[TheClimate.Vote] July 2, 2019 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Tue Jul 2 09:23:51 EDT 2019
/July 2, 2019/
[NYC video]
*New York City Declares Climate Emergency | Extinction Rebellion*
Extinction Rebellion
Published on Jun 30, 2019
NEWSFLASH: (CNN) New York City declares a climate emergency. It's the
largest city in the US, with over 8.62 million inhabitants.
The New York City Council passed the legislation Wednesday [June 26th],
calling for an immediate response to the global climate crises. The bill
referenced several reports on the state of global warming and its
impact, imparting that extreme weather events brought about by rising
temperatures demonstrates that the planet is "too hot to be a safe
environment."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPtAKjhT02s
[For Immediate Release]
*First Major U.S. Insurance Company to Stop Insuring and Investing in Coal*
Chubb, the Largest Commercial Insurance Company in the U.S., Announces
New Policy to Address Climate Change
July 1st, 2019 - Today, Chubb (NYSE: CB), the largest commercial
insurance company in the United States, announced a new policy on coal
to address the climate crisis. According to the policy, Chubb will stop
insuring new coal-fired power plants and phase out coverage of coal
mining companies by 2022. Chubb will also restrict coverage to power
companies that produce more than 30% of their energy from coal and
immediately cease new investments in coal companies.
"With this policy, Chubb has become the first major U.S. insurance
company to acknowledge the key role the insurance industry has to play
in stopping the climate crisis," said Lindsey Allen, Executive Director
of Rainforest Action Network. "New coal projects cannot be built without
insurance, and Chubb just dealt a blow to the dozens of companies that
are still betting on the expansion of coal globally. We are encouraged
to see Chubb taking real action to address climate change and insure a
healthier future."
Chubb is the world's largest publicly traded property and casualty
insurance company and the market leader in insuring the US power sector.
The company and its subsidiaries currently invest at least $2.9 billion
in fossil fuel companies according to the California Department of
Insurance's Climate Risk Carbon Initiative database. Over the past 9
months Chubb has come under increasing pressure from members of the
Insure Our Future campaign, which aims to stop the U.S. insurance
industry from insuring and investing in coal and tar sands projects and
companies.
"Chubb's announcement is a clear sign that coal is becoming uninsurable
worldwide," said Mary Anne Hitt, Director of the Sierra Club's Beyond
Coal campaign. "15 European and Australian insurance companies already
restrict insurance to the coal industry. With the U.S. industry joining
this global trend, governments and power utilities should see that the
industry is moving beyond coal."
Since the launch of the global Unfriend Coal campaign two years ago, of
which Insure Our Future is a part, 14 European insurers, and one
Australian insurer, have come out with policies to address climate
change. Eight of the policies were announced in the last six months with
the scope of policies continuing to expand. Just last week, Zurich
became the third insurer to limit involvement in the tar sands sector.
"A major U.S. insurer like Chubb restricting insurance for coal projects
and companies is a game-changer. Now the company needs to strengthen its
policy to exclude new coal mines, fully phase out coal across all
underwriting and investment activities in line with the Paris Agreement,
and stop insuring the destructive tar sands sector, " said Ross Hammond,
Senior Strategist for the Insure our Future campaign. "All eyes are on
Liberty Mutual, AIG, and the rest of the U.S. insurance industry to join
Chubb in acknowledging the role they have to play in stopping climate
change by ending their support for fossil fuels."
Insure Our Future is supported by 350.org, Indigenous Environmental
Network, Greenpeace, Rainforest Action Network, Public Citizen, and the
Sierra Club, among others.
--###--
- - -
[Insurance speak; Chubb Coal Policy]
*Chubb recognizes the reality of climate change and the substantial
impact of human activity on our planet.* Chubb expects a transition over
time to greater reliance on alternative and renewable fuel solutions to
meet energy needs. Making this transition necessarily involves planning
and action by businesses, policymakers, investors and citizens. It also
involves setting priorities and, on July 1, 2019, Chubb adopted the
following policy concerning thermal coal related underwriting and
investment.
*Underwiting*
New Coal Plant Construction & Operation. Chubb will not underwrite risks
related to the construction and operation of new coal-fired plants.
Exceptions to this policy will be considered until 2022 (i) in regions
that do not have practical near-term alternative energy sources, and
(ii) taking into account the insured's commitments to reduce coal
dependence.
Coal Mining. Chubb will not underwrite new risks for companies that
generate more than 30% of revenues from thermal coal mining. Chubb will
phase out coverage of existing risks that exceed this threshold by 2022.
Utilities. Chubb will not underwrite new risks for companies that
generate more than 30% of their energy production from coal. Chubb will
phase out coverage of existing risks that exceed this threshold
beginning in 2022, taking into account the viability of alternative
energy sources in the impacted region.
*Investments*
Chubb will not make new debt or equity investments in companies that
generate more than 30% of revenues from thermal coal mining or that
generate more than 30% of energy production from coal.
Chubb produces an annual Environmental Report, which communicates
important information about our company's environmental initiatives to
our clients, shareholders, employees, business partners, the communities
where we operate and others who have an interest in our company, our
industry and the environment. Our Environmental Report can be found here.
https://www.insureourfuture.us/
https://www.chubb.com/us-en/about-chubb/chubb-coal-policy.aspx
[Chilling news - video]
*Antarctic sea ice plunges from record high to record lows*
Guardian News
Published on Jul 1, 2019
The sea ice circling Antarctica has plunged from a record high to a
record low in just three years according to a new report just released
by the US space agency NASA.
The study calculates that after 2014 the region lost floating ice larger
than the size of Mexico, leaving the scientists baffled
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD2GqO1JE78
[Ahses Ashes - Two guys in an intelligent, friendly discussion - the
future of air travel - (I like this audio podcast)]
*Episode 78 - Grounded - buckle up, turbulence ahead*
Sweeping deregulation of the Airline industry in 1978 brought big
changes to air travel. Lower prices, more routes, and consolidation of
the market allowed for regional hub-and-spoke models of logistics and
greater access to air travel with the associated massive surge in
passengers. Now, with the current climate crisis and an industry
responsible for 10% of US GHG emissions, we may be suffering from success.
What does the future hold for a business sensitive to many different
climate factors? What is the responsibility we each have for our own
transportation choices? Will carbon credits or fuel efficient technology
save us? And what might we expect for the future of air travel? All this
and more on Episode 78 - Grounded.
*Chapters*
4:32 MAX 8
15:37 Regulation
25:35 Jevon
31:39 The Climate Crisis
44:43 Centralization & Shocks
52:51 Limited Dreams
1:07:45 Grounding
1:11:26 More Jevon
1:14:33 The Future
1:20:58 Slowdown
Daniel Forkner:
...Well I love how he says business as usual is not an option, and
then he goes on to say yes, so basically to maintain the business as
usual growth of our economies that we depend on, we need to improve
fuel efficiency of aircraft. That is the very definition of business
as usual, you know what, I hear things like this sometimes David I
feel like, I feel like I'm taking crazy pills over here. Right? Like
this is a crazy world we live in ... when I was a child I really
thought that, all the adults in the world, all the scientists would
like the smartest people and they had all the answers and I was
going to grow up one day, and discover that -- you know -- someone
had the keys and solutions to all of the world's problems and then
you listen to something like that ... well shit, I guess because we
don't have the answers and we're not even really trying.
full transcript available -
https://ashesashes.org/blog/episode-78-grounded/grounded-transcript
https://ashesashes.org/blog/episode-78-grounded
- -
[the classic Stanford paper mentioned above]
LETTER doi:10.1038/nature15725
*Global non-linear effect of temperature on economic production*
Marshall Burkem, Solomon M. Hsiang & Edward Miguel
Growing evidence demonstrates that climatic conditions can have a
profound impact on the functioning of modern human societies, but
effects on economic activity appear inconsistent. Fundamental productive
elements of modern economies, such as workers and crops, exhibit highly
non-linear responses to local temperature even in wealthy countries. In
contrast, aggregate macroeconomic productivity of entire wealthy
countries is reported not to respond to temperature, while poor
countries respond only linearly. Resolving this conflict between micro
and macro observations is critical to understanding the role of wealth
in coupled human-natural systems, and to anticipating the global impact
of climate change. Here we unify these seemingly contradictory results
by accounting for non-linearity at the macro scale. We show that overall
economic productivity is non-linear in temperature for all countries,
with productivity peaking at an annual average temperature of 13 degrees
C and declining strongly at higher temperatures. The relationship is
globally generalizable, unchanged since 1960, and apparent for
agricultural and non-agricultural activity in both rich and poor
countries. These results provide the first evidence that economic
activity in all regions is coupled to the global climate and establish a
new empirical foundation for modelling economic loss in response to
climate change, with important implications. If future adaptation mimics
past adaptation, unmitigated warming is expected to reshape the global
economy by reducing average global incomes roughly 23% by 2100 and
widening global income inequality, relative to scenarios with-out
climate change. In contrast to prior estimates, expected global losses
are approximately linear in global mean temperature, with median losses
many times larger than leading models indicate...
- - -
We do not find that technological advances or the accumulation of wealth
and experience since 1960 has fundamentally altered the relationship
between productivity and temperature. Results using data from 1960-1989
and 1990-2010 are nearly identical. In agreement with recent micro-level
evidence, substantial observed warming over the period apparently did
not induce notable adaptation. Consistent with micro-level findings that
both agricultural and non-agricultural labour related productivity are
highly non-linear in instantaneous temperature, we find agricultural and
non-agricultural aggregate production are non-linear in average annual
temperature for both rich and poor countries. Low temperature has no
significant effect on these sub samples,although limited poor-country
exposure to these temperatures severely limits statistical precision.
High temperatures have significant negative effects in all cases for
poor countries, and significant or marginally significant effects for
rich countries ... A global non-linear response of economic production
to annual temperature has important implications for the likely economic
impact of climate change. We find only weak suggestive evidence that
richer populations are less vulnerable to warming, and no evidence that
experience with high temperatures or technological advances since 1960
have altered the global response to temperature. This suggests that
adaptation to climatic change may be more difficult than previously
believed, and that the accumulation of wealth, techno-logy and
experience might not substantially mitigate global economic losses
during this century...
- - -
The impact of warming on global economic production is a
population-weighted average of country-level impacts in Fig. 4a. Using
our benchmark model, climate change reduces projected global output by
23% in 2100 (best estimate, SSP5) relative to a world without climate
change, although statistical uncertainty allows for positive impacts
with probability 0.29... Estimates vary in magnitude, but not in
structure, depending on the statistical approach. Models with delayed
impacts project larger losses because cold countries gain less,while
differentiated rich-poor models have smaller losses (statistical
uncertainty allows positive outcomes with probability 0.09-0.40). Models
allowing both delayed impacts and differentiated rich-poor responses
(the most flexible approach) project global losses 2.2 times larger than
our benchmark approach. In all cases, the likelihood of large global
losses is substantial: global losses exceed 20% of income with
probability 0.44-0.87. Accounting for the global non-linear effect of
temperature is crucial to constructing income projections under climate
change because countries are expected to become both warmer and richer
in the future.In a previous analysis in which a linear relationship was
assumed and no significant linear effect was observed in rich countries,
it was hypothesized that countries adapted effectively to temperature as
they became wealthier. Under this hypothesis, the impacts of future
warming should lessen over time as countries become richer. In contrast,
when we account for the non-linear effect of temperature historically,
we find that rich and poor countries behave similarly at similar
temperatures, offering little evidence of adaptation. This indicates
that we cannot assume rich countries will be unaffected by future
warming,nor can we assume that the impacts of future warming will
attenuate over time as countries become wealthier. Rather, the impact of
additional warming worsens over time as countries becomes warmer. As a
result, projections using linear and non-linear approaches diverge
substantially--by roughly 50-200% in 2100--highlighting the importance
of accounting for this non-linearity when assessing the impacts of
future warming.Strong negative correlation between baseline income and
baseline temperature indicates that warming may amplify global
inequality because hot, poor countries will probably suffer the largest
reduction in growth. In our benchmark estimate, average income in the
poorest 40% of countries declines 75% by 2100 relative to a world
without climate change, while the richest 20% experience slight
gains,since they are generally cooler. Models with delayed impacts do
not project as dramatic differences because colder countries also suffer
large losses. We use our results to construct an empirical 'damage
function' that maps global temperature change to global economic loss by
aggregating country-level projections. Damage functions are widely used
in economic models of global warming, but previously relied on theory
for structure and rough estimates for calibration. Using our empirical
results, we project changes to global output in 2100 for different
temperature changes and compare these to previously estimated damage
functions. Commonly used functions are within our estimated uncertainty,
but differ in two important respects...
- - -
First, our projected global losses are roughly linear--and slightly
concave--in temperature, not quadratic or exponential as previously
theorized. Approximate linearity results from the broad distribution of
temperature exposure within and across countries, which causes the
country-weighted average derivative of the productivity function in Fig.
2a to change little as countries warm and prevents abrupt transitions in
global output even though the contribution of individual productive
units are highly non-linear. Global losses are slightly concave in
global temperature because the effect of compounding negative growth
declines mechanically over time... These properties are independent of
the growth scenario and response function. Second, the slope of the
damage function is large even for slight warming, generating expected
costs of climate change 2.5-100 times larger than prior estimates for 2C
warming, and at least 2.5 times larger for higher temperatures...
Notably, our estimates are based only on temperature effects (or effects
for which historical temperature has been a proxy), and so do not
include other potential sources of economic loss associated with climate
change,such as tropical cyclones or sea-level rise, included in previous
damage estimates.If societies continue to function as they have in the
recent past, climate change is expected to reshape the global economy by
substantially reducing global economic output and possibly amplifying
existing global economic inequalities, relative to a world without
climatechange. Adaptations such as unprecedented innovation or defensive
investments might reduce these effects, but social conflict or disrupted
trade--either from political restrictions or correlated losses around
the world--could exacerbate them.
https://web.stanford.edu/~mburke/climate/BurkeHsiangMiguel2015.pdf
[Arctic regional reports]
*Arctic countries step up nuclear accident preparedness*
Oyvind Aas-Hansen with the Norwegian Radiation and Nuclear Safety
Authority (DSA) is happy to cooperate with Aleksandr Vazhenin and Pavel
Borisov from the Emergency Response Centre of Rosatom, Russia's State
Atomic Energy Corporation. A sharp increase in nuclear-powered vessels
in Arctic waters causes concern among international safety experts who
recently teamed up on a voyage to the Bear Island and Svalbard to see
how drones can be used to detect possible hazardous radiation.
https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/node/5536
- - -
[nukes in the Arctic - oh, pay no attention to ice bergs in hurricane
force storms]
*Freshly painted floating nuclear-power plant gets 10 years operating
license*
June 30, 2019 - The "Akademik Lomonosov" will be towed from Murmansk to
Pevek in August when the sea ice is at its minimum for the season.
https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/industry-and-energy/2019/06/freshly-painted-floating-nuclear-power-plant-receives-10-years-license
[recent interview June 30th, 2019]
*James Hansen, Ph.D. - The Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last
Chance to Save Humanity - Offstage*
The Real Truth About Health
Published on Jun 30, 2019
Energy, Climate, and Human Health: Young People's Burden and
Opportunities by James Hansen, Ph.D.
James Hansen is an esteemed adjunct professor from America. At present,
he professes at Columbia University in the department of Earth &
Environmental Sciences. The former head of NASA Goddard Institute for
Space Studies, Hansen is famous as "father of global warming" given his
citations on early warning signs in 1980s regarding the contemporary
burning issue of global warming. He is also a very ardent climate activist.
- - -
The world-famous scientist is especially renowned for his research in
climatology & his provision of testimony regarding climate change in
1988 to the congressional committees. He helped to raise awareness in
regards to global warming & also propagates actions or means to mitigate
heinous effects of climate change.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QvVzE1Gn54
[NYTimes letters]
*The Politics of Climate Change*
Readers discuss being a "climate refugee" from Miami, the need for
bipartisan action and paying farmers for carbon capture.
June 30, 2019
To the Editor:
Re "Climate Toll Opens Florida's Ears to Democrats" (front page, June 25):
*I am a climate refugee*. After living in Miami for 28 years, I'm
fleeing to higher, cooler ground in Atlanta. The daily climate
apocalypse drumbeat has become impossible to bear.
Our heavenly winters have all but disappeared, and it's unbearably hot
and humid 10 months of the year. Art Basel weekend in December is now a
sweaty experience like most of the year. Despite a continued development
frenzy, the risk to property values has never been greater.
Even the most aggressive climate protection strategy -- something still
highly unlikely to be achieved -- will not make a difference for
generations. Miami will likely keep on partying till the bitter end,
just as it does when there's a hurricane.
Donald Shockey - Miami
The writer is an urban planner.
- - -
To the Editor:
Re "Oregon's Climate Bill and the Case of the Disappearing Republicans"
(news article, June 25):
*The standoff over a climate bill in Oregon's statehouse is
distressing.* But the partisan gridlock provides a valuable lesson when
it comes to climate solutions: They must be bipartisan. [and should not
be influenced by fossil fuel lobbyists]
For that reason, it is encouraging that in Congress right now, there is
a bipartisan effort to relaunch the Climate Solutions Caucus, a group of
lawmakers who explore economically viable options to tackle climate
change in such a way that bridges the divide between both parties. As of
now, the caucus has around 60 members.
The relaunch of the caucus shows that it is possible for Republicans and
Democrats to unite on an issue so fundamental as the warming of our
planet. It is perhaps a lesson that the Oregon State Senate desperately
needs.
Tomas Castro - Irvine, Calif.
- - -
To the Editor:
Re "Pay Farmers to Fight Warming," by Robert Leonard and Matt Russell
(Op-Ed, June 25):
*The writers' proposal to compensate farmers for carbon capture on some
of their land is part of the innovative thinking necessary to bring the
agricultural community into a positive conversation about climate change.*
For too long, the environmental and farm communities have been at
crosscurrents rather than rowing in the same direction to mitigate the
looming crisis. It would be a mistake, however, to put all the federal
eggs in this one basket.
Only a mixed strategy that also involves major scientific investment as
well as major education investment through our world-class extension
services will bridge the gulf between environmental activists and those
who produce our food. Compensating farmers for conservation and carbon
capture is helpful, but only if these environmental practices augment
agricultural operations.
Tom Grumbly - Arlington, Va.
The writer is president of Supporters of Agricultural Research Foundation.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/30/opinion/letters/climate-change.html
*This Day in Climate History - July 2, 2006 - from D.R. Tucker*
July 2, 2006: Notorious climate denier Dick Lindzen whines, moans,
kvetches and complains about "An Inconvenient Truth" in a piece for the
Wall Street Journal's OpinionJournal.com.
http://web.archive.org/web/20060705111127/http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008597
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