[TheClimate.Vote] July 9, 2019 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/July 9, 2019/

[Legal solutions 09 July 2019]
*Climate activists turn to lawsuits to force action on global warming*
Citizens and organizations have filed more than 1,300 lawsuits related 
to climate change in at least 28 countries around the world, an analysis 
has found.

Of the 1,328 suits filed from 1990 to May 2019, more than three-quarters 
were in the United States (see 'Climate in court'). But the report's 
authors note that the share of lawsuits filed in low- and middle-income 
countries such as Pakistan and Uganda is on the rise. The vast majority 
of suits have been filed since 2006...
more at - https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02121-6


[activism embodiment]
*'Biggest compliment yet': Greta Thunberg welcomes oil chief's 'greatest 
threat' label*
Activists say comments by Opec head prove world opinion is turning 
against fossil fuels
Greta Thunberg and other climate activists have said it is a badge of 
honour that the head of the world's most powerful oil cartel believes 
their campaign may be the "greatest threat" to the fossil fuel industry.

The criticism of striking students by the trillion-dollar Organization 
of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) highlights the growing 
reputational concerns of oil companies as public protests intensify 
along with extreme weather.

Mohammed Barkindo, the secretary general of Opec, said there was a 
growing mass mobilisation of world opinion against oil, which was 
"beginning to … dictate policies and corporate decisions, including 
investment in the industry".
He said the pressure was also being felt within the families of Opec 
officials because their own children "are asking us about their future 
because … they see their peers on the streets campaigning against this 
industry".

Although he accused the campaigners of misleading people with 
unscientific arguments, the comments were welcomed by student and 
divestment campaigners as a sign the oil industry is worried it may be 
losing the battle for public opinion.

"Thank you! Our biggest compliment yet!" tweeted Thunberg, the 
16-year-old Swedish initiator of the school student strike movement, 
which continues every Friday.

"Brilliant! Proof that we are having an impact and be sure that we will 
not stop," said Holly Gillibrand, who was among the first students in 
the UK to join the global climate strikes.

Opec - which is made up of 14 countries with 80% of the world's proven 
oil reserves - is planning to expand production, which is undermining 
efforts to slow global heating. The backlash is not just from students, 
Extinction Rebellion activists and climate scientists.

Insurance companies - which have the most to lose from storms, floods, 
fires and other extreme weather - are increasingly pulling investment 
from fossil fuel assets. The governor of the Bank of England has warned 
of growing climate risks to the financial sector.

Earlier this week, the London Stock Exchange reclassified oil and gas 
companies under a non-renewable energy category that effectively puts 
them on the wrong side of climate crisis.

Parliaments in three countries - the UK, Canada, France - have declared 
a climate emergency, as have dozens of municipalities. They include most 
recently a first major US city, New York, which has previously filed a 
lawsuit against the five biggest private oil companies.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a 
group of wealthy countries, has also taken a more strident tone in 
calling for government to put a higher price on oil, gas and coal, to 
end subsidies and to rethink fossil fuel investment.

"Our policies have to be made with our children's future in mind … 
short-term decision-making can lock countries into expensive mistakes in 
financing and developing infrastructure … that will be neither necessary 
nor profitable in a low-emissions world, they will be stranded assets," 
said the OECD secretary general Angel Gurría.

Scientists are also backing a phaseout of fossil fuels as the signs of 
climate disruption grow more evident.

In the past two weeks, temperature records have been broken in France, 
Alaska and Cuba; there have been wildfires in Germany, Spain, Sweden and 
Anchorage; Chennai is among more than a dozen Indian cities running out 
of water; Russia is experiencing historic floods; Mexico experienced 
freak hailstorm that left Guadalajara streets more than a metre deep in 
ice; while the Chinese meteorological agency said records had been 
broken at 40 weather stations.
While Opec continues to insist oil is not responsible for climate chaos, 
campaigners feel they are finally winning the argument.

Bill McKibben, the founder of 350.org, which has led a series of 
divestment and anti-pipeline campaigns in recent decades, said the 
fossil fuel companies were finally losing their social licence.

"By this point, most people realise that the oil companies lied for 
decades about global warming - they are this generation's version of the 
tobacco companies. And it's clearly affecting their ability to raise 
capital, to recruit employees and so on. People set out to cost them 
their social licence, and it's working. Whether it's working fast enough 
- that's another question."
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/05/biggest-compliment-yet-greta-thunberg-welcomes-oil-chiefs-greatest-threat-label



[Flash floods in Washington, DC from errant Jet Stream]
*Tiny Blip in Jet Stream Submerges Large Parts of Washington, DC*
Paul Beckwith - Published on Jul 8, 2019
Only a few days ago, America celebrated its July 4th Independence Day, 
and the government whipped out tanks for Washington, DC festivities. I 
hope the military hardware was moved, or it may have been submerged 
today by raging torrents of water from flash floods due to over a months 
rainfall dropping in a few hours. Perhaps next party, more appropriate 
military equipment will be amphibians, or boats; heck, maybe even 
submarines!!

Educate yourself, or let me teach you the basics of abrupt climate 
system change leading to extreme weather disruption around the planet, 
in everyday, nonscientific language, by subscribing to my YouTube 
channel and to my blog at http://paulbeckwith.net
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iks8i0k-YEU


[one should know of albedo from this 5 min video]
*Arctic amplification: How the albedo effect speeds up global warming | 
Jon Gertner*
Big Think - Published on Jul 7, 2019
Give yourself the gift of knowledge -- subscribe to Big Think Edge: 
http://bit.ly/bigthinkedge

The more Greenland melts, the more Greenland melts. Here's why.

- The Arctic is currently warming about twice as fast as the rest of the 
world.

- Ice is white and bright and is able to reflect solar energy back into 
space. When it melts and exposes dark, open ocean, that open ocean 
absorbs more sunlight and more energy. This creates a kind of feedback loop.

- The darkness absorbs more solar energy -- more sunlight. In turn, this 
accelerates the melt of the ice.

Jon Gertner is a journalist and historian whose stories on science, 
technology, and nature have appeared in a host of national magazines. 
Since 2003 he has worked mainly as a feature writer for the New York 
Times Magazine. His first book, "The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the 
Great Age of American Innovation", was a New York Times bestseller. His 
latest is "The Ice at the End of the World: An Epic Journey into 
Greenland's Buried Past and Our Perilous Future" https://amzn.to/2L917gH
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZLX59FXr5w


[Sea level rise - could, would, shall]
*The California coast is disappearing under the rising sea. Our choices 
are grim*
July 7, 2019
The California coast grew and prospered during a remarkable moment in 
history when the sea was at its tamest.

But the mighty Pacific, unbeknownst to all, was nearing its final years 
of a calm but unusual cycle that had lulled dreaming settlers into a 
false sense of endless summer.

Elsewhere, Miami has been drowning, Louisiana shrinking, North 
Carolina's beaches disappearing like a time lapse with no ending. While 
other regions grappled with destructive waves and rising seas, the West 
Coast for decades was spared by a rare confluence of favorable winds and 
cooler water. This "sea level rise suppression," as scientists call it, 
went largely undetected. Blinded from the consequences of a warming 
planet, Californians kept building right to the water's edge.
But lines in the sand are meant to shift. In the last 100 years, the sea 
rose less than 9 inches in California. By the end of this century, the 
surge could be greater than 9 feet...
- - -
Pacifica has become this story of unplanned, forced retreat, experts 
say, and the public got stuck with the bill.

"There's a public cost and a private cost in any choice that we make, 
and we need to start doing that cost-benefit analysis," said Charles 
Lester, director of UC Santa Barbara's Ocean and Coastal Policy Center, 
who has consulted for a number of towns, including Pacifica, on sea 
level rise planning. "If we don't start managing retreat now, how much 
is it going to cost later?"...
- - -
There are only so many ways to play against the rising sea. Seawalls are 
one option, but they come with a hidden cost -- forcing the sand before 
them to wash away. For every new seawall protecting a home or a road, a 
beach for the people is sacrificed.

Adding sand to disappearing beaches is another tactic, but that race 
against nature lasts only so long as there's money and enough sand.

Then there's what scientists and economists and number-crunching 
consultants call "managed retreat": Move back, relocate, essentially 
cede the land to nature. These words alone have roiled the few cities 
bold enough to utter them. Mayors have been ousted, planning documents 
rewritten, campaigns waged over the very thought of turning prime real 
estate back into dunes and beaches.

Retreat is as un-American as it gets, neighborhood groups declared. To 
win, California must defend.

But at what cost? Should California become one long wall of concrete 
against the ocean? Will there still be sandy beaches or surf breaks to 
cherish in the future, oceanfront homes left to dream about? More than 
$150 billion in property could be at risk of flooding by 2100 -- the 
economic damage far more devastating than the state's worst earthquakes 
and wildfires. Salt marshes, home to shorebirds and endangered species, 
face extinction. In Southern California alone, two-thirds of beaches 
could vanish...
- - -
The go-to tactic is the seawall. Made from piles of boulders, 
gunite-coated cliffs or concrete slabs as high as two stories, seawalls 
dissipate wave energy and fend off surging water. But these defenses 
aren't cheap. A single homeowner can spend as much as $200,000. A 
mile-long wall can cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars. Repairs 
sometimes cost as much as the wall itself...
- - -
More than 30 cities and counties are now left paralyzed, tugged left and 
right to do something -- but not sure what that is. There's no clear set 
of directions, no one-size-fits-all solution.

For the homeowner, insurance policies, hazard grants and federal 
disaster relief are all set up in a way that encourages rebuilding 
rather than relocating. There's no incentive for owners to consider 
options beyond hunkering down with bigger and better walls. The way the 
state pushes down insurance prices also masks the true cost of living in 
a hazardous area.

But the more hazardous it gets, the more the public could pay: As rising 
seas and storms exacerbate property damage, experts worry that the 
inability of insurers to charge prices that reflect actual risk could 
lead them to stop offering coverage in California.

If insurers stop covering risky properties, the state becomes the last 
resort...
- - -
But even in a city as climate-aware as San Francisco, making sacrifices 
is not easy.

What is now the the city's commercial core was once mostly a marsh -- 
the shoreline a muddy half-mile farther inland. Over the decades, 
settlers filled in these wetlands and created more than 500 acres of new 
land atop old coves and abandoned ships.

Holding back all the water is the Embarcadero, doubling as a tourist 
attraction and bustling today with visitors and schoolkids, markets and 
museums. Humming beneath their feet is a network of critical 
infrastructure -- sewer and water systems, utility lines, public 
transportation, communication cables -- that could cave to the ocean 
without this seawall.

There's no doubt defenses here must survive. This colossal feat of rock 
and concrete keeps San Francisco Bay from drowning the financial 
district and Market Street, safeguarding some $100 billion in business 
and buildings.

But the wall is crumbling and in desperate need of backup. High tides 
routinely spill over and flood sections of the boardwalk. With just 3 
more feet of sea level rise, the iconic Ferry Building could flood every 
single day.

Updating this seawall will cost at least $2 billion, probably much more. 
Scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey recently found that the cost 
of building levees, seawalls and other measures to withstand 6.5 feet of 
sea level rise and a 100-year storm could cost as much as $450 billion 
for San Francisco Bay...
- - -
If you start retreating, residents demanded, where do you stop?

"If you let the first row of homes go, the whole area behind it floods," 
said Jon Corn, a resident and attorney representing dozens of homeowners 
in the Del Mar Beach Preservation Coalition. "And then what about the 
next road? And the road after that? … At some point, everyone is going 
to say: 'No, we're not just going to retreat away from the ocean.'"

City leaders finally agreed and said they would keep an open mind about 
relocating the rail line, the fire station and other city-owned 
infrastructure -- but took out any mention of private property. The land 
here is too valuable, they reasoned, and the threat of lawsuits too 
high. Adding sand will be the solution for now....
- - -
The reptilian frenzy over managed retreat has overtaken Imperial Beach, 
as it has in other cities. Fear overwhelms reason. Conspiracy theories 
and misinformation abound. Some think the mayor, an environmentalist 
known for his history of preserving open space, just wants to turn the 
town into one giant lagoon.

With the city barely able to scrap together a $20-million budget every 
year, others say letting go of prime real estate means abandoning the 
whole town.

"If you get rid of the waterfront, the municipal tax base, how do you 
support the city?" said City Councilman Ed Spriggs, who lives along the 
water and questioned managed retreat as a strategy. He points to the 
city's first upscale hotel, which was built in 2013 with coastal 
defenses, as a sign that Imperial Beach has time to survive and thrive 
well into the future....
- - -
But time is ticking. Earlier this year, a group of scientists from the 
Scripps Institution of Oceanography gathered on an apartment balcony and 
watched in awe as the ocean devoured more than 3 feet of sand in one 
morning....
https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-sea-level-rise-california-coast/



[Most appropriate for these distressing times. about 30 minutes ]
[audio healing from the BBC, Joanna Macy via the ClimatePsychologyAlliance]
*The Pleasures of Brecht*
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0006lmk
A celebration of the simple joys of life, and the story of Brecht's 
much-loved poem that described them.

In 1954, poet and playwright Bertolt Brecht was the leader of his own 
theatre company and an international literary star. But his relationship 
with the East German communist party was growing increasingly strained, 
with projects derailed and poems censored. It was a time of 
disappointment, as he began to see the gap between the hopes that kept 
him alive throughout the years of war and exile, and the reality of life 
in the GDR.

Out of this context came a simple poem, Vergnugungen, a list of 
pleasures, which moves from "the first look out of the window in the 
morning" via showering, swimming, the dog, dialectics and "comfortable 
shoes" to "being friendly", a phrase that for Brecht signified a utopian 
ideal.

The poem is a statement of the delights of the everyday, but it also 
looks out into the world beyond the private sphere.

Writer and ecologist Joanna Macy, philosopher Christopher Hamilton, 
pleasure activist Adrienne Maree Brown and German scholar Karen Leeder 
reflect on what Brecht's list of simple pleasures can tell us about our 
own time.

Music composed and performed by Phil Smith.
Piano pieces recorded on location at Brecht's house in Buckow, Germany
Produced by Phil Smith
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0006lmk
- - -
[Important words from 90 year old Joanna Macy]
*Joanna Macy - The Hidden Promise of Our Dark Age | Bioneers*
Bioneers
Published on Aug 22, 2018
The Hidden Promise of Our Dark Age: Discovering Our Wisdom, Strength and 
Beauty in the Midst of Crisis

One of the great activists and spiritual teachers of our era, Joanna 
Macy, brings a hopeful message: If we can free ourselves from the 
delusions and dependencies bred by the "industrial growth society," 
something wonderful can happen. If we manage to steer clear of panic, we 
may well find, at last, the wild power of our creativity and solidarity.
Introduction by Nina Simons, Co-Founder of Bioneers.
This speech was given at the 2009 National Bioneers Conference.

Since 1990, Bioneers has acted as a fertile hub of social and scientific 
innovators with practical and visionary solutions for the world's most 
pressing environmental and social challenges.
https://youtu.be/vzmjF1jE2K0
- -
[More Joanna Macey]
*"The Courage to See, the Power to Choose" with Joanna Macy, PhD*
Naropa University - Published on Nov 3, 2014
"The Courage to See, the Power to Choose" with Joanna Macy
Non-stop war-making, climate chaos, lost harvests, poisoned seas and 
bodies, refugees in the millions pouring over borders while millions of 
Americans are locked in prison... How do we relate to such immensities 
of suffering? How can we dare to see the pain when we don't know how to 
stop it? The helplessness of the bystander falls away as we discover 
that the pain is our own. What willingness arises then? And what clarity 
of choice? More at www.naropa.edu.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qojnmYJQAxQ



[California dreamin']
*Reversing climate change and supporting nature in 'Ice on Fire'*
Hosted by Madeleine Brand Jun. 12, 2019
Twelve years ago, director Leila Conners teamed up with Leonardo 
DiCaprio to produce the eco-documentary "The 11th Hour." The film drove 
home the point that climate change endangers humanity's existence.

The duo is back with the HBO documentary "Ice on Fire," which focuses on 
the growing number of people who are trying to reverse climate change

Director Leila Connors tells Press Play that we're in a climate 
emergency -- we only have eight years left to continue adding to the 
carbon load in the atmosphere, and if that load is too high, it'll cause 
the Arctic to melt, methane to be released, and the web of life to fall 
apart.
Jokulsarlon Glacier Lagoon, Iceland. Photo courtesy of HBO

Connors says humans have put 1.4 trillion tons of carbon in the 
atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution, and that must be sequestered 
permanently in the ground. Nature can help us achieve that because 
trees, kelp, and organic soil all sequester carbon and hold it in the 
soil, deep rock formations, and oceans. "As we put fertilizer on soil, 
as we cut down the trees, as we cut down the kelp, nature can't help us 
as much as it could."

She says, "The first message we want to put across is that nature is 
here to help us. Let's get out of its way. Let's support nature."

Technology working with nature
The film follows Climeworks, a company based in Zurich, Switzerland. It 
has invented a machine that sucks carbon out of the air and turns it 
into rock, which it puts in the basal rock formation in Iceland.

You can make a lot of things using carbon, including chairs, bike 
frames, fertilizer, and fuel. "Direct capture will disrupt the fossil 
fuel industry in the sense that everything that's dug up, we don't have 
to do that anymore," says Connors.

However, technology is what exacerbated climate change in the first 
place. Connors says our faith in technology to single-handedly fix our 
climate problem is misguided, and we need more discussions around what 
we invent. She certainly supports technology that works with nature.

The power of kelp
Connors says kelp is the most powerful plant on earth in terms of 
absorbing carbon, and 9% of global waters planted with kelp will reduce 
50% of our emissions.

"It's a multifaceted solution to many things. So it drives down carbon, 
it mitigates the methane emissions from cows, but it also feeds the 
world. It also provides green jobs," she says.
Bren Smith, Thimble Island Oyster Co., Long Island Sound, NY. Photo 
courtesy of HBO

"Ice on Fire" profiles Bren Smith, who was a commercial fisherman, but 
now harvests kelp and farms oysters. He's trying to link people to kelp 
farming.

"What's interesting about kelp is that the ocean grows the kelp. You 
don't need any inputs. Like land-based plants, you need all sorts of 
inputs: seeds, management, water. When you're an ocean farmer, you just 
watch what's going on and harvest it. So it allows for people who don't 
have an industry to have one," says Connors.

The problem with how we raise cows
Connors explains that if cows are raised properly (and perhaps fed 
seaweed), they can sequester three times more carbon than they produce 
because their hoofs turn over the soil and they fertilize the soil with 
their dung.

She says that raising cows on an industrial scale and feeding them 
grains (while their natural diet is grass) is what causes them to 
secrete so much methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. "The cow as an 
entity in and of itself is not a methane-producing animal. The way that 
they're farmed in the industrial context is causing the methane problem."
--Written by Amy Ta, produced by Michell Eloy
https://www.kcrw.com/news/shows/press-play-with-madeleine-brand/in-ice-on-fire-ideas-to-reverse-global-warming/reversing-climate-change-and-supporting-nature-in-ice-on-fire


*This Day in Climate History - July 9, 2008 - from D.R. Tucker*
July 9, 2008: The UK Daily Telegraph reports that prior to leaving the 
G8 Summit in Japan, President George W. Bush, "who has been condemned 
throughout his presidency for failing to tackle climate change, ended a 
private meeting with the words: 'Goodbye from the world's biggest 
polluter.' He then punched the air while grinning widely, as the rest of 
those present including [British Prime Minister] Gordon Brown and 
[French President] Nicolas Sarkozy looked on in shock."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/2277298/President-George-Bush-Goodbye-from-the-worlds-biggest-polluter.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/bush-to-g8-goodbye-from-the-worlds-biggest-polluter-863911.html
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