, he "appeared unfamiliar with
an administration report delivered to Congress on Wednesday that
indicated that emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases
were the only likely explanation for global warming over the last three
decades. Previously, Mr. Bush and other officials had emphasized
uncertainties in understanding the causes and consequences of global
warming.
"The new report was signed by Mr. Bush's secretaries of energy and
commerce and his science adviser. Asked why the administration had
changed its position on what causes global warming, Mr. Bush
replied, 'Ah, we did? I don't think so.'
"Scott McClellan, Mr. Bush's press secretary, said later that the
administration was not changing its position on global warming and
that Mr. Bush continued to be guided by continuing research at the
National Academy of Sciences."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/27/us/the-2004-campaign-the-president-bush-dismisses-idea-that-kerry-lied-on-vietnam.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/27/politics/campaign/bush_excerpts.html?pagewanted=all
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