[TheClimate.Vote] January 13, 2019 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/January 13, 2019/

[Senator Sheldon Whitehouse "Time to Wake Up"]
*Senator calls out Fossil Fuel Funding in U.S. Politics*
Climate State - Published Jan 12, 2019
What happens in climate pollution does affect a global scale -- 
According to @SenWhitehouse, 60 of the 70 billion $ spent by 
conservative interests to keep the U.S. Senate in Republican hands was 
connected to fossil fuel interests. They bought the U.S. Senate to block 
climate action.
https://twitter.com/MichaelEMann/status/1083449934706282497
https://twitter.com/SenWhitehouse/status/1083448349661908992
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1VF0Sqj0eE


[Washington Post $]
*The oceans are warming faster than we thought, and scientists suggest 
we brace for impact*
[actually, warming 40 to 50 percent faster...]
By Angela Fritz - January 11
The oceans are warming faster than climate reports have suggested, 
according to a new synthesis of temperature observations published this 
week. The most recent report from the United Nations Intergovernmental 
Panel on Climate Change made what turned out to be a very conservative 
estimate of rise in ocean temperature, and scientists are advising us to 
adjust our expectations.

"The numbers are coming in 40 to 50 percent [warmer] than the last IPCC 
report," said Kevin Trenberth, a climate scientist at the National 
Center for Atmospheric Research and an author on the report, published 
in Science Magazine on Thursday.

Furthermore, Trenberth said, "2018 will be the warmest year on record in 
the oceans" as 2017 was and 2016 before that.

Oceans cover 70 percent of the globe and absorb 93 percent of the 
planet's extra heat from climate change. They are responsible for 
spawning disasters like hurricanes Florence and Maria and generating 
torrential rainfall via meteorological processes with names like 
"atmospheric river" and "Pineapple Express."
- - -
"We've spent too much time and effort on people who may not be 
convinced" that climate change is real and important, he said. "But now 
there seems to be this grass-roots movement of young people who care. I 
don't remember a time like this."
Angela Fritz is an atmospheric scientist and The Washington Post's 
deputy weather editor. Before joining The Post, Fritz worked as a 
meteorologist at CNN in Atlanta and Weather Underground in San 
Francisco. She has a BS in meteorology and an MS in earth and 
atmospheric science.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2019/01/11/oceans-are-warming-faster-than-we-thought-scientists-suggest-we-brace-impact/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.6e2ac07899af
- - -
[Inside Climate News]
*World's Oceans Are Warming Faster, Studies Show, Fueling Storms and Sea 
Rise*
'Global warming is here, it has major consequences, and it's going to be 
very, very difficult to get this under control,' an author of a new 
report says.
A new study published Thursday strengthens the consensus that the 
warming of the world's oceans is accelerating.
It's a trend that climate models have long predicted, but it had been 
difficult to confirm until recently.

The findings are vindication of the scientific community's work so far 
and lend greater weight to the projections for warming through the end 
of this century, said Gavin Schmidt, a leading climate scientist at 
Columbia University who was not involved in the study...
The new paper, published in the journal Science, reviews four studies 
conducted over the past decade and was partly a response to a 
controversy over one of them, an article published in the journal Nature 
on Nov. 1. The authors of the November article were forced to issue a 
correction after discovering they had made errors in their assumptions 
and that the uncertainty in their findings was much greater than they 
had thought.

While the November paper made some "disquieting" assumptions, the 
corrected version is closely in line with three other studies that used 
different techniques, said Kevin Trenberth, a climate scientist at the 
National Center for Atmospheric Research and coauthor of the new review.

The overall point--that warming is accelerating--holds true, and it 
helps explain why we're starting to see the effects of warming through 
stronger storms and severe weather, he said.

"Global warming is here, it has major consequences, and it's going to be 
very, very difficult to get this under control," Trenberth said. "That 
doesn't mean we shouldn't try, because anytime we can slow this down if 
not stop it, it allows us to adapt to it, to plan for it, to deal with 
some of the expected consequences in a much better fashion."...
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/10012019/ocean-warming-accelerating-sea-level-rise-hurricanes-climate-change-science-review
- - - -
[What's that smell?]
*A $3 billion problem: Miami-Dade's septic tanks are already failing due 
to sea rise*
BY ALEX HARRIS - JANUARY 10, 2019
Miami-Dade has tens of thousands of septic tanks, and a new report 
reveals most are already malfunctioning -- the smelly and unhealthy 
evidence of which often ends up in people's yards and homes. It's a 
billion-dollar problem that climate change is making worse.

As sea level rise encroaches on South Florida, the Miami-Dade County 
study shows that thousands more residents may be at risk -- and soon. By 
2040, 64 percent of county septic tanks (more than 67,000) could have 
issues every year, affecting not only the people who rely on them for 
sewage treatment, but the region's water supply and the health of anyone 
who wades through floodwaters.

"That's a huge deal for a developed country in 2019 to have half of the 
septic tanks not functioning for part of the year," said Miami 
Waterkeeper Executive Director Rachel Silverstein. "That is not acceptable."
Septic tanks require a layer of dirt underneath to do the final 
filtration work and return the liquid waste back to the aquifer. Older 
rules required one foot of soil, but newer regulations call for double 
that. In South Florida, there's not that much dirt between the homes 
above ground and the water below.
"All those regulations were based on the premise the elevation of 
groundwater was going to be stable over time, which we now know is not 
correct," said Doug Yoder, deputy director of Miami-Dade County's Water 
and Sewer Department. "Now we find ourselves in a situation where we 
know sea level has risen and continues to rise."
Sea level rise is pushing the groundwater even higher, eating up 
precious space and leaving the once dry dirt soggy. Waste water doesn't 
filter like it's supposed to in soggy soil. In some cases, it comes back 
out, turning a front yard into a poopy swamp.

High tides or heavy rains can push feces-filled water elsewhere, 
including King Tide floodwaters -- as pointed out in a 2016 study from 
Florida International University and NOAA -- or possibly the region's 
drinking supply.
In total, there are about 108,000 properties within the county that 
still use septic, about 105,000 of which are residential. The vast 
majority (more than 65,000) of the septic systems are in unincorporated 
Miami-Dade.

Miami Gardens, North Miami Beach, Palmetto Bay and Pinecrest have the 
most of any city, at about 5,000 each.
Some of those cities will see hundreds more septic tanks experiencing 
yearly failures within the decade, like North Miami Beach, which has 
2,780 homes with septic tanks with periodic issues now. By 2030, that is 
expected to jump to 3,751.

The report did not forecast past 2040, when the region is expecting 
around 15 inches of sea rise, a number that is predicted to creep 
exponentially upward over the decades.
"The best response is sewer extension, but obviously that infrastructure 
takes quite a bit of planning and time," said Katherine Hageman, the 
county's resilience program manager.
"And money," County Chief Resilience Officer James Murley added.

Ripping out every septic tank and laying down new pipes to connect the 
homes to the county's sewer system won't be cheap. The latest estimate 
put the price tag at $3.3 billion.
"Who has that?" said Commissioner Rebeca Sosa, who called for the study. 
"We need to act as fast as possible. We need to get as much assistance 
as we can from the federal government, from the state."

That $3.3 billion price tag doesn't cover commercial properties, an 
estimated $230 million cost, Yoder said. The county's current general 
obligation bond includes $126 million to extend sewer services to 
businesses. Yoder said the plans are in the design phase.
For now, anyone who wants to connect their property to the county's 
sewer system has to pay out of pocket. The report cites the average 
price as $15,000, but Yoder estimated that in septic-reliant areas like 
Pinecrest, it could cost around $50,000 per home to tap into the sewer 
system.

That's cash most residents don't have on hand, Haggman said, which is 
why the county is exploring other ways to help residents out.

"We have options, but I think that's a good area for more conversation," 
she said.

Besides borrowing more money with another bond, the report pointed out 
the county's best options would be continuing to collect the per-home 
fee or establishing special taxing districts and spreading the cost into 
a neighborhood.
Silverstein said the findings raise significant concerns about impacts 
from septic tanks not just in 20 years, but now.

"Clearly the county is facing a major system failure here. Septic tanks 
are already compromised and will continue to be even more comprised with 
sea level rise and they need to take rapid action to address this and 
make the system more resilient," she said.
Miami Herald Staff Writer Jenny Staletovich contributed to this story.
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/environment/article224132115.html


[First, some definitions:  a joule]
It is equal to the energy transferred to (or work done on) an object 
when a force of one newton acts on that object in the direction of its 
motion through a distance of one metre (1 newton metre or N⋅m). It is 
also the energy dissipated as heat when an electric current of one 
ampere passes through a resistance of one ohm for one second. It is 
named after the English physicist James Prescott Joule (
One joule can also be defined as:
The work required to move an electric charge of one coulomb through an 
electrical potential difference of one volt, or one coulomb-volt (C⋅V). 
This relationship can be used to define the volt.
The work required to produce one watt of power for one second, or one 
watt-second (W⋅s) (compare kilowatt-hour – 3.6 megajoules). This 
relationship can be used to define the watt.
*Yottajoule.*
The yottajoule (YJ) is equal to one septillion (1024) joules. This is 
approximately the amount of energy required to heat all the water on 
Earth by 1 °C. The thermal output of the Sun is approximately 400 YJ per 
second.
Joule - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joule
The zettajoule (ZJ) is equal to one sextillion (1021) joules. The human 
annual global energy consumption is approximately 0.5 ZJ. Yottajoule.
Joule - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joule
Multiples
For additional examples, see: Orders of magnitude (energy)
SI multiples for joule (J)
Submultiples        Multiples
Value    SI symbol    Name    Value    SI symbol    Name
10−1 J    dJ    decijoule    101 J    daJ    decajoule
10−2 J    cJ    centijoule    102 J    hJ    hectojoule
10−3 J    mJ    millijoule    103 J    kJ    kilojoule
10−6 J    µJ    microjoule    106 J    MJ    megajoule
10−9 J    nJ    nanojoule    109 J    GJ    gigajoule
10−12 J    pJ    picojoule    1012 J    TJ    terajoule
10−15 J    fJ    femtojoule    1015 J    PJ    petajoule
10−18 J    aJ    attojoule    1018 J    EJ    exajoule
10−21 J    zJ    zeptojoule    1021 J    ZJ    zettajoule
10−24 J    yJ    yoctojoule    1024 J    YJ    yottajoule
Common multiples are in bold face
*The zeptojoule (zJ) *is equal to one sextillionth (10−21) of one joule. 
160 zeptojoules is about one electronvolt.
*The picojoule (pJ*) is equal to one trillionth (10−12) of one joule.
*The nanojoule (nJ)* is equal to one billionth (10−9) of one joule. 160 
nanojoules is about the kinetic energy of a flying mosquito.[9]
*The microjoule (μJ)* is equal to one millionth (10−6) of one joule. The 
Large Hadron Collider (LHC) produces collisions of the microjoule order 
(7 TeV) per particle.
*The millijoule (mJ)* is equal to one thousandth (10−3) of a joule.
==============================
*The kilojoule (kJ)* is equal to one thousand (103) joules. Nutritional 
food labels in most countries express energy in kilojoules (kJ).[10]
One square metre of the Earth receives about 1.4 kilojoules of solar 
radiation every second in full daylight.[11]
*The megajoule (MJ)* is equal to one million (106) joules, or 
approximately the kinetic energy of a one megagram (tonne) vehicle 
moving at 161 km/h.
The energy required to heat 10 liters of liquid water at constant 
pressure from 0 °C (32 °F) to 100 °C (212 °F) is approximately 4.2 MJ.
One kilowatt hour of electricity is 3.6 megajoules.
*The gigajoule (GJ) *is equal to one billion (109) joules. 6 GJ is about 
the chemical energy of combusting 1 barrel (159 l) of crude oil.[12] 2 
GJ is about the Planck energy unit.
*The terajoule (TJ)* is equal to one trillion (1012) joules; or about 
0.278 GWh (which is often used in energy tables). About 63 TJ of energy 
was released by the atomic bomb that exploded over Hiroshima.[13] The 
International Space Station, with a mass of approximately 450 megagrams 
and orbital velocity of 7.7 km/s,[14] has a kinetic energy of roughly 13 
TJ. In 2017 Hurricane Irma was estimated to have a peak wind energy of 
112 TJ.[15][16]
*The petajoule (PJ)* is equal to one quadrillion (1015) joules. 210 PJ 
is about 50 megatons of TNT. This is the amount of energy released by 
the Tsar Bomba, the largest man-made explosion ever.
*The exajoule (EJ)* is equal to one quintillion (1018) joules. The 2011 
Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan had 1.41 EJ of energy according 
to its rating of 9.0 on the moment magnitude scale. Yearly U.S. energy 
consumption amounts to roughly 94 EJ.
*The zettajoule (ZJ)* is equal to one sextillion (1021) joules. *The 
human annual global energy consumption is approximately 0.5 ZJ.*
*The yottajoule (YJ)* is equal to one septillion (1024) joules. *This is 
approximately the amount of energy required to heat all the water on 
Earth by 1 °C. The thermal output of the Sun is approximately 400 YJ per 
second.*
On average, 340 watts per square meter of solar energy arrives at the 
top of the atmosphere. Earth returns an equal amount of energy back to 
space by reflecting some incoming light and by radiating heat (thermal 
infrared energy).Jan 14, 2009
Climate and Earth's Energy Budget - NASA Earth Observatory
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/EnergyBalance/page1.php

- - -
[Now, to use ZetaJoule in a sentence: ]
["...pre- and post-1990...the increase in the speed of ocean heat 
content rise is quite large, going from 2.8 ZJ/yr to 9.5 ZJ/yr, three 
and a half times as fast. "]
[from Tamino]
*Sea Heat*
Posted on January 12, 2019
Just a quick note, that when it comes to the heat that's been building 
up in the oceans, Zeke Hausfather got right to the point:
He's one of the authors of a new paper (Cheng et al. 2018) which brings 
together all that we've learned lately about ocean heat content, to show 
that the best estimate is going up faster than we thought before. In 
fact it's following what the computer models predicted it would do, with 
surprising fidelity. You can find plenty of press reports, including in 
the New York Times.

The data in his graph (available here) are from Lijing Cheng, the 
paper's lead author. They're monthly data, and look like this 
(Hausfather's graph uses a different baseline, doesn't start until 1955, 
and shows a 12-month moving average rather than monthly values):

The rapid and seemingly inexorable rise in the heat of the oceans is a 
sign of trouble. If it continues, it will bring us another foot of sea 
level rise by 2100 from thermal expansion alone, quite apart from the 
melting of land ice. Since ocean heat is the energy source for storms 
like hurricanes, they can be even more destructive. Ocean species will 
have to migrate and adapt to the new conditions; they're already on the 
move (ask fishermen), and their future is uncertain. That means our 
future is uncertain.

What strikes me most about the data is the sharp turn about 1990. It's 
easily confirmed statistically, and if we model the data as two straight 
lines, choosing the optimal "turning point" by change point analysis, we 
get this:

With it, we can estimate the average rates during the two episodes, pre- 
and post-1990. Two things strike me about this. First, the increase in 
the speed of ocean heat content rise is quite large, going from 2.8 
ZJ/yr to 9.5 ZJ/yr, three and a half times as fast. Second, it's 
probably not a coincidence that the year 1990 is the same at which sea 
level accelerates. Since thermal expansion is one of the root causes of 
sea level rise, this is to be expected.

In closing, I'll mention that my wife's idea of "sea heat" is Jason Momoa.
https://tamino.wordpress.com/2019/01/12/sea-heat/


[goes around, comes around]
*Next president could declare climate emergency, GOP fears*
Scott Waldman, E&E News reporter Climatewire: Friday, January 11, 2019
Republicans are increasingly concerned that President Trump's threat to 
build a border wall by declaring a national emergency might be repeated 
by a future president who sees climate change as an existential danger 
to the United States.

A number of Republicans, including Sens. John Thune of South Dakota and 
Marco Rubio of Florida, expressed dismay at the potential reverberations 
of issuing an emergency order to achieve a political victory.

"We have to be careful about endorsing broad uses of executive power," 
Rubio said Wednesday on CNBC. "If today the national emergency is border 
security, tomorrow the national emergency might be climate change."

Democrats and Republicans have been clashing for three weeks -- the 
length of the partial government shutdown -- over Trump's demand for 
$5.7 billion in wall funding. Neither side is showing signs of a 
compromise, prompting Trump to intensify his rhetoric about violence 
along the U.S.-Mexico border while pushing closer to an emergency 
declaration that would empower him to build a wall using the military.

"If this doesn't work out, probably I will do it," Trump said yesterday 
of declaring a disaster, before flying to Texas for publicized meetings 
along the border. "I would almost say definitely."

Even some conservative pundits who support building a wall worry that 
Trump's actions on immigration could be harnessed by a future president 
for climate action.

"If the President declares a national emergency and starts using eminent 
domain and reprogrammed dollars to build a wall, it is only a matter of 
time before a progressive President declares climate change a national 
emergency and uses eminent domain to shutter coal plants, etc.," Erick 
Erickson tweeted this week.

Former Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri warned Republicans 
yesterday that climate change is exactly the type of issue that a future 
president could address by bypassing Congress.

"This is a reminder to my R friends that the Pentagon, Congress, and 
this administration have all said climate change is a serious threat to 
national security," she wrote on Twitter. "Will the next President 
bypass Congress and declare an emergency? This door can swing both ways."

Democrats won't publicly admit that global warming rises to the level of 
declaring a national emergency or shuttering the government. More than a 
dozen Democratic lawmakers in the House and Senate said they would not 
shut down the government over any issue, including climate change.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) said Democrats would be able to get support 
for climate policy though traditional avenues.

"[Climate change] really is an existential issue for human beings on 
this planet [and] for the security of our country, and we're definitely 
going to do it," she said of addressing climate change. "But it's not 
about trading these essential issues, that's why we have a democracy, 
that's why we have order to get things like this done. We just have this 
intransigent and crazy president, I think a very, very sick man, in the 
White House who has no capacity to understand issues as important as 
climate."

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) said that enough Republicans are concerned about 
rising temperatures to make a shutdown unnecessary.

"You don't shut the government down," he said. "We have Republicans who 
want to join us on climate change issues; we can win on this issue and 
have the American people with us and have the global community with us."

Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.) said Democrats believe in government, not in 
shutting it down.

"We're about keeping the government open, we're about dialogue, and 
that's what we need here," he said. "My focus this session is bringing 
us into working order on a plan to address carbon pollution, which is a 
worldwide crisis. It's based on science and evidence that requires us to 
respond with a degree of urgency."

Trump spent his nine-minute Oval Office address Tuesday pressuring 
Democrats to approve billions of dollars for a border wall. Some say 
that kind of pressure is needed to marshal funding and policies to 
tackle rising seas and other climate threats.

"It strains public resources and drives down jobs and wages," Trump said 
of illegal immigration, a claim that experts immediately disputed. 
"Among those hardest hit are African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans."

Apply that to climate change, and those words ring true.

Poor and minority communities are the most vulnerable to climate 
impacts, like sea-level rise and heat waves. Public infrastructure is 
being destroyed by disasters exacerbated by climate change.

In the coming years, global warming stands to kill more Americans, 
destroy more property and damage the economy, according to two major 
climate reports released last year.

Trump said congressional Democrats "refused to acknowledge the crisis" 
of border security. The same claim can be applied to Republicans who 
ignore and criticize climate science.

"Thousands more lives will be lost if we don't act right now," Trump 
said in the Oval Office. "This is a humanitarian crisis. A crisis of the 
heart and a crisis of the soul."

The economic costs of disasters that are sharpened by rising 
temperatures continue to mount, even as the Trump administration rolls 
back environmental protections that restrict greenhouse gases. The 
National Flood Insurance Program is $20 billion in debt, a number driven 
upward by hurricanes and other extreme weather events, which climate 
scientists say will be more damaging in the future.

The irony to some experts is that Trump's concerns about immigration are 
connected to the changing climate. More refugees stand to flee their 
homeland in Central America and other regions as food insecurity grows 
and economies suffer.

"The reason we care about the changing climate is because it is a threat 
multiplier," said Katharine Hayhoe, an atmospheric scientist and a 
political science professor at Texas Tech University. "If you think 
immigration is a problem now, just wait. If you think international 
competitiveness, or agriculture or water shortages, or the extreme 
amount of money that is being spent to help cities and regions recover 
after disasters, if you think any of that is a problem right now, just 
wait."

The threat from climate change needs an Oval Office address to 
communicate its seriousness, said Bob Inglis, a former Republican 
congressman from South Carolina who once rejected climate science but 
now tries to engage conservatives on the issue.

He said neither immigration nor climate change requires a national 
emergency declaration. Instead, a Republican president could use the 
backdrop of the Oval Office to explain that America is prepared to lead 
the world on climate action. He said he envisions a grand speech that 
echoes President Kennedy in 1961 at Rice University, where he marshaled 
the nation's best science for a race to the moon.

"Climate change is this huge challenge, it's a worldwide challenge, it's 
just a call for American greatness to solve the challenge," Inglis said. 
"The rest of the world can't solve it. It does warrant that level of 
attention from a president, and of course that's not what we're getting 
now."
Twitter: @scottpwaldman Email: swaldman at eenews.net
https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060111657


[Or just talk about it]
*Why it's time to think about human extinction - Dr David Suzuki*
Kerwin Rae - Published on Dec 16, 2018
After listening to this ep with Dr David Suzuki, you'll never be the 
same again. The environmentalist, activist, professor of genetics and 
science broadcaster hits us with some home truths about what our future 
will look like if we continue to live the way we have been. What will 
life be like for our children and grandchildren? Can the damage we've 
done to the planet be reversed? Is extinction of the human race imminent?
We talk about population control, the importance of renewable energy and 
discuss what we can do right now in our own lives that can actually make 
a difference. This is for anyone who cares about the future of mankind.
Timestamps
20:06 Why humanity has only got 1 minute left to live
25:25 Humans are the only species that don't care about their own children
29:17 Educate yourself on politics or don't complain about the government
36:26 Can we be saved from our own extinction?
59:09 A final challenge for entrepreneurs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktnAMTmgOX0&t=2368s


[common sense opinion]
*Focusing on how individuals can stop climate change is very convenient 
for corporations*
Sure, it's morally good to reduce your footprint–but don't let that 
deflect attention from who is really to blame.
BY MORTEN FIBIEGER BYSKOV4 MINUTE READ
What can be done to limit global warming to 1.5°C? A quick internet 
search offers a deluge of advice on how individuals can change their 
behavior. Take public transport instead of the car or, for longer 
journeys, the train rather than fly. Eat less meat and more vegetables, 
pulses and grains, and don't forget to turn off the light when leaving a 
room or the water when shampooing. The implication here is that the 
impetus for addressing climate change is on individual consumers.

But can and should it really be the responsibility of individuals to 
limit global warming? On the face of it, we all contribute to global 
warming through the cumulative impact of our actions.

By changing consumption patterns on a large scale we might be able to 
influence companies to change their production patterns to more 
sustainable methods. Some experts have argued that everyone (or at least 
those who can afford it) has a responsibility to limit global warming, 
even if each individual action is insufficient in itself to make a 
difference.

Yet there are at least two reasons why making it the duty of individuals 
to limit global warming is wrong...
*INDIVIDUALS ARE STATISTICALLY BLAMELESS*
Climate change is a planetary-scale threat and, as such, requires 
planetary-scale reforms that can only be implemented by the world's 
governments. Individuals can at most be responsible for their own 
behavior, but governments have the power to implement legislation that 
compels industries and individuals to act sustainably.

Although the power of consumers is strong, it pales in comparison to 
that of international corporations, and only governments have the power 
to keep these interests in check.

Usually, we regard governments as having a duty to protect citizens. So 
why is it that we allow them to skirt these responsibilities just 
because it is more convenient to encourage individual action? Asking 
individuals to bear the burden of global warming shifts the 
responsibilities from those who are meant to protect to those who are 
meant to be protected. We need to hold governments to their 
responsibilities first and foremost.

A recent report found that just 100 companies are responsible for 71% of 
global emissions since 1988. Incredibly, a mere 25 corporations and 
state-owned entities were responsible for more than half of global 
industrial emissions in that same period.

Most of these are coal- and oil-producing companies and include 
ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, Chevron, Gazprom, and the Saudi Arabian Oil 
Company. China leads the pack on the international stage with 14.3% of 
global greenhouse gas emissions due to its coal production and consumption.

If the fossil fuel industry and high-polluting countries are not forced 
to change, we will be on course to increase global average temperatures 
by 4°C by the end of the century.

If just a few companies and countries are responsible for so much of 
global greenhouse gas emissions, then why is our first response to blame 
individuals for their consumption patterns? It shouldn't be–businesses 
and governments need to take responsibility for curbing industrial 
emissions.
*GOVERNMENTS AND INDUSTRIES SHOULD LEAD*
Rather than rely on appeals to individual virtue, what can be done to 
hold governments and industries accountable?

Governments have the power to enact legislation that could regulate 
industries to remain within sustainable emission limits and adhere to 
environmental protection standards. Companies should be compelled to 
purchase emissions rights–the profits from which can be used to aid 
climate-vulnerable communities.

Governments could also make renewable energy generation, from sources 
such as solar panels and wind turbines, affordable to all consumers 
through subsidies. Affordable and low-carbon mass transportation must 
replace emission-heavy means of travel, such as planes and cars.

More must also be done by rich countries and powerful industries to 
support and empower poorer countries to mitigate and adapt to climate 
change.

All of this is not to say that individuals cannot or should not do what 
they can to change their behavior where possible. Every little 
contribution helps, and research shows that limiting meat consumption 
can be an effective step. The point is that failing to do so should not 
be considered morally blameworthy.

In particular, individuals living in poorer countries who have 
contributed almost nothing to climate change deserve the most support 
and the least guilt. They are neither the primary perpetrators of global 
warming nor the ones who have the power to enact the structural changes 
necessary for limiting global warming, which would have to involve 
holding powerful industries responsible.

While individuals may have a role to play, appealing to individual 
virtues for addressing climate change is something akin to 
victim-blaming because it shifts the burden from those who ought to act 
to those who are most likely to be affected by climate change. A far 
more just and effective approach would be to hold those who are 
responsible for climate change accountable for their actions.

Morten Fibieger Byskov, postdoctoral researcher in international 
politics, University of Warwick
https://theconversation.com/climate-change-focusing-on-how-individuals-can-help-is-very-convenient-for-corporations-108546


[where are we now?]
*Climate change and migration: predictions, politics and policy - online 
course*
Climate & Migration Coalition
Published on Jan 8, 2019
How will climate change reshape migration? And what are governments 
planning to do about it? This online course examines these questions in 
depth. Over the space of 10 months, this course examines the major 
issues around climate-linked migration and displacement.

About this course
Climate change is set to play a key role in patterns of human settlement 
and migration in the future. Altered patterns of drought, storms and sea 
level rise are already creating new patterns of migration.

This course is intended for anyone wishing to tackle a major global 
issue.The course is completely online. You can join the sessions via 
live stream from your computer. The sessions will provide roughly an 
hour of lecture input, followed by a chance for discussion. If you can't 
join the sessions live, you can watch them online anytime, at your own 
pace. Each session also comes with a collection of recommended reading 
and watching, so you can investigate the themes and ideas further if you 
wish.
- - -

These sessions use the tools and learning from the entire course to 
examine several complex humanitarian crises in which climate change has 
played a role. They will look at how climate change has created and 
influenced human movement in and around the impacted areas.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOmfPQvzesI


*This Day in Climate History - January 13, 2004 - from D.R. Tucker*
January 13, 2004: "The Price of Loyalty," Ron Suskind's profile of 
former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, is released. The book recounts 
O'Neill's numerous conflicts with the George W. Bush administration, 
noting that O'Neill's efforts to have the administration act 
aggressively on carbon pollution were met with scorn.

http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2004/02/09/Climate-CO2-policy-Bush-Cheney-style/UPI-96341076366045/ 

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