[TheClimate.Vote] February 9, 2019 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Sat Feb 9 10:05:56 EST 2019
/February 9, 2019/
[looking to the future]
*Climate change: World heading for warmest decade, says Met Office*
The world is in the middle of what is likely to be the warmest 10 years
since records began in 1850, say scientists.
The Met Office is forecasting that temperatures for each of the next
five years are likely to be 1C or more above pre-industrial levels.
In the next five years there's also a chance we'll see a year in which
the average global temperature rise could be greater than 1.5C.
That's seen as a critical threshold for climate change.
If the data matches the forecast, then the decade from 2014-2023 will be
the warmest in more than 150 years of record keeping...
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47144058
[reports from the Southern Hemisphere]
*Record-shattering, 'unprecedented' heat scorches Australia, Chile and
Argentina*
While we've been shivering up here, folks in the Southern Hemisphere
have been baking in all-time record summertime heat.
Records have been set recently in Australia, Chile and Argentina,
sparking wildfires and exacerbating droughts.
In Australia, the heat was so intense it caused bats to fall from trees
and snakes to seek refuge in people's toilets, according to the
Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the Capital Weather Gang.
Overall, it was the hottest January in Australia ever recorded, the
Australian Bureau of Meteorology reported. The heatwaves there were
"unprecedented in their scale and duration," the bureau said.
One remarkable record was set in Port Augusta, Australia, which soared
to 121 degrees. That's the hottest temperature ever recorded at a
coastal location in the Southern Hemisphere, according to Weather
Underground meteorologist Bob Henson.
- - -
Overall, the past five years have been the five warmest years since
records began in the late 1800s, both NOAA and NASA said.
Heat will continue to be the Earth's major weather story in the future,
as the globe warms due to human activity: Heatwaves and other extreme
weather "are likely" to persist as a "consequence of accelerating
climate change," a report from the World Meteorological Organization
said last year...
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2019/02/08/heat-wave-scorches-southern-hemisphere-record-shattering-temps/2812647002/
- - -
[New Zealand]
*Tasman Glacier: Huge ice chunks break off New Zealand glacier*
8 February 2019
Huge chunks of ice have broken off the Tasman Glacier, New Zealand's
largest.
They have filled up at least a quarter of the meltwater lake at the foot
of the glacier in the Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park, reports say.
The lake started to form in the 1970s as the glacier rapidly retreated -
a phenomenon thought to have been largely caused by global warming.
One guide says the chunks resemble huge skyscrapers lying on their side
in the water.
"We've got skyscraper-size icebergs floating around on the lake,"
Glacier Kayaking owner Charlie Hobbs told Radio New Zealand.
- - -
*Tasman Glacier ice chunks fall*
The ice chunks breaking off are caused by glacial ice above the water
melting, putting pressure on the ice underneath the water.
"The water gets in underneath the ice and sort of jacks it up, and it
snaps off.
"Large calving events are less frequent, but the icebergs that come up
are really big."
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-47171009
[Science lessons - Paul Beckwith video]
*Non-Intuitive Consequences of Rapid Melt in Greenland and Antarctica: 1
of 2*
Paul Beckwith
Published on Feb 8, 2019
Glaciers on Greenland and Antarctica are rapidly melting due to Abrupt
Climate Change, and melt rates are doubling with a period of roughly 7
years. This is exponential, after 7 years melt rates are double (2x),
after 14 years rates are 4x, after 21 years rates are 8x, etc...In this
video and the next I discuss consequences that are rarely considered,
like reduced gravitational pull near the glaciers, isostatic rebound,
and reduction of vertical ocean mixing from surface freshwater lensing
effects, leading to increased basal ice sheet melting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4WOBFzVck4
[Climate destabilization and human destabilization]
*Climate Change and Psychology: Effects of Rapid Global Warming on
Violence and Aggression*
*Topical Collection on Climate Change and Conflicts*
Abstract
*Purpose of Review*
An important question regarding rapid climate change concerns its likely
effects on violence. Rapid climate change is likely to produce
sociological, political, economic, and psychological changes that will
increase the likelihood of violent behavior. This article examines
relevant theory and research.
*Recent Findings*
We examine three lines of research: (a) how hot temperatures directly
influence aggression and violence; (b) how rapid climate change
indirectly increases adulthood violence proneness through its effects on
physiological and psychological development; (c) and how ecomigration
influences group-level aggression. We also discuss arguments against the
effects of climate change on aggression and violence.
*Summary*
Research and theory reveal three ways that rapid global warming can
increase aggression and violence. We describe a model showing the
relationship between rapid global warming on antisocial behaviors and
risk factors for aggression and violence.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs40641-019-00121-2
[ Dehlia Hannah ]
*Ecology, Psycholanalysis and Global Warming Conference*
Climate Art - climate as unthinkable idea
August 2018
https://vimeo.com/tavistockandportman/review/307463794/c9f8fbc161
http://dehliahannah.com/model-climates/
- -
[newly published]
*A Year Without a Winter*
Edited by Dehlia Hannah
Columbia Books on Architecture and the City
https://cup.columbia.edu/book/a-year-without-a-winter/9781941332382
[More art and climate]
*The wind map is a living portrait of the wind currents over the U.S.*
http://hint.fm/projects/wind/
*Dehlia Hannah - A Year Without a Winter*
http://dehliahannah.com/a-year-without-a-winter/
[Book tour for - "The Uninhabitable Earth: A Story of the Future" - out
on 19 February]
*David Wallace-Wells on climate: 'People should be scared - I'm scared'*
David Wallace-Wells's apocalyptic depiction of a world made
uninhabitable by climate chaos caused an outcry when it was published in
New York magazine in 2017. Based on the worst-case scenarios foreseen by
science, his article portrayed a world of drought, plague and famine, in
which acidified oceans drown coastal homelands, dormant diseases are
released from ancient ice, conflicts surge, economies collapse, human
cognitive abilities decline and heat stress becomes more intolerable in
New York City than in present-day Bahrain. Critics called this
irresponsibly alarmist. Supporters said it was a long-overdue antidote
to climate complacency. Whatever your view, it was among the best-read
climate articles in US history. Now he is back with a book-length
follow-up...
- - -
*You write: "The facts are hysterical" and the only way to address them
is with the language of theology and mythology. Is this Armaggeddonising
a way to reach new audiences and break down barriers?*
Yes, and to activate people who are only casually engaged. To me, that
is the most important messaging mission. It is important to mobilise
people who at the moment are concerned, but basically complacent, and
turn them into people who are much more activated and essentially voting
about climate as a first-order political priority rather than a third-
or fourth-order priority - judging politicians on the basis of their
climate policy...
- - -
*You say the message of the report is: "It's OK now to freak out." But I
guess most scientists would say: "Don't freak out! Act! Focus! Do not
succumb to paralysing fear." Is "freak out" what you really mean?*
The short answer is yes. We should not sit back and feel complacent that
the world beyond us will figure this out without political pressure. We
cannot continue on the path we are on and believe our future will be
secure and stable. We need to dramatically change our climate policy
globally. That was the very clear message of the UN report. You are
right that, in a certain way, it was written soberly, but it is also the
case that it was saying we need mobilisation on the scale that we saw in
the second world war in Europe and the US - and that is not a keep-calm
message. It is saying we have to light the fuse and get going.
On the question of what kind of motivation is most effective, I don't
believe fear and alarm are the only options; there is a place for hope
and optimism. There are many shades in between. But fear is what
animated me. We do not tell people only about the positive benefits of
quitting smoking. We tell them about what will happen to them if they
smoke. And to go back to the second world war analogy, we did not
mobilise in that way because we were optimistic about the future. We
mobilised in that way out of fear, because we thought nazism was an
existential threat. And climate change is obviously an existential
threat and it is naive to imagine we could respond to it without some
people being scared. I think it is silly to throw that rhetorical tool
away. My basic perspective is that any story that sticks is a good one.
If you can get people engaged, it is good, however you do it.
But I also come to this subject not as an advocate, not as an
environmentalist. I have been drawn into that role to some extent as a
result of this work. I come into it as a journalist and as a storyteller
and, at some level, the imperative for me is to tell the story true, to
tell it as I see it. As you say, and as I wrote in the book, it is
simply the case that the facts are hysterical. To shy away from that, I
think, is irresponsible - in part because it would encourage complacency
but also from the basic truth-telling level. We know these things are
true to the extent that scientists can know them. I don't think the
public should be shielded from them...
- -
What struck me in the book was that you shake the reader up and say,
"Look, wake up, get going!", and yet there isn't much there in terms of
where to go next. You delved into solutions, but you didn't give them
much chance of achieving anything. Do you believe there isn't much out
there that could help us?
I think the book does a fair amount of hope-giving. The most important
thing anybody can do is vote. If people are mobilised, we can relatively
quickly usher in - perhaps not globally, but in many of the more
important nations - a much stronger commitment to a more aggressive
climate policy...
- - -
*In the book, you ask whether it is moral to have children in this
climate. In the past year, you have done just that. What hope do have
that your child won't live in the uninhabitable world of your title?*
I come at the question of hope from the perspective that truly total
devastation is possible and something close to that is where we are
heading now. So every degree cooler, every tick of temperature that we
prevent, is an improvement and therefore a reason for hope. So, if we
stabilise the planet at 3C that is better than 3.5C, 2.5C is better than
3C, and so on.
For reasons independent of climate, I wanted to have children. Most
people do. I don't think this is an impulse we need to disavow before we
have finished the final act of this story. I think it is a reason to
fight now so that we can continue to have those children and continue to
live in the ways we want to live. It is possible regardless of how bad
the news from science is.
David Wallace-Wells's The Uninhabitable Earth: A Story of the Future is
out on 19 February (Allen Lane, £20). To order a copy for £15, go to
guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/03/david-wallace-wells-on-climate-people-should-be-scared-im-scared?CMP=share_btn_link
[Like changing a diaper?]
*How to change the minds of climate deniers*
Want to convince a climate skeptic?
A word of warning: people don't change their minds easily about
controversial issues.
Marlon recommends helping people make the connection themselves. People
overwhelmingly report in surveys that they want to learn more about
climate change, she said. They just might not have the time or
initiative to look up that information.
Keep in mind that it's not exactly easy to admit that you're wrong. If a
friend shares fake news about climate change, it's probably more
effective to reach out to them in private than to attack them in front
of their friends and family on Facebook. "To some extent, changing your
mind can appear to be losing face," Hugo Mercier, coauthor of The Enigma
of Reason, told WBUR's Here & Now. "It may be easier for them to change
their mind if they do it less publicly," he said...
- -
Welcome, friends!
"All kinds of people are changing their minds" and accepting the
science, regardless of age, education level, or political affiliation,
said Jennifer Marlon, a research scientist at Yale and an author of the
new analysis. "I was surprised to see how consistent it is."
There are some clear trends. One interesting tidbit: 11% of adults 65 or
older reported that they'd recently shifted their views, more than any
other age group...
- - -
In a trophic cascade, the loss of a single layer of the food pyramid
crumbles the entire structure. Carefully-tuned food webs a billion years
in the making are suddenly destabilized. Life cannot adapt quickly
enough, and so entire species are quickly lost. Once enough species die
off, the web cannot be rewoven, and life … simply ends.
What exactly would a "trophic cascade" look like in real life? Oh,
perhaps something just like this:
Deadly deficiency at the heart of an environmental mystery...
- - -
Frogs, toads and salamanders were absolutely critical parts of my
childhood and I delighted in their presence. I cannot imagine a world
without them. But effectively, that's what we've got now with so many on
the endangered species list.
This parade of awful ecological news is both endless and worsening. And
there is no real prospect for us to fix things in time to avoid
substantial ecological pain. None.
After all, we can't even manage our watersheds properly. And those are
dead simple by comparison. Water falls from the sky in (Mostly)
predictable volume and you then distribute somewhat less than that total
each year. Linear and simple in comparison to trying to unravel the
many factors underlying a specie's collapse.
We might be able to explain away each failure individually. But taken as
a whole? The pattern is clear: We've got enemy action at work. These are
not random coincidences.
Nature is warning us loudly that it's past time to change our ways. That
our "endless growth" model is no longer valid. In fact, it's now
becoming an existential threat
The collapse is underway. It's just not being televised (yet)...
- - -
From here, there are only two likely paths:
*(1) We humans simply cannot self-organize to address these plights and
carry on until the bitter end, when something catastrophic happens that
collapses our natural support systems.**
**(2) We see the light, gather our courage, and do what needs to be
done. Consumption is widely and steeply curtailed, fossil fuel use is
severely restrained, and living standards as measured by the amount of
stuff flowing through our daily lives are dropped to sustainable levels.*
Either path means enormous changes are coming, probably for you and
definitely for your children and grandchildren.
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2019-01-31/collapse-is-already-here/
[videos of recent presentations]*
**ECOLOGY, PSYCHOANALYSIS AND GLOBAL WARMING - PRESENT AND FUTURE TRAUMAS*
Written by Climate Psychology Alliance Published: 23 January 2019
The following are video links to the talks from this conference on 8th
December 2018.:
Paul Hoggett: Slouching towards the anthropocene -
https://vimeo.com/tavistockandportman/review/307462685/dc2ea10c46
Delphine Mascarene de Rayssac -
https://vimeo.com/tavistockandportman/review/307463430/5a85d87619
Erica Thompson -
https://vimeo.com/tavistockandportman/review/307463670/bce39ffbc0
Delia Hannah -
https://vimeo.com/tavistockandportman/review/307463794/c9f8fbc161
Nadine Andrews -
https://vimeo.com/tavistockandportman/review/307463950/aa0ff64132
Conversation Panel -
https://vimeo.com/tavistockandportman/review/307464067/2482e87f41
https://www.climatepsychologyalliance.org/explorations/papers/314-ecology-psychoanalysis-and-global-warming-present-and-future-traumas
*This Day in Climate History - February 9, 2003 - from D.R. Tucker*
February 9, 2003: In a speech at Harvard University, Democratic
presidential candidate and Massachusetts Senator John Kerry declares:
"We should be the world's environmental leader. Our global
environmental policy should be driven by our convictions, not our
constraints. America has not led but fled on the issue of global
warming. The first President Bush was willing to lead on this issue.
But the second President Bush's declaration that the Kyoto Protocol
was simply Dead on Arrival spoke for itself - and it spoke in dozens
of languages as his words whipped instantly around the globe. What
the Administration failed to see was that Kyoto was not just an
agreement; it represented the resolve of 160 nations working
together over 10 years. It was a good faith effort - and the United
States just dismissed it. We didn't aim to mend it. We didn't aim to
sit down with our allies and find a compromise. We didn't aim for a
new dialogue. The Administration was simply ready to aim and fire,
and the target they hit was our international reputation. This
country can and should aim higher than preserving its place as the
world's largest unfettered polluter. We should assert, not abandon
our leadership in addressing global economic degradation and the
warming of the atmosphere that if left unchecked, will do untold
damage to our coastline and our Great Plains, our cities and our
economy."
http://www.gwu.edu/~action/2004/issues/kerr020903spenv.html
http://c-spanvideo.org/program/DemocraticPolicy
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