[TheClimate.Vote] January 3, 2019 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

Thu Jan 3 11:07:02 EST 2019

/January 3, 2019/

[Washington Post Opinion]
*How we can combat climate change*
The world has until 2030 to drastically cut our emissions. Where do we 
begin?
Last year's report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 
sounded the alarm: The world has until 2030 to implement "rapid and 
far-reaching" changes to our energy, infrastructure and industrial 
systems to avoid 2 degrees Celsius of warming, which could be 
catastrophic. But the scale of the challenge can appear so overwhelming 
that it's hard to know where to start. The Post asked activists, 
politicians and researchers for climate policy ideas that offer hope. 
Radical change from one state, or even the whole United States, won't 
address climate change on its own, but taking these actions could help 
start the planet down a path toward a better future.
11 policy ideas to protect the planet, Illustrations by Tom Toles

*Set local emissions goals**
**Be smart about your air conditioner**
**Encourage electric vehicles**
**Be smart about nuclear power**
**Make it easier to live without cars**
**Prevent wasted food -- the right way**
**Incentivize carbon farming**
**Curb the effects of meat and dairy**
**Adopt a carbon tax**
**Open electric markets to competition**
**Pass a Green New Deal**

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/opinions/wp/2019/01/02/feature/here-are-11-climate-change-policies-to-fight-for-in-2019/
- - -
[Also see the excellent background information from yours truly]
*Climate Manifesto*
Sustainability is forfeit
Survival no longer assured
All journeys are new.
http://www.climatemanifesto.com/

[this is a very difficult video talk by a data scientist on Hacking Ecology
This fellow does biological computation - not climate science. But the 
group he is addressing has a strong reputation for social action using 
computers... There are news accounts of them attacking banks and voting 
machines with the intent of calling attention to deficiencies.  This is 
the kind of audience he is addressing.
This is quite distressing - I had to listen to it again to hear some 
calls to action... of course these are described as computational 
challenges.]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glQhWRaAK-U/
//At the 35C3 - 35th Chaos Communication Congress/
/Dec 30th was the Chaos Computer Club's (CCC) annual symposium and 
hacker party. During four days between Christmas and New Years Eve, 
thousands of hackers, technology freaks, artists, and utopians get 
together in Leipzig to communicate, learn from each other, and party 
together. We focus on topics such as information technology, digital 
security, making, and breaking. We engage in creative, sceptical 
discourse on the interaction between technology and society./
*Hacker on Extinction with ~70% of Species will go Extinct*
Climate State
Published on Jan 1, 2019
*Chaos Computer Congress 2018 / 35C3, How Data Scientists can help to 
avoid a sixth global extinction*
As humans have a large negative impact on ecosystems all around the 
globe, we are approaching a major extinction event in which around 70% 
of all species will go extinct. This talk will give an introduction to a 
data-driven and system-based view of ecology.

Since life emerged on this planet around 3 billion years ago, five 
global extinction events took place, that are characterized by over 60% 
of all species disappearing within a geologically short time interval. 
The last decades of environmental research, however, made it evidently 
clear that anthropogenic impacts on the global ecology could lead to a 
sixth global extinction. Being caused by the destabilization of 
ecosystems due to climate change, poaching, fragmenting of habitats, 
species invasions, pollution and other human activities, this extinction 
event would be the first induced by a species and not by natural 
catastrophes.

Two general paths of action seem available to mitigate this threat or at 
least limit the damage: One consists of radically limiting anthropogenic 
influence on nature by restricting human habitats (to, as argued by E. 
O. Wilson among others, half of the earths surface), which, however, 
seems politically infeasible. A second strategy aims to effectively 
re-stabilize ecosystems by selective and specific intervention, but this 
would require a much deeper knowledge of ecosystem processes and how to 
modulate them.

In this talk, I will provide an overview of the declining quality of 
ecosystems worldwide and argue that data-driven approaches as well as a 
hacker mindset will be essential to tackle open questions. I will 
support this argument by examples from my own research, in which I aim 
to identify important interactions between microbes in lake ecosystems. 
Finally, I will try to start a discussion on how to create citizen 
science projects that will help us understand our natural environment.
Speaker: Theodor Sperlea
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glQhWRaAK-U

[Listen to classic news report]
*Life on a Shrinking Planet*
Going South
Premiered Jan 3, 2019
"How Extreme Weather Is Shrinking the Planet" is based on an article 
written by Bill Mc[K]ibben which was published in the New Yorker for the 
issue for November 26, 2018.
Full article "How Extreme Weather Is Shrinking the Planet" can be found 
here:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/11/26/how-extreme-weather-is-shrinking-the-planet
"How Extreme Weather Is Shrinking the Planet" is a co-production and
created by eco-information activist, Jennifer Hynes and WIGO Voices
of Dissent Host / mover and shaker, Dougie The Abolitionist.
Jennifer Hynes is known worldwide for her Methane Monster videos, as
well as a commentator and sought-after guest about abrupt climate
change and its dire consequences to humanity. Dougie The
Abolitionist is the host of Voices of Dissent,
voicesofdissent.org, which is hosted each Saturday afternoon on WIGO
AM 1570 in Atlanta, Georgia.

This production was narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini from the podcast "How 
Extreme Weather Is Shrinking the Planet" created by Audm at 
https://www.audm.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Db6C0wKn440

[Bloomberg article from 2018]
*Rising Waters Are Drowning Amtrak's Northeast Corridor*
By the middle of this century, climate change is likely to punch a hole 
through the busiest stretch of rail in North America. Parts of Amtrak's 
Northeast Corridor route, which carries 12 million people each year 
between Boston and Washington, face "continual inundation." Flooding, 
rising seas, and storm surge threaten to erode the track bed and knock 
out the signals that direct train traffic. The poles that provide 
electricity for trains are at risk of collapse, even as power 
substations succumb to floodwaters. "If one of the segments of track 
shuts down, it will shut down this segment of the NEC," warned members 
of Amtrak's planning staff. "There is not an alternate route that can be 
used as a detour."...
- -
Amtrak has since de-emphasized the threat of climate change in its 
public documents, even scrubbing the phrase entirely from its most 
recent five-year strategic plan. "We don't see any fundamental risks to 
the integrity of the corridor," Stephen Gardner, Amtrak executive vice 
president and chief commercial officer, said in an interview in November.

Christina Leeds, an Amtrak spokeswoman, said in an email: "Elevation or 
relocation of the infrastructure is likely to be expensive, disruptive, 
or impractical, and given the current levels of federal and state 
funding for Amtrak and the Northeast Corridor, well beyond our means." 
She added that the company already faces "$40 billion worth of 
pressing--largely still unfunded--basic state-of-good-repair risks."
- -
Talking about climate doesn't work with Congress, says Sarah Feinberg, 
former administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration, which has 
oversight of Amtrak. "There are enough problems in the Northeast 
Corridor that you do not need to lead with climate change," she says.

Not long after it received the results of the climate report last year, 
Amtrak released its five-year strategic plan; the first item, under 
"threats," was "environment/climate change." This year's edition made no 
mention of climate change. Amtrak also submits annual reports to the 
Carbon Disclosure Project, a nonprofit clearinghouse for the risks 
climate change poses to companies. Its latest report, dated this May, 
cited half as many risks as it had in the three previous years. Gone 
were the threat hurricanes would pose to demand for train service, the 
effect extreme temperatures would have on operating costs, and the 
expectation that sea level rise would require increased capital.
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-amtrak-sea-level/?srnd=businessweek-v2

[global warming ironic humor one liner]
"When someone says that global warming is real but you reply with: "then 
why is there ice in my freezer?"

*This Day in Climate History - January 3, 2011- from D.R. Tucker*
January 3, 2011: Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly notes that 
Republican presidential candidates who now try to deny the existence of 
human-caused climate change will have to figure out a way to rewrite 
history:

"Yes, in Republican circles in 2011, those who don't reject the
scientific consensus on the climate crisis will be rejected out of
hand. Those who've been even somewhat reasonable on the issue in
recent years should expect to grovel shamelessly -- a trait that's
always attractive in presidential candidates.

"The number of likely GOP candidates who've actually said out loud
that the planet is warming and that human activity is responsible
is, oddly enough, larger than the number of consistent climate
deniers. Sarah Palin has said pollution contributes to global
warming and 'we've got to do something about it.' Romney has said he
believes the planet is warming and at least used to support
cap-and-trade. Huckabee and Pawlenty have backed cap-and-trade --
which was, originally, a Republican idea, by the way -- in recent
years. Even Newt Gingrich used to demand 'action to address climate
change,' and participated briefly with Al Gore's Repower America
campaign.

"This wasn't a problem up until very recently. John McCain's 2008
presidential platform not only acknowledged climate change, it
included a call for a cap-and-trade plan -- and he won the
nomination fairly easily. As recently as 2006, rank-and-file
Republican voters, by and large, believed what the mainstream
believed when it came to climate science: global warming is real,
it's a problem, and it requires attention.
"But that was before the GOP fell off the right-wing cliff."

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2011_01/027356.php
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