[TheClimate.Vote] January 4, 2019 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/January 4, 2019/

[Not loudly announced]
*FOSSIL FUEL INDUSTRY CONCEDES DEFEAT IN PORTLAND INFRASTRUCTURE CASE*
December 28, 2018 by Nicholas Caleb
Last week, climate activists cheered the news that the Western States 
Petroleum Association declined to pursue an appeal of Portland's Fossil 
Fuel Terminal Zoning Amendments to the United States Supreme Court. 
After losing Dormant Commerce Clause challenges at the Oregon Court of 
Appeals (January, 2018) and Oregon Supreme Court (July, 2018), it seemed 
likely that the fossil fuel industry representative would continue to 
fight. However, the December 21, 2018 deadline passed without a filing.
As it stands, the largely favorable lower court decisions have clarified 
the powers of local governments to protect their residents from the 
dangers of the fossil fuel industry.
The City of Portland is now free to reinstitute the Fossil Fuel Terminal 
Zoning Amendments, which prohibited new and expanded large-scale fossil 
fuel infrastructure in Portland. CSE and our partners will be there to 
ensure that this process begins immediately...
- - -
Other legal troubles loom. The Public Utilities Commission has said it's 
considering a variety of measures to deal with PG&E's safety record, 
including a possible breakup of the utility.
More at - 
https://sustainable-economy.org/fossil-fuel-industry-concedes-defeat-in-portland-infrastructure-case/


[What defines a crime?]
*Camp Fire: PG&E could be prosecuted for murder, attorney general says 
in filing*
Pacific Gas & Electric Co. could be prosecuted for murder, manslaughter 
or lesser criminal charges if investigators determine that "reckless 
operation" of its power equipment caused any of Northern California's 
deadly wildfires in the past two years, California's attorney general says.
Attorney General Xavier Becerra, in an opinion submitted to a federal 
judge overseeing the criminal case following PG&E's fatal 2010 
natural-gas pipeline explosion in San Bruno, outlined a variety of 
scenarios under which the embattled utility could face criminal charges 
in the Camp Fire or other deadly blazes since 2017.

The legal brief submitted by Becerra's office said prosecutors would 
have to gauge PG&E's "mental state" before determining which charges, if 
any, to bring. The charges would range from murder to a misdemeanor 
negligence charge, according to the brief.

Becerra's opinion underscores the mounting problems facing PG&E, which 
could be liable for billions of dollars in civil damages in connection 
with the Camp Fire and the flurry of deadly fires in the wine country 
and elsewhere in Northern California in late 2017...
https://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/fires/article223713155.html


[Wise but not yet angry enough]
*Jay Inslee Is Betting He Can Win the Presidency on Climate Change*
The Washington governor believes his focus on the environment will 
resonate with voters. But can he persuade enough Americans to pay 
attention to him?
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/01/washington-governor-jay-inslee-running-president/579217/


[Follow the money]
*Climate Costs in 2018: Top 10 Disasters Cost $85 Billion*
By Dana Drugmand
With 2018 having just drawn to a close, some organizations have begun to 
tally the staggering climate-related costs of a year featuring severe 
drought, heat, fires, floods and storms around the world. Ten of the 
biggest disasters cost at least $85 billion in total damages, according 
to a recent report by the United Kingdom-based organization Christian Aid.

The report, "Counting the Cost: A Year of Climate Breakdown," looked 
into events including catastrophic flooding in Kerala, India to 
devastating wildfires in California, extreme weather events exacerbated 
by a warming climate. Christian Aid, which works to eradicate global 
poverty, identifies the top 10 climate-related disasters of 2018 costing 
more than a billion dollars each. Hurricanes Florence and Michael and 
the California wildfires in November topped the list, marking yet 
another expensive year of extreme weather for the United States.

"The year has once again featured extremes of weather made worse by 
human-induced climate change, with major consequences, costs, and human 
suffering," said Dr. Kevin Trenberth, senior scientist at the National 
Center for Atmospheric Research.

The devastation of 2018 comes on the heels of 2017, which was the 
costliest year yet in the U.S. with more than $300 billion in damages 
from climate-related disasters. In 2018, at least a dozen extreme 
weather events cost at least a billion dollars each, according to the 
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

According to NOAA, the seven years with the most billion-dollar 
disasters have all come in the past decade.

While it is impossible to predict whether billion-dollar events will 
continue to climb,  "We are seeing a gradual upward trend in the number 
of billion dollar disasters even when counting for inflation," said 
Climate Central meteorologist Sean Sublette.

Other factors, like increasing population and economic development, 
contribute to higher damage costs because more people and property are 
concentrated in climate-vulnerable areas like coastal cities. But 
climate change is the underlying factor that leads to more extreme, and 
more expensive, natural disasters.

"As the climate does continue to warm, so will the odds of greater 
floods," Sublette said. "There's more moisture in the atmosphere and 
heavier rain that in turn leads to more flooding. Then you compound that 
with the fact that there is a growing population and more development so 
those two things together are dramatically increasing the risk to life 
and property from natural disasters. When we look at climate change, we 
need to look at this as a risk management thing."

As reports like Christian Aid's show, that risk is already a reality 
with real human impacts and economic costs. "This report shows that for 
many people, climate change is having devastating impacts on their lives 
and livelihoods right now," said Dr. Kat Kramer, Christian Aid's global 
climate lead.

As global temperatures continue to rise, so too will the costs and 
consequences. The $300 billion price tag of extreme weather in the U.S. 
in 2017 is not an anomaly: The federal government's latest national 
climate report warned that climate change could cost the U.S. hundreds 
of billions of dollars annually by century's end. Worldwide, damage 
costs are projected to climb into the tens of trillions of dollars 
without rapid decarbonization. A UN report released last October 
estimated that global economic damages by 2100 would reach $54 trillion 
with 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming, and $69 trillion with 2 degrees C 
warming.

"The science is clear. Without rapid cuts in CO2 and other greenhouse 
gases, climate change will have increasingly destructive and 
irreversible impacts on life on Earth," World Meteorological 
Organization secretary-general Petteri Taalas said in a recent statement.

While more extreme weather and other impacts are commonly described as 
the "new normal," experts explain that the climate system is dynamic and 
unpredictable. "It's going to continue to progressively get worse until 
we find a way to mitigate it or adapt," Sublette said.
https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2019/01/03/climate-costs-2018/


[Over decades]
*Al Gore: America Is Close to a 'Political Tipping Point' on Climate Change*
The former vice president discusses how the politics of the environment 
have changed considerably over his decades of advocacy.
EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE
Al Gore is mostly done with politics these days. Though he popped up at 
a campaign stop with Hillary Clinton in 2016, he's otherwise safely in 
the very small group of nationally known Democrats not thinking of 
running for president in 2020.

But Gore remains engaged on his signature policy issue: climate change, 
for which the national political conversation is just starting to catch 
up to his warnings from decades ago. While he was a senator, through his 
eight years as vice president, and during his 2000 presidential 
campaign, Gore was tagged on the campaign trail as a global-warning 
alarmist obsessed with data and far-off predictions. Now, between the 
growing support for the "Green New Deal" in Congress and the 
presidential candidates railing against climate change, the Democratic 
Party has made aggressive action central to its developing identity.

The former vice president, who's won an Oscar, for his 2006 film An 
Inconvenient Truth, and a Nobel Peace Prize, for his environmental 
advocacy, speaks often at United Nations and other international 
meetings on climate change, events that some American officials and 
other prominent figures continue to attend despite President Donald 
Trump's decision to stop sending official representatives on behalf of 
his administration.

What Gore hasn't done much of, though, is talk directly about American 
politics and political candidates, including the dynamics within the 
party that nominated him for president 18 years ago.

Gore and I spoke recently for a story about Washington Governor Jay 
Inslee, who is readying a presidential campaign that will make climate 
change and America's response to it the central issue and cause. (Gore 
says he isn't making an endorsement, or at least not yet.) We talked 
about why he thinks the national conversation on climate has changed and 
what he thinks hasn't changed quickly enough. Here's more of our 
interview, which has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

Isaac Dovere: Where do you see the politics of climate change right now?

Al Gore: I think that we are extremely close to a political tipping 
point. We may actually be crossing it right about now. The much-vaunted 
tribalism in American politics has contributed to an odd anomaly, in 
that the core of one of our political parties is uniquely--in all of the 
world-- still rejecting not just the science, but also the messages from 
Mother Nature that have pushed toward, and perhaps are pushing across, 
this political tipping point right now.

More and more people on the conservative side of the spectrum are really 
changing their positions now. This election, in 2020, is almost 
certainly going to be different from any previous presidential election 
in that a number of candidates will be placing climate at or near the 
top of their agenda. And I think that by the time the first primary and 
caucus votes are cast a year from now, you're going to see a very 
different political dialogue in the U.S.

The climate-related extreme-weather events are causing millions of 
people who had successfully pushed this issue into the background and 
into the projected distant future to now be finding ways to talk about 
it and to express their deep concern.

Dovere: When you were in politics and talking about climate change, you 
were made fun for it. Is that weird to think about now?

Gore: Forty years ago, it was not easy to get people's sustained 
attention for this looming crisis. It's much easier now.

Dovere: What do you make of the Democratic presidential contenders 
talking about climate change now?

Gore: Leaders who advocate solutions to the climate crisis should all 
run. There are several who have indicated they want to make this the No. 
1 issue, who are in the midst of deciding whether to run or not. And I 
think it's good for the country and good for the world to have this 
issue elevated into the top tier during this upcoming campaign.

Dovere: Every time there's a new report on climate change, activists 
say, "We've got to get going before it's too late." And every time 
there's a new report, climate-change deniers say, "Well, you said the 
world was ending the last time." Do you think there's actually a point 
when it will be too late?

Gore: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. famously said, "There is such a thing 
as too late." [King's words are often remembered this way, but the 
actual quote is: "We are faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow 
is today. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Over the bleached 
bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the 
pathetic words 'Too Late.'"] And indeed there is. But where the climate 
crisis is concerned, we have actually already done some significant 
damage, some of which, regrettably, is not recoverable. Many people are 
hesitant to acknowledge that, because it creates a risk of despair. I 
know that from my long political involvement in this issue. In my first 
movie, I made this statement: "There are people who go straight from 
denial to despair without pausing on the intermediate step, to actually 
solving the crisis." That is the case.

But let me be clear: Even though some low-lying coastal communities are 
already going to face devastating sea-level rise no matter what we do, 
it is also undeniably true that we still have the ability to prevent the 
absolutely catastrophic results that would pose an existential threat to 
human civilization's survival. And we must act, even while acknowledging 
that some damage has already been done.

Dovere: Where is it too late?

Gore: We heard the discouraging news a couple of years ago that a major 
component of the West Antarctic ice sheet has now crossed a negative 
tipping point, and will almost certainly collapse no matter what we do. 
So for those who were hoping that we could have a comprehensive global 
response in time to prevent any of these damages, that was an emotional 
blow. But the scientists who have deep expertise on that part of the 
issue tell us quickly, "OK, wait. We still have the ability to affect 
the rate of that collapse, and more importantly, we still have the 
ability almost certainly to forestall the collapse of the other large 
ice sheets, behind that one. And we still have the ability to prevent 
the collapse of ice sheets in East Antarctica that could take the 
sea-level rise unimaginably higher."

So how do we respond emotionally and, then, politically? We just have to 
be clear-eyed about it--and we have to be brave about it--in 
acknowledging that for some of these consequences, it's already too 
late, but for the most serious of them, it is not too late.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/01/al-gore-q-climate-change-and-2020-democrats/579340/


[93% incredible odds]
*10 Worst-Case Climate Predictions If We Don't Keep Global Temperatures 
Under 1.5 Degrees Celsius*
If humankind carries on its business-as-usual approach to climate 
change, there's a 93 percent chance we're barreling toward a potentially 
catastrophic level of warming
by Lorraine Chow
The summer of 2018 was intense: deadly wildfires, persistent drought, 
killer floods and record-breaking heat. Although scientists exercise 
great care before linking individual weather events to climate change, 
the rise in global temperatures caused by human activities has been 
found to increase the severity, likelihood and duration of such conditions.

Globally, 2018 is on pace to be the fourth-hottest year on record. Only 
2015, 2016 and 2017 were hotter. The Paris climate agreement aims to 
hold temperature rise below 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius, but if humankind 
carries on its business-as-usual approach to climate change, there's a 
93 percent chance we're barreling toward a world that is 4 degrees 
Celsius warmer by the end of the century, a potentially catastrophic 
level of warming.

*A Warning and a Reckoning*
In 1992, 1,700 scientists around the world issued a chilling "warning to 
humanity." The infamous letter declared that humans were on a "collision 
course" with the natural world if they did not rein in their 
environmentally damaging activities.

Such apocalyptic thinking might be easy to mock, and not entirely 
helpful in inspiring political action if end times are nigh. In 2017, 
however, more than 15,000 scientists from 184 countries co-signed their 
names to an updated--and even bleaker--version of the 1992 manifesto.

The latest version, titled "World Scientists' Warning to Humanity: A 
Second Notice," asserts that most of the environmental challenges raised 
in the original letter--i.e., depletion of freshwater sources, 
overfishing, plummeting biodiversity, unsustainable human population 
growth--remain unsolved and are "getting far worse."

"Especially troubling is the current trajectory of potentially 
catastrophic climate change due to rising [greenhouse gases] from 
burning fossil fuels, deforestation, and agricultural 
production--particularly from farming ruminants for meat consumption," 
the paper states.

"Moreover," the authors wrote, "We have unleashed a mass extinction 
event, the sixth in roughly 540 million years, wherein many current life 
forms could be annihilated or at least committed to extinction by the 
end of this century."

But they stressed that, "Soon it will be too late to shift course away 
from our failing trajectory, and time is running out."

More recently, President Trump's own administration released on November 
23 the 1,600-page Fourth National Climate Assessment, a quadrennial 
report compiled by 13 federal agencies. This report paints a 
particularly grim picture, including more frequent droughts, floods, 
wildfires and extreme weather, declining crop yields, the rise of 
disease-carrying insects and rising seas--all of which could reduce U.S. 
gross domestic product by a tenth by the end of the century.

So what we saw this summer? Unless humanity gets its act together, we 
can expect much worse to come. Here's a peek into our climate-addled future.

*1. Species Extinction*
The Amazon, one of the most biodiverse places on Earth, could lose about 
70 percent of its plant and amphibian species and more than 60 percent 
of its birds, mammals and reptile species from unchecked climate change, 
according to a 2018 study by the University of East Anglia, the James 
Cook University and World Wildlife Fund (WWF), which analyzed the impact 
of climate change on nearly 80,000 species of plants, birds, mammals, 
reptiles and amphibians inhabiting the WWF's 35 "Priority Places" for 
conservation.

The study's most alarming projection was for the Miombo Woodlands in 
central and Southern Africa, one of the priority places most vulnerable 
to climate change. If global temperatures rose 4.5 degrees Celsius, the 
researchers projected the loss of 90 percent of amphibians and 80 
percent or more of plants, birds, mammals and reptiles.

This incredible loss of biodiversity affects humans, too. "This is not 
simply about the disappearance of certain species from particular 
places, but about profound changes to ecosystems that provide vital 
services to hundreds of millions of people," the authors warned.

*2. Food Insecurity and Nutritional Deficiencies*
While climate change could actually benefit colder parts of the world 
with longer growing seasons, tropical and subtropical regions in Africa, 
South America, India and Europe could lose vast chunks of arable land. 
For coastal countries, rising seas could inundate farming land and 
drinking water with salt.

Staple crops such as wheat, rice, maize and soybeans, which provide 
two-thirds of the world's caloric intake, are sensitive to temperature 
and precipitation and to rising atmospheric concentrations of carbon 
dioxide. A sweeping 2017 study showed that every degree-Celsius of 
warming will reduce average global yields of wheat by 6 percent, rice by 
3.2 percent, maize by 7.4 percent and soybeans by 3.1 percent.

What's more, according to a recent paper, carbon dioxide levels expected 
by 2050 will make staple crops such as rice and wheat less nutritious. 
This could result in 175 million people becoming zinc deficient (which 
can cause a wide array of health impacts, including impaired growth and 
immune function and impotence) and 122 million people becoming protein 
deficient (which can cause edema, fat accumulation in liver cells, loss 
of muscle mass and in children, stunted growth). Additionally, the 
researchers found that more than 1 billion women and children could lose 
a large portion of their dietary iron intake, putting them at increased 
risk of anemia and other diseases.

*3. Farewell to Coastal Cities and Island Nations*
Unless we cut heat-trapping greenhouse gases, scientists predict sea 
levels could rise up to three feet by 2100, according to the 
International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment report.

This could bring high tides and surges from strong storms, and be 
devastating for the millions of people living in coastal areas. The 
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) published a 
report earlier this year that predicted parts of Miami, New York City 
and San Francisco could flood every day by 2100, under a sea-level rise 
scenario of three feet.

Entire countries could also be swallowed by the sea due to global 
warming. Kiribati, a nation consisting of 33 atolls and reef islands in 
the South Pacific, is expected to be one of the first.

Kiribati won't be alone. At least eight islands have already disappeared 
into the Pacific Ocean due to rising sea levels since 2016, and an April 
study said that most coral atolls will be uninhabitable by the mid-21st 
century.

*4. Social Conflict and Mass Migration*
In 2017, New York Magazine Deputy Editor David Wallace-Wells wrote an 
alarming and widely read essay called "The Uninhabitable Earth" that 
focused almost entirely on worst-case climate scenarios. He discussed 
that, with diminished resources and increased migration caused by 
flooding, "social conflict could more than double this century."

The article's scientific merit has been fiercely debated, but the World 
Bank did conclude in March 2018 that water scarcity, crop failure and 
rising sea levels could displace 143 million people by 2050. The report 
focused on Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Latin America, which 
represent 55 percent of the developing world's population. 
Unsurprisingly, the poorest and most climate-vulnerable areas will be 
hardest hit.

*5. Lethal Heat*
Today, around 30 percent of the global population suffers deadly levels 
of heat and humidity for at least 20 days a year, a 2017 analysis 
showed. If emissions continue increasing at current rates, the 
researchers suggested 74 percent of the global population--three in four 
people--will experience more than 20 days of lethal heat waves.

"Our attitude towards the environment has been so reckless that we are 
running out of good choices for the future," Camilo Mora of the 
University of Hawaii at Manoa, the study's lead author, told National 
Geographic.

"For heatwaves, our options are now between bad or terrible," he added. 
"Many people around the world are already paying the ultimate price of 
heatwaves."

*6. Surging Wildfires*
The Camp Fire, which burned more than 150,000 acres in Butte County in 
November, was the deadliest and most destructive fire in California's 
history, killing at least 85 people. The Mendocino Complex Fire, which 
started in July and torched roughly 300,000 acres in Northern 
California, was the largest fire in the state's modern history. The 
second-largest was 2017's Thomas Fire, which burned 281,000 acres in 
Santa Barbara and Ventura counties.

But the Golden State's fires will only get worse, according to 
California's Fourth Climate Change Assessment released by the governor's 
office in August. If greenhouse gases continue rising, large fires that 
burn more than 25,000 acres will increase by 50 percent by the end of 
the century, and the volume of acres that will be burned by wildfires in 
an average year will increase by 77 percent, the report said.

"Higher spring and summer temperatures and earlier spring snowmelt 
typically cause soils to be drier for longer, increasing the likelihood 
of drought and a longer wildfire season, particularly in the western 
United States," The Union of Concerned Scientists explained in a blog post.

"These hot, dry conditions also increase the likelihood that wildfires 
will be more intense and long-burning once they are started by lightning 
strikes or human error."

*7. Hurricanes: More Frequent, More Intense*
It's not currently clear if changes in climate directly led to 2017's 
major hurricanes, including Harvey, Irma, Maria and Ophelia. What we do 
know is this: Moist air over warm ocean water is hurricane fuel.

"Everything in the atmosphere now is impacted by the fact that it's 
warmer than it's ever been," CNN Senior Meteorologist Brandon Miller 
said. "There's more water vapor in the atmosphere. The ocean is warmer. 
And all of that really only pushes the impact in one direction, and that 
is worse: higher surge in storms, higher rainfall in storms."

NOAA concluded this June that, "It is likely that greenhouse warming 
will cause hurricanes in the coming century to be more intense globally 
and have higher rainfall rates than present-day hurricanes."

*8. Melted Polar Ice and Permafrost*
The Arctic is warming at a rate twice as fast as the rest of the planet, 
and continued loss of ice and snow cover "will cause big changes to 
ocean currents, to circulation of the atmosphere, to fisheries and 
especially to the air temperature, which will warm up because there 
isn't any ice cooling the surface anymore," Peter Wadhams, head of the 
Polar Ocean Physics Group at the University of Cambridge, told Public 
Radio International. "That will have an effect, for instance, on air 
currents over Greenland, which will increase the melt rate of the 
Greenland ice sheet."

Not only that, frozen Arctic soil--or permafrost--is starting to melt, 
causing the release of methane, a far more potent greenhouse gas than 
carbon dioxide. It's said that the permafrost holds 1.8 trillion tons of 
carbon, more than twice as much as is currently suspended in the Earth's 
atmosphere. Wadhams explained that the fear is that the permafrost will 
melt in "one rapid go." If that happens, "The amount of methane that 
comes out will be a huge pulse, and that would have a detectable climate 
change, maybe 0.6 of a degree... So, it would be just a big jerk to the 
global climate."

*9. The Spread of Pathogens*
Disturbingly, permafrost is full of pathogens, and its melting could 
unleash once-frozen bacteria and viruses, The Atlantic reported. In 
2016, dozens of people were hospitalized and a 12-year-old boy died 
after an outbreak of anthrax in Siberia. More than 2,000 reindeer were 
also infected. Anthrax hadn't been seen in the region for 75 years. The 
cause? Scientists suggested that a heat wave thawed a reindeer carcass 
that was infected with the disease decades ago, according to NPR.

While we shouldn't get too frightened about Earth's once-frozen 
pathogens wiping us out (yet), the warming planet has also widened the 
geographic ranges of ticks, mosquitoes and other organisms that carry 
disease.

"We now have dengue in southern parts of Texas," George C. Stewart, 
McKee Professor of Microbial Pathogenesis and chair of the department of 
veterinary pathobiology at the University of Missouri, told Scientific 
American. "Malaria is seen at higher elevations and latitudes as 
temperatures climb. And the cholera agent, Vibrio cholerae, replicates 
better at higher temperatures."

*10. Dead Corals*
As the world's largest carbon sink, our oceans bear the brunt of climate 
change. But the more carbon it absorbs (about 22 million tons a day), 
the more acidic the waters become. This could put a whole host of marine 
life at risk, including coral reef ecosystems, the thousands of species 
that depend on them and the estimated 1 billion people around the globe 
who rely on healthy reefs for sustenance and income. According to 
Science, "Researchers predict that with increasing levels of 
acidification, most coral reefs will be gradually dissolving away by the 
end of the century."

These climate predictions are worst-case scenarios, but there are many 
more dangers to consider in our warming world. A report recently 
published in the journal Nature Climate Change found "evidence for 467 
pathways by which human health, water, food, economy, infrastructure and 
security have been recently impacted by climate hazards such as warming, 
heatwaves, precipitation, drought, floods, fires, storms, sea-level rise 
and changes in natural land cover and ocean chemistry."

*Half a Degree Matters*
Since the 19th century, the Earth has warmed by 1 degree Celsius. Now, a 
major IPCC special report released in October warns that even just a 
half-degree more of warming could be disastrous. "Every extra bit of 
warming matters, especially since warming of 1.5ºC or higher increases 
the risk associated with long-lasting or irreversible changes, such as 
the loss of some ecosystems," said Hans-Otto Portner, co-chair of IPCC 
Working Group II.

The panel said that "limiting global warming to 1.5C compared to 2C 
could go hand in hand with ensuring a more sustainable and equitable 
society."
With President Trump saying he doesn't believe his own administration's 
climate report, that sustainable and equitable society remains a distant 
dream.

This article was produced by Earth - Food - Life, a project of the 
Independent Media Institute, and originally published by Truthout.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 
3.0 License
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/01/02/10-worst-case-climate-predictions-if-we-dont-keep-global-temperatures-under-15 



[practice, practice, practice]
*5 Buddhist Practices to Help Tackle Climate Change*
BY LAMA WILLA B. MILLER - NOVEMBER 26, 2018
Climate change can feel so immense that it hurts just to think about. 
Lama Willa Miller offers five meditations to help bring the truth of 
climate change into your awareness and lay the ground for a skillful 
response.

    *1. Find a grounding in ethics..*
    *2. Get comfortable with uncertainty...*
    *3. Work with emotions...*
    *4. Access new wisdom...*
    *5. Find community...*

By practicing with ethics, uncertainty, emotion, wisdom, and community, 
we develop an intimate understanding that being human is about what we 
think and what we believe -- and we deepen our ability to embody our work.
Embodiment sends an indelible message that peace and sustainability can 
become a lived reality. Even when they are imperfectly realized, we can 
inspire the sense that our lives have meaning, and that we are living 
our way into ever-increasing integrity with -- and service to -- our 
beautiful, unfathomable and sacred world.
https://www.lionsroar.com/5-practices-to-help-you-skillfully-contemplate-climate-change/


[On a globe, goes around, comes around]
*It's Not Just America: Climate Policies Are Stumbling Worldwide*
According to the UN, most major polluters are not on track to meet their 
Paris goals. But critics say that accounting may be too pessimistic.
ROBINSON MEYER
- -
The UN report identifies two reasons for the growing gap between the 
Paris goals and reality. First, worldwide carbon pollution rose in 2017, 
thanks to growing economies in Asia, booming SUV sales worldwide, and a 
small increase in coal use in India. This was the first time that global 
carbon emissions had risen in three years. Second, a blockbuster report 
released last month by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 
said that the world will not be able to directly remove as much carbon 
dioxide from the atmosphere as once thought...
- -
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/11/how-hot-will-climate-change-make-earth/576700/


*This Day in Climate History - January 4,1996 - from D.R. Tucker*
January 4, 1996: The New York Times reports:

    "The earth's average surface temperature climbed to a record high
    last year, according to preliminary figures, bolstering scientists'
    sense that the burning of fossil fuels is warming the climate.

    "Spells of cold, snow and ice like the ones this winter in the
    northeastern United States come and go in one region or another, as
    do periods of unusual warmth. But the net result globally made 1995
    the warmest year since records first were kept in 1856, says a
    provisional report issued by the British Meteorological Office and
    the University of East Anglia.

    "The average temperature was 58.72 degrees Fahrenheit, according to
    the British data, seven-hundredths of a degree higher than the
    previous record, established in 1990.

    "The British figures, based on land and sea measurements around the
    world, are one of two sets of long-term data by which surface
    temperature trends are being tracked.

    "The other, maintained by the NASA Goddard Institute for Space
    Studies in New York, shows the average 1995 temperature at 59.7
    degrees, slightly ahead of 1990 as the warmest year since
    record-keeping began in 1866. But the difference is within the
    margin of sampling error, and the two years essentially finished
    neck and neck.

    "The preliminary Goddard figures differ from the British ones
    because they are based on a somewhat different combination of
    observations around the world.

    "One year does not a trend make, but the British figures show the
    years 1991 through 1995 to be warmer than any similar five-year
    period, including the two half-decades of the 1980's, the warmest
    decade on record.

    "This is so even though a sun-reflecting haze cast aloft by the 1991
    eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines cooled the earth
    substantially for about two years. Despite the post-Pinatubo
    cooling, the Goddard data show the early 1990's to have been nearly
    as warm as the late 1980's, which Goddard says was the warmest
    half-decade on record.

    "Dr. James E. Hansen, the director of the Goddard center, predicted
    last year that a new global record would be reached before 2000, and
    yesterday he said he now expected that 'we will still get at least a
    couple more' by then.

    "Dr. Hansen has been one of only a few scientists to maintain
    steadfastly that a century-long global warming trend is being caused
    mostly by human influence, a belief he reiterated yesterday."

http://www.nytimes.com/1996/01/04/world/95-is-hottest-year-on-record-as-the-global-trend-resumes.html?pagewanted=print
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