[TheClimate.Vote] December 21, 2019 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

*December 21, 2019*

[courts rule]
*Netherlands climate change: Court orders bigger cuts in emissions*
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50864569
- -
[legal ruling]
*People Have A Fundamental Right To Be Protected From Climate Change, A 
Landmark Court Ruling Says*
The Dutch Supreme Court's decision could have huge repercussions for how 
other countries tackle rising emissions.
December 20, 2019
The Supreme Court of the Netherlands ruled Friday that the government 
must take urgent action on climate change to protect the fundamental 
rights of its people.

This decision came in a landmark case begun by the Dutch environmental 
group Urgenda in 2013, the first in the world to test whether citizens 
could use human rights law to force their governments to slash 
greenhouse gas emissions.

International human rights law obligates the Netherlands to reduce 
emissions, the court ruled, "because of the risk of a dangerous climate 
change that can also seriously affect the residents of the Netherlands 
in their right to life and well-being."...
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/lesterfeder/urgenda-climate-crisis-netherlands-supreme-court?origin=web-hf


[Backgrounder campaign brief]
*FERC and FREC from BEYOND EXTREME ENERGY*
No new permits for fossil fuel infrastructure. Renewable energy NOW.
Why We Focus on FERC
At BXE we like to say that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission 
(FERC) is the most dangerous organization you've never heard of.
- - -
FERC was created in 1977 when Congress passed the Department of Energy 
Reorganization Act. Over 40 years later, it's time for a FERC overhaul. 
*FERC must be replaced by FREC, the Federal Renewable Energy Commission.*
More at - https://beyondextremeenergy.org/ferc-into-frec-campaign/

- - -

[video explains FERC]
*FERC Doesn't Work!*
May 9, 2019
Beyond Extreme
FERC is the most dangerous government agency you haven't heard of.
This short video introduces the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission 
(FERC) and their role in rapid fossil fuel expansion that leads to 
climate catastrophe. FERC is the independent government agency 
responsible for regulating and permitting all interstate fossil fuel 
projects such as fracked gas and oil pipelines.
Despite being a supposedly neutral agency, FERC has direct ties to the 
energy industry is meant to regulate. FERC allows for an appeal process 
in which impacted communities may attempt to stop fossil fuel projects 
being built in their areas. However, this process ends up being a waste 
of time and energy for activists. FERC has only rejected 2 out of 400 
pipelines in the last 20 years. We urge communities fighting against 
fossil fuel projects to instead engage in a diversity of tactics that 
includes legal battles and grass roots direct action campaigns.

BXE is a group that demands the End of FERC with the end goal of 
replacing FERC with the Federal Renewable Energy Commission (FREC) which 
would oversee the just transition to a sustainable democratic energy system.

You can find out more at:
https://frecnotferc.com/
https://tinyurl.com/y36cjvku
https://tinyurl.com/y5q9a5w2

- - -

[Union of Concerned Scientists statement]
*FERC Approval of PJM Anti-Renewables Proposal Throws State Policies 
Under the Bus*
Published Dec 19, 2019

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (December 19, 2019)--Today, the Federal Energy 
Regulatory Commission (FERC) voted in favor of a proposal made by grid 
operator PJM that will increase electricity costs for customers across 
13 states who get their power from that grid. Estimates range from 
between $2 to 8 billion per year in additional costs.

The federal commission's decision, nearly two years in the making, will 
tilt the market away from low-carbon sources to favor fossil fuel 
providers and effectively nullify state actions to decarbonize electricity.

The new policy, which applies to PJM's capacity market, will require 
customers to pay extra for electricity generated by plants that are at 
risk of retiring--primarily coal plants--that are not necessary to meet 
electricity demand. Meanwhile, energy suppliers that receive support 
from state clean energy policies, mainly existing nuclear power plants 
and new wind and solar sources, will be required to charge more for the 
electricity they provide, making them less competitive...
more at - 
https://ucsusa.org/about/news/ferc-approval-pjm-anti-renewables-proposal-throws-states-under-bus 




[Amazon]
*Top scientists warn of an Amazon 'tipping point'*
The Amazon rainforest in Brazil is burning. Who started the fires?
By Chris Mooney and Brady Dennis
Dec. 20, 2019
Deforestation and other fast-moving changes in the Amazon threaten to 
turn parts of the rainforest into savanna, devastate wildlife and 
release billions of tons carbon into the atmosphere, two renowned 
experts warned Friday.

"The precious Amazon is teetering on the edge of functional destruction 
and, with it, so are we," Thomas Lovejoy of George Mason University and 
Carlos Nobre of the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil, both of whom have 
studied the world's largest rainforest for decades, wrote in an 
editorial in the journal Science Advances. "Today, we stand exactly in a 
moment of destiny: The tipping point is here, it is now."

Combined with recent news that the thawing Arctic permafrost may be 
beginning to fill the atmosphere with greenhouse gases, and that 
Greenland's ice sheet is melting at an accelerating pace, it's the 
latest hint that important parts of the climate system may be moving 
toward irreversible changes at a pace that defies earlier predictions.

The speed of the transformation in some key systems, such as Greenland's 
ice and the Arctic's permafrost, has "indeed been underestimated by 
climate science," said Stefan Rahmstorf, the head of Earth system 
analysis at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in 
Germany. "And that's partly because we cannot really capture them well 
in our models."

In interviews, Lovejoy and Nobre said they decided to sound a dire alarm 
about the Amazon after witnessing the acceleration of troubling trends. 
The combination of rising temperatures, crippling wildfires and ongoing 
land clearing for cattle ranching and crops has extended dry seasons, 
killed off water-sensitive vegetation and created conditions for more fire.

How we know that global warming is real

The Amazon is 17 percent deforested, but for the large portion of it 
inside Brazil, the figure is closer to 20 percent. The fear is that soon 
there will be so little forest that the trees, which not only soak up 
enormous quantities of rainwater but also give off mist that aids 
agriculture and sustains innumerable species, won't be able to recycle 
enough rainfall.

At that point, much of the rainforest could decline into a drier savanna 
ecosystem. Rainfall patterns would change across much of South America. 
Several hundred billion tons of carbon dioxide could wind up in the 
atmosphere, worsening climate change. And such a feedback loop would be 
tough to reverse.

That point of no return, commonly referred to by scientists as a tipping 
point, "is much closer than we anticipated," Nobre said in an interview.

The troubling news comes on top of other alarming developments regarding 
the Earth's climate.

This month, nearly 100 scientists detailed how the Greenland ice sheet's 
losses have accelerated in recent decades, growing from 33 billion tons 
lost per year in the 1990s to a current average of 254 billion tons 
annually.

"Greenland is losing ice faster than expected, partly because climate 
models aren't good at predicting extreme melting events, but also 
because many of the ice sheet's smaller glaciers have started to speed 
up, too," said Andrew Shepherd, a glaciologist at the University of 
Leeds in Britain who led the latest study. "So the [worst]-case scenario 
now becomes business as usual."

Separately, a report this month from the National Oceanic and 
Atmospheric Administration laid out evidence suggesting that the global 
Arctic already has become a net emitter of carbon dioxide because of the 
thawing permafrost. That would be a profound shift for a region that 
includes vast stretches of Alaska, Canada, Siberia and Greenland, and 
which has long stored massive amounts of carbon in its frozen soil.

At the same time, a global die-off of coral reefs in 2016 and 2017, 
which included the loss of nearly half of Australia's Great Barrier 
Reef, shocked scientists.

"Compared to coral bleaching in 1998 and 2002, the 2016 event was much 
more extreme -- hotter, far more extensive, and deadlier," said Terry 
Hughes, an expert on the reef and the director of the ARC Center of 
Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University in Australia. 
"The reef has changed forever."

While the speed of the changes involving the Amazon, permafrost and ice 
sheets has surprised experts, models that scientists created decades ago 
regarding the average global temperature have largely held true.

The world has experienced about 1 degree Celsius, or 1.8 degrees 
Fahrenheit, of warming since the late 19th century, largely because of 
greenhouse gas emissions from human activity.

But much of the Arctic has already warmed by 2 degrees Celsius and some 
regions even more.

The Amazon also is warming at an accelerated rate. An analysis by The 
Washington Post of global temperature changes found that almost the 
entirety of Brazil has warmed by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 
degrees Fahrenheit, since the late 1800s.

Higher temperatures and deforestation are drying out parts of the Amazon 
and posing a fundamental threat to the rainforest.

In the southern Amazon dry season in particular, temperatures are 
already 3 degrees Celsius higher than in the 1980s, and the dry season 
is getting longer, exceeding four months in some regions, Nobre said.

Particularly worrying, he said, is a recent study showing how trees are 
faring in more than 100 locations across the Amazon. Led by Adriane 
Esquivel Muelbert of the University of Leeds, researchers found forest 
transition has begun -- trees accustomed to dry conditions are more 
likely to grow now while trees that require more moisture are 
disproportionately dying in places where climate changes are the greatest.

Paulo Brando, a tropical ecologist and professor at the University of 
California at Irvine who has long studied the Amazon, said it is tricky 
to try to determine the tipping point.

"The definition of 'tipping point' can be quite broad," Brando said, so 
it is difficult to say whether the Amazon has reached what scientists 
would call a point of irreversible change. But this much is clear, he 
added: "We're not moving away from that tipping point. We're probably 
driving very fast toward that direction."

The impact of changes to the Amazon reach far beyond South America. The 
rainforest stores an immense amount of carbon in its enormous trees, and 
if they die, that carbon is released.

In a radically different part of the world, scientists last week 
described something eerily similar.

Ted Schuur, an expert on northern permafrost at Northern Arizona 
University, wrote in NOAA's 2019 Arctic Report Card that recent studies 
suggest that the thawing of the permafrost -- a repository for millennia 
of dead plant and animal remains -- is likely to be contributing carbon 
dioxide to the atmosphere as those once-frozen materials begin to decompose.

For the "science community at large," Schuur said in an email, "this is 
a 'surprising' confirmation that the data show the Arctic currently 
acting as a carbon source."

Schurr's reasoning is based heavily on a groundbreaking study led by 
Susan Natali of the Woods Hole Research Center, research that is in many 
ways parallel to the new Amazon study. It pools the results from large 
numbers of scientists across the Arctic to show that in winter, 
permafrost soils are already emitting a lot of carbon. And those 
releases are probably enough to offset what happens in the growing 
season, when Arctic plant growth absorbs carbon.

The models that scientists have used to try to determine how the Arctic 
region is processing carbon were too conservative when it came to losses 
in winter in particular, Natali said. As a result, the potential for a 
transition of the Arctic from a "sink" that takes up carbon to a 
"source" that emits it may have been underestimated.

"The models, they project that to be happening quite a ways out in the 
future, but I would say it's happening now," Natali said.

Occasional extreme heat events in the Arctic can cause abrupt hillside 
collapses or "thaw slumps," which rapidly expose very old and deep 
permafrost to the open air. Meanwhile, worsening Arctic fires can 
quickly remove insulating soil and vegetation layers from large 
stretches of permafrost, suddenly exposing it to the sun.

"It's like you're opening the top of a cooler," Natali said.

In combination, the Amazon and Arctic news underscores that even as 
humans are largely failing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the Earth 
may increase such emissions yet further.

Still, it is possible to slow the transformation of the Amazon through 
reforestation, researchers said.

"A tipping point is a way to talk about a moment of system shift or 
system change," Lovejoy said. "In this case, it's not going to be 
instantaneous, and that's good news. It allows you to do something about 
it."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/top-scientists-warn-of-an-amazon-tipping-point/2019/12/20/9c9be954-233e-11ea-bed5-880264cc91a9_story.html



[new, new science]
*The Decade of Attribution Science*
In this relatively new field, researchers finally figured out how to 
concretely connect climate change to the extreme weather events 
disrupting our lives.
By JANE C. HU - DEC 19, 2019
Stephanie Herring has been a climate scientist for the National Oceanic 
and Atmospheric Administration since 2009. Even back when she first 
started at the job, she remembers a pattern playing out every time an 
extreme weather event occurred. "People would start calling and ask, 
'Did climate change play a role in this?' And we would answer, 'We can't 
tell you that; there's no science to tell us whether climate change 
contributed to this specific event.' "

Soon, though, NOAA researchers started wondering if maybe there could be 
a way to explain climate change's role in particular cases. The 
relatively new field of attribution science sought to do exactly that. 
In a 2004 paper published in Nature, widely regarded as the first 
attribution science paper, three British researchers modeled how much 
human activities increased the likelihood for the record-setting summer 
2003 heat wave in Europe. The underlying concept used in this first 
study and subsequent ones is similar to the way we understand risk in 
public health: Just as medical researchers can study how smoking 
cigarettes changes people's risk of lung cancer by comparing data from 
smokers and nonsmokers, attribution scientists compare events on our 
planet with those on a hypothetical "Planet B," one that is untouched by 
greenhouse gas emissions.

Modeling this hypothetical planet takes a lot of computing power, but 
over the past decade, better technology has allowed for a boom in the 
field. "Modeling used to be in the realm of fancy labs at fancy 
institutions that could afford high-performing computing on-site," says 
Herring. Researchers no longer need special banks of computers to run 
most computations; some projections of the hypothetical, 
climate-unchanged Planet B can even run on laptops.

Early in the decade, NOAA scientists started wondering how they could 
leverage these more widely accessible modeling tools to answer some of 
the public's questions about climate change's role in extreme weather. 
In 2011, NOAA scientist Thomas Peterson, Herring, and a few other 
colleagues sent a few emails to climate change researchers asking if 
they'd be interested in putting together a few analyses. Nine people 
said yes.

The result was a "special supplement" to the Bulletin of the American 
Meteorological Society's journal. The researchers concluded that 
human-caused climate change played a role in five of the six extreme 
weather events they analyzed: It increased the odds that the winter of 
2010–11 was the coldest of the past 100 years in the U.K., and posited 
that extreme heat events like the 2011 Texas drought were roughly more 
than 20 times more likely than they were four or five decades ago. This 
addendum was stapled to the back of the society's annual "State of the 
Climate" report--not exactly a sexy, front-and-center feature. At a 
press conference for the ever-popular State of the Climate report's 
release, Herring briefly presented on the attribution science supplement 
and then sat down in the back of the room with her laptop, thinking 
she'd use the media Q&A session to catch up on email. She was surprised 
when the first question from the media was for her--and they kept 
coming. "The editors were blown away by the level of interest," she 
says, and the "Explaining Extreme Events" report has been published by 
BAMS every year since. Its results routinely make the news: National 
Geographic highlighted the 2013 report, which connected a rash of heat 
waves worldwide to climate change. In 2017, the Washington Post covered 
the entirety of the 2017 report, which included analysis of a marine 
heat wave that "would have been 'virtually impossible' without human 
influence."

These analyses convert something both scientists and concerned citizens 
have long broadly understood about climate change into much more 
tangible and specific facts. Before, Herring and other climate 
researchers simply didn't have the data to draw conclusions about any 
links between climate change and individual weather events, but armed 
with these new analyses, researchers can put a number on how much the 
odds of an extreme event have changed over time. Climate change has 
loaded the dice. The burgeoning field of attribution science has given 
researchers the evidence to corroborate that. And the public seems to 
increasingly get it--this decade, particularly the past year or so, has 
been marked by increased awareness and alarmism about climate change and 
the effect it is already having on our lives.

A 2018 analysis shows that climate change made a 2013 flood in Colorado 
more intense. Researchers start pushing attribution science further. 
Also in 2018: New York City vs. Exxon Mobil. As this case shows, 
attribution science has allowed for a new type of legal strategy in 
which those harmed by extreme weather sue the companies they deem most 
responsible.

The new science is not without controversy. The past decade has also 
seen new attribution science methods that illuminate how climate change 
makes extreme events worse, rather than just measuring the extent to 
which climate change played a role in their occurrence. In addition to 
the original method, called the "probabilistic" or "risk-based" 
approach, some researchers are now also using a method they call the 
"storyline" approach. Instead of just investigating whether climate 
change made an extreme event, like a flood, more likely to happen, the 
storyline method also looks at events that would've happened regardless 
and investigates how much worse climate change made that storm.

Within the field, the storyline approach has been hotly debated; some 
researchers, including the scientists who published the first 
attribution science paper, were concerned that the approach's 
assumptions could lead to overblown or misleading results. But the 
approach's supporters point out that a risk-based approach alone could 
underestimate real effects of climate change. Consider the different 
results the two approaches can yield: Analyses of Boulder, Colorado's 
2013 floods using the classic approach found that climate change did not 
increase the odds of the floods. The storyline approach concluded that 
climate change made the floods worse by producing 30 percent more rain. 
"Storyline people made a good case that, actually, understating an 
effect and understating whether or not climate change is making a 
difference is, in itself, a dangerous thing to do," says Elisabeth 
Lloyd, who studies the history and philosophy of science at Indiana 
University.

Scientists are trained to be extremely conservative in reporting their 
results. Statistical methods typically favor false negatives--not 
finding an effect when it actually does exist--over false positives, 
which would find an effect where there is none. But when it comes to 
climate change, Lloyd argues, there may be more harm in being too 
conservative with standards of evidence. "It has been argued by 
risk-based approach supporters that the storyline folks are in danger of 
overestimating an effect and wasting our adaptation funds," Lloyd said. 
"But I have yet to see a single dollar that has been wasted. We're not 
spending too much preparing for climate change."

Attribution science findings have already influenced policy and 
planning, if only obliquely. In a working paper on the law and science 
of climate change attribution, Columbia law professors write that 
attribution science papers have served as "a framing mechanism for 
international negotiations," like the ones that underlay the Paris 
agreement, and have helped policymakers, like those working with the 
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, assess the long-term impacts 
and risks of climate change. There's power in knowing. "I'm a 
full-disclosure kind of person. We're in a more powerful situation with 
regards to our choices about the future when we do have all the cards in 
the deck," says Lloyd.

Lloyd says that the more evidence we can gather, the better. "Because 
the science has advanced, we now understand things much better than 
before," she says. Herring said she's been surprised by how much 
attribution science has shown us about climate change's rapid 
progression. She and other researchers were always careful to stress 
that natural variability played a role in every case. "Someday, sure, if 
we keep on this track, the effects of climate change will become so 
large that we'll start to see events that could not have happened in a 
world without climate change," she would tell people, back in 2011 and 
2012. But that "someday" came quickly. Within the past few years, there 
have been events--like a 2017 marine heat wave off the coast of 
Australia or Japan's deadly 2018 heat wave--that are now almost entirely 
attributable to human-caused climate change. "I was surprised by that," 
said Herring. "It was a sudden shift. The future is here. It's today."

Attribution science's rapid rise is shaping more than the public's 
understanding. It's also shaping policy and litigation attempting to 
deal with climate change. Building on scientists' work, lawyers 
representing concerned citizens, cities, and states have used the 
specificity provided by attribution science to file lawsuits over damage 
caused by climate change. In the U.S., city governments from New York 
City to Los Angeles have moved to sue oil behemoths like BP and Exxon 
Mobil for climate damages from extreme weather events like Hurricane 
Sandy and the Santa Rosa fires. There's international litigation, too: 
Peruvians are suing a German energy company that they say should be held 
responsible for the half of 1 percent of emissions that has contributed 
to the glacial melt that threatens to flood their village. It may be 
years until these cases are settled. But they set an important 
precedent: As a society, we now have the data to show exactly how 
climate change is hurting us, which might mean we can hold companies 
accountable for causing it.
https://slate.com/technology/2019/12/attribution-science-field-explosion-2010s-climate-change.html



[view forward]
*Assessing heat wave risk in cities as global warming continues*
by Bob Yirka , Phys.org - DECEMBER 19, 2019
A trio of researchers with the Hong Kong University of Science and 
Technology, the University of Alabama in Huntsville and Arizona State 
University has shown that commuters traveling from the suburbs to cities 
in the future are going to encounter hotter than expected weather when 
in they reach their destination. In their paper published in the journal 
Science Advances, Jiachuan Yang, Leiqiu Hu and Chenghao Wang describe 
their study of the differences in temperature between actual readings 
and those that are forecast in urban areas and what it could mean for 
commuters as climate change continues.

Cities are hotter than outlying areas in the summer due to the materials 
that are used to make roads and buildings--asphalt, tar and cement hold 
a lot of heat. This has led to what scientists call the urban heat 
island effect. In this new effort, the researchers wondered what might 
happen to people in the future who live in the suburbs and commute into 
cities during heat waves as the planet becomes warmer. To find out, they 
accessed databases containing weather information to learn more about 
differences between forecast and actual temperatures in cities. They 
also accessed databases of census information, including commuting patterns.

The researchers found that temperatures were typically hotter in cities 
during heat waves than were predicted by weather forecasters. They also 
found that the amount varied. Salt Lake City, for example, had the 
biggest difference--the city was on average 3.8 degrees C hotter during 
heat waves than was forecast. Overall, the researchers found that out of 
the 16 cities they studied, temperatures were on average 1.9 degrees C 
higher than what forecasters predicted. They note that such temperatures 
are significant because they represent heat events where temperatures 
are already on average 3.6 degrees C hotter than normal. They note that 
mortality (people dying) and morbidity (people getting sick) is already 
problematic in many cities during heat waves. They further note that the 
problem is only going to get worse due to climate change. They suggest 
that commuters of the future may face unexpected hazards as they travel 
from the relatively cooler suburbs to the much hotter cites. They 
suggest also that city planners need to take such scenarios into 
consideration as they look to contend with climate change.
https://phys.org/news/2019-12-cities-global.html



[alarming opinion]
*Biosphere Collapse?*
by ROBERT HUNZIKER - DECEMBER 19, 2019
Five years ago: Nations of the world met in Paris to draft a climate 
agreement that was subsequently accepted by nearly every country in the 
world, stating that global temperatures must not exceed +2C 
pre-industrial. Global emissions must be cut! Fossil fuel usage must be cut!

Not only that, global governments plan to increase fossil fuels by 120% 
by 2030, including the US, China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, Canada, 
and Australia.

Additionally, over that past 18 months China has added enough new 
coal-based power generation (43GW) to power 31 million new homes. China 
plans on adding another 148GW of coal-based power, which will equal the 
total current coal generating capacity of the EU.

India increased coal-fired power capacity by 74% over the past 7 years. 
The country expects to further increase coal-generated capacity by 
another 22% over the next 3 years.

China is financing 25% of all new worldwide coal plant construction 
outside of its borders, e.g., South Africa, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. 
Meantime, China, kissing goodbye to its commitment to cut emissions, 
cuts renewable power subsidies by 30%.

Likewise in the United States, Trump proposes slashing renewable budget 
items, as his administration rebrands fossil fuels "Molecules of U.S. 
Freedom." (Forbes, May 30, 2019) (Obviously, somebody in the WH scoffs 
at the general pubic as horribly gullible, simple-minded, ignorant, and 
just plain stupid to fall for that one!)

Meanwhile in America's most northerly town, Barrow, Alaska is 
experiencing an unprecedented "massive spike in methane emissions" 
ongoing for the past 4 months, as monitored by Dr. Peter Carter (see 
more below).

And, in Madrid, COP25 (Conference of the Parties25) was underway Dec. 
2nd-13th with 25,000 participants from countries of the world gathered 
to hammer out the latest details on global warming/climate change. The 
question arises whether the conference had "legs." By all appearances, 
it did not. Rather, it was another repeat climate sideshow.

Making matters even more surreal, because of the above-mentioned 
death-defying global plans to accelerate fossil fuels by 120% to 2030, 
the Stockholm Environment Institute claims the world is on a pathway to 
3C pre-industrial, probably "locked-in" because of fossil fuel expansion 
across the globe.

But caution-caution-caution, the IPCC has already informed the world 
that 2C brings the house down, not only that, scientists agree 1.5C is 
unbearably unlivable throughout many regions of the planet.

In short, the world is on a colossal fossil fuel growth phase in the 
face of stark warnings from scientists that emissions must decline to 
net zero. Otherwise, the planet is destined to turn into a hot house. As 
things stand today, it appears "Hot House" is baking into the cake. And, 
Hot House implies too much heat disrupting, and destroying, too many 
ecosystems for the planet to support 7.8 billion people.
- - - - -
For an insider's view of the goings-on at COP25, Dr. Peter Carter, an 
IPCC expert reviewer, was interviewed on December 10th:
The following is a synopsis of that interview: He first mentioned the 
fact that 11,000 scientists have signed a paper stating: "We are 
definitely in a climate emergency."

"At COP a couple of years ago, there was a lot of media given to the 
terrible fact that four of the countries had gotten together to block 
the most important IPCC report ever. Which was the 2018 IPCC 1.5C 
report, showing that 2C, the old target since 1996, is total 
catastrophe, and 1.5C is still disastrous, but that is still where we 
must aim." (Carter)

Scientists today agree 1.5C is possible only if we reduce emissions by 
7% every year from next year so that we can reduce global emissions 50% 
by 2030. (Comment: "That's laughable" – Check out global fossil fuel 
growth plans, bursting at the seams!)

COP has always been set up to fail. However, the first COPs were 
hopeful. Ever since then, things have gone down, down, down. The reason 
why they are set up to fail is because when the Convention was signed in 
1992, it was stated that major decisions would be by "consensus," but 
"we still don't have a definition of consensus under the Convention." 
That is absurd.

The entire COP set up provides for one or two countries to veto any 
major decision, and that's what we've seen happen. The US, Russia, Saudi 
Arabia, and Kuwait "block the science from the negotiations."

"In COP25 the science has been blocked completely." (Carter)

"Right now all three major greenhouse gas concentrations, carbon 
dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide are accelerating. It means we are on 
a trend for total planetary catastrophe. We are on a trend for biosphere 
collapse. Carbon dioxide is on a rate exceeding anything over the past 
millions of years. We are at 412 ppm. To put that into context, we have 
an ice core that goes back 2.2 million years. The highest CO2 over that 
period is 300 ppm." (Carter)

The latest IPCC assessment requires holding temps to 1.5C, meaning 
emissions must be cut by 50% by 2030, which means emissions have to 
decrease rapidly from 2020 (Comment: That's an impossibility because of 
global fossil fuel plans of +120% growth by 2030).

We've had four separate reports this year on the status of countries 
meeting, or not meeting, their mitigation targets to avoid catastrophe. 
Result: "It's basically the end for humanity. We're looking at biosphere 
collapse. The richness of life is being destroyed by deforestation and 
by catastrophic climate change. Africa is in severe drought. Chile is in 
a mega drought. Australia is in a drought expected to become a mega 
drought within the next two years." (Carter)

*Absolutely nothing is happening to mitigate global warming. [my bold] 
*Furthermore, nothing will come out of COP25 to mitigate the issue. On 
the very first day of meetings Carter was told nations would not be 
looking at improving their national mitigation targets, which are a joke 
anyways.

"It is unbelievable what these high emitting fossil fuel producing 
countries are doing. Countries that are blocking any progress on 
emissions are acting in the most evil way imaginable. We're looking at 
the destruction of Earth, oceans and land." (Carter)

Furthermore, and chillingly, according to Dr. Carter: Currently, there 
has been a massive ongoing eruption of methane in the Arctic. It's gone 
practically unreported. The only report of it was by the Engineering and 
Technology Journal.

Barrow, Alaska registered the aforementioned massive bursts of methane 
into the atmosphere, starting in August of this year. "We've never seen 
anything like it! And, it has stayed at elevated levels to the present 
week. Looking at the 2.2 million year ice core, the maximum methane 
concentration ever was 800 ppb. In Barrow, Alaska it is 2,050 ppb and 
staying there. It's been up there for 4 months." (Carter)

Which is an ominous warning that has the potential to be a precursor to 
runaway global warming, burning-off mid-latitude agriculture and 
categorizing the Tropics as "way too hot for life."

We (Carter and the scientific community) know that really bad things are 
happening in the Arctic. We also know that the land permafrost is 
emitting a lot of methane, CO2, and nitrous oxide (12xs more than 
scientists estimated).

Conclusion: COP25 is a farce as major countries ignore the threat of 
global warming by upping the ante on fossil fuels, adding nearly $2 
trillion worth of new fossil fuel infrastructure since Paris'15 warned 
of dangers associated with too much carbon in the atmosphere, a surefire 
recipe for Hot House Earth.

Lest we forget, Venus, our sister planet, has 96.5% CO2 by volume in the 
atmosphere. On average, temperatures run 864°F.

Carbon matters!
Postscript: "Accelerating heating of the Arctic Ocean could make global 
temperatures skyrocket in a matter of years" (Source: Arctic Ocean 
Overheating, Arctic News, September 8, 2019) Since the start of the 
industrial revolution more than 200 years ago, that's the worst possible 
news ever.
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at 
rlhunziker at gmail.com.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/12/19/biosphere-collapse/


*
**This Day in Climate History - December  21, 2013  - from D.R. Tucker*

On MSNBC's "Melissa Harris-Perry," guest host Joy Reid discusses the 
ecological leadership of Pope Francis.

http://www.msnbc.com/melissa-harris-perry/watch/pope-francis-places-focus-on-environment-97805379704# 


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