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

[Richard Pauli]

/June 3, 2019/

[India heatwave up to 122F]
*India heatwave temperatures pass 50 Celsius*
Temperatures passed 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit) in northern 
India as an unrelenting heatwave triggered warnings of water shortages 
and heatstroke. Churu in the western part of the desert state of 
Rajasthan was the hottest place in the country at 50.8 degrees Celsius, 
nine notches above normal, according to the MeT department office in Jaipur.
http://climatestate.com/2019/06/02/india-heatwave-temperatures-pass-50-celsius/
- - -
*Heatwave hits over half of India, with 15 cities among world's hottest; 
Pune sizzles at highest temp in 50 years*
https://www.firstpost.com/india/heat-wave-hits-more-than-half-of-india-pune-saw-its-highest-temperature-in-50-years-15-indian-cities-among-worlds-hottest-6738381.html
- - -
*Heat wave to continue for a couple of days: IMD *
https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/heat-wave-to-continue-for-a-couple-of-days-imd/article27406352.ece



[every single day]
*Costing the Earth*
Eco Anxiety
Is the future of the planet making you depressed? Do you feel paralysed, 
unable to imagine the happiness of future generations? As global 
governments fail to respond to the existential crisis of climate change 
it's understandable that some people seem unable to conjure up a sense 
of hope, understandable that dozens of young British women have joined 
the Birthstrike movement, refusing to bring more children into the 
world. Verity Sharp meets the eco-anxious and asks if they are ill or 
simply more perceptive than the rest of us.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00050qr



[NRDC]
*U.N. Report: A Million Extinctions and Ecological Collapse Are on the Way*
We got ourselves into this mess. It's high time we got ourselves out of it.
The numbers are grim: Up to a million species could go extinct--many in 
mere decades--if humanity doesn't force governments and industries to 
clean up their act.

The bleak prediction comes from a summary of an upcoming United Nations 
biodiversity report. Though scientists have long warned us about 
humanity's impact on plant and animal species, the Global Assessment 
Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services is one of the most 
sweeping (and startling) on the state of the planet's natural systems, 
based on thousands of scientific studies and authored by hundreds of 
international experts...
- -
*Bottom line: We can fix this.*
The report concludes that we have the power to stop the projected 
ecological catastrophe, but it will require a paradigm shift--a radical 
reorganizing of our technological, economic, social, and economic 
systems. Good-bye extractive industries, like mining, biomass, logging, 
and fossil fuels, and hello recycling, renewables, and reusables. We 
must curb our consumption rates across the board, but particularly of 
single-use and resource-intensive goods (ditching our plastic habits is 
just the beginning). Trade-offs--say, less meat for more forests and 
more public transit for less pollution--will be necessary. And we must, 
above all, make the planet's natural systems a leading priority in our 
collective fights for a better world. Anything less won't cut it.
https://www.nrdc.org/stories/report-million-extinctions-and-ecological-collapse-are-way
- - - -
[Sustainable Development Goals UN]
*UN Report: Nature's Dangerous Decline 'Unprecedented'; Species 
Extinction Rates 'Accelerating'*
- -
[clip]
*Further Information on Key Issues from the Report*
Scale of Loss of Nature
Gains from societal and policy responses, while important, have not 
stopped massive losses.
Since 1970, trends in agricultural production, fish harvest, bioenergy 
production and harvest of materials have increased, in response to 
population growth, rising demand and technological development, this has 
come at a steep price, which has been unequally distributed within and 
across countries. Many other key indicators of nature's contributions to 
people however, such as soil organic carbon and pollinator diversity, 
have declined, indicating that gains in material contributions are often 
not sustainable .
The pace of agricultural expansion into intact ecosystems has varied 
from country to country. Losses of intact ecosystems have occurred 
primarily in the tropics, home to the highest levels of biodiversity on 
the planet. For example, 100 million hectares of tropical forest were 
lost from 1980 to 2000, resulting mainly from cattle ranching in Latin 
America (about 42 million hectares) and plantations in South-East Asia 
(about 7.5 million hectares, of which 80% is for palm oil, used mostly 
in food, cosmetics, cleaning products and fuel) among others.
Since 1970 the global human population has more than doubled (from 3.7 
to 7.6 billion), rising unevenly across countries and regions; and per 
capita gross domestic product is four times higher - with ever-more 
distant consumers shifting the environmental burden of consumption and 
production across regions.
The average abundance of native species in most major land-based 
habitats has fallen by at least 20%, mostly since 1900.
The numbers of invasive alien species per country have risen by about 
70% since 1970, across the 21 countries with detailed records.
The distributions of almost half (47%) of land-based flightless mammals, 
for example, and almost a quarter of threatened birds, may already have 
been negatively affected by climate change.
- -
https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2019/05/nature-decline-unprecedented-report/
- - - - - -
[See a few cartoon panels ]
*There's Actually Some Good News in That Scary IPCC Report*
Looking for a silver lining in the harrowing United Nations climate 
change report? Here it is: We can determine the impact of climate change 
by the political, economic, and social choices we make today.
https://www.nrdc.org/stories/theres-actually-some-good-news-scary-ipcc-report 



[One person takes action]
The climate renegade
*What happens when someone wants to go it alone on fixing the climate?*
By Kelsey Piper  Updated May 31, 2019, 8:59am EDT
- -
Enter an eccentric San Francisco-based entrepreneur named Russ George. 
He had spent much of his career bouncing between ambitious environmental 
projects: cold fusion, reforestation, and, most recently at the time, a 
startup called Planktos, which focused on something called "ocean 
restoration."..
In 2011, George told the Haida residents of the village of Old Massett 
that he could bring back the salmon. The plan? To drop a hundred tons of 
iron dust in the middle of the ocean, a few hundred nautical miles west 
of the islands. The method had been tried before, but George was 
attempting it at a larger scale.
His theory: that the iron would trigger an algae bloom about the size of 
Jamaica over the course of the following weeks. The salmon would feed on 
the algae (and the smaller fish it attracted). And the uneaten algae 
would take in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, then sink to the ocean 
floor when it died off, essentially "capturing" carbon at the bottom of 
the sea. They'd fight climate change and restore their fisheries at the 
same time.

With the Haida's blessing (and money from their economic development 
fund), George and his crew of 11 ventured into the cold waters of the 
Pacific in July 2012. The ship, the Ocean Pearl, was outfitted with 
state-of-the-art oceanographic equipment borrowed from the US National 
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and with 100 tons of iron 
sulfate in a fine greenish-brown dust...
- - -
When Russ George dumped iron filings in the ocean, the world was 
outraged, critics issued condemnations, and experts talked soberly about 
the potential for disaster. But we failed -- as we have on climate 
change in general -- to build any kind of international consensus about 
a solution.

In the meantime, we live in a world where anyone can dump iron into the 
oceans, and where local, commercial, and national actors might move 
ahead with larger-scale interventions as climate change worsens. Recent 
papers have outlined new ways that individuals could DIY-engineer our 
planet out of the climate crisis -- or at least try, with uncertain 
consequences. Are we more prepared for that than we were in 2012? Not 
really.

Russ George, for his part, considers himself vindicated, and told me 
he's continuing to work. In his last email to me, he signed off: "The 
greatest threat to the environment is waiting for someone else to save it."
https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/5/24/18273198/climate-change-russ-george-unilateral-geoengineering


[bookmark these]
*Washington State Wildfire info sites*
https://wasmoke.blogspot.com/
https://wasmoke.blogspot.com/p/national-interagency-fire-information.html
https://maps.nwcg.gov/sa/#/%3F/47.2469/-120.4901/8
https://intelligence.weforum.org/



[Video of a positive technology - totally plausible]
*Energy Storage in Hydrogen : Does this beat batteries?*
Just Have a Think
Published on Jun 2, 2019
Energy storage is pretty well accepted as the route to making renewable 
technologies a globally workable solution for reliable grid level 
electricity production.
But traditional batteries have some limitations, not least in capacity 
and duration of storage. Hydrogen has no such limitations and as a 
result it's rapidly gaining attention as a potential market disrupter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6_OVfrc_5A



[Dana Nuccitelli in The Guardian]
*Humans and volcanoes caused nearly all of global heating in past 140 years*
New study confirms natural cycles play little role in global temperature 
trends and tackles discrepancies in previous models
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/30/humans-and-volcanoes-caused-nearly-all-of-global-heating-in-past-140-years



[The 51 Percent Project - Boston University students form PSA 
communications organization]
*HOW TO SOLVE THE BIGGEST PROBLEM THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN: COMMUNICATE 
BETTER ABOUT IT.*
*The 51 Percent Project* targets the growing majority of Americans who 
are concerned or alarmed about climate change. If these 180,000,000+ 
people are engaged on the issue and join efforts to accelerate 
decarbonization, we all take a big step forward to properly address this 
incredible global challenge.

We use best principles from the vast body of scholarly literature 
devoted to the study of climate change communications... And, we use 
common sense to translate the scholarly findings, which are sometimes 
difficult for a regular person to grasp, into practical guidance that 
anyone can use to have a conversation about this.
- -
The 51 Percent Project is named for the growing majority of people who 
are concerned about global warming, are concerned and ready to 
participate on solutions to climate change.

Our approach is grounded in confirmed data, peer reviewed best 
practices, behavioral science, economic realities, trends in public 
opinion, justice, and common sense.
[some videos]
The making of PSAs 
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eBc8Y0-JRKDge3I3sSwRkNo3Pre7m-UM/view
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eBc8Y0-JRKDge3I3sSwRkNo3Pre7m-UM/view
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1W64U3Yy4eQV7BMgL0HFWJajzbRMAzNvT/view
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Id9Mc6p7voc5ce2d5wkg2b5RAW3qYqGF/view
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qYZnHVri_jILudL5fuEKaXVJKL6iObuX/view
more at: https://www.the51percent.io/
(BU is my alma mater)



[Listen to the music of data]
*Listen to a haunting (instrumental) song composed using climate data*
Hear the world burn.
By Alex Schwartz - May 16, 2019
Lucy Jones thinks we're not hearing the message about climate change 
well enough--so she set it to music. And while the planet's warming, the 
song she composed is downright bone-chilling.
- -
The seismologist, whose work focuses on preparing communities for 
environmental change, is also a classically-trained musician (many 
scientists, it turns out, are musically inclined). Jones says she sees 
music as a means for expressing emotion when her day job deals mostly 
with hard facts and figures--but sometimes, the two can intersect. When 
it came to climate change, she could imagine hearing the data on global 
temperature as it intensified and accelerated over the past century and 
a half.

A song began to form in her head, and she spent several years crafting a 
score in the form of a baroque In Nomine piece, a complex web of 
bite-sized motifs and their iterations centered around a fixed line of 
notes called the cantus firmus. Jones based this line on the temperature 
data (each measure is one year, and each half step in the music equates 
to a change of 0.03˚C during that year), surrounding it with a network 
of interlocking harmonies and themes that tell the story of how humans 
are cooking the planet. And while the pitch of the piece ascends with 
the temperature, it's not an uplifting tune.

"I think it's a little somber, which it should be," Jones says. Because 
the In Nomine form is essentially an orderly cacophony of musical 
statements, the data-based cantus firmus can easily get lost in the mix. 
So Jones composed the harmonies and motifs encompassing it to become 
increasingly abrasive and frantic, reflecting the uncertainty and 
destruction climate change is already causing.

The tone starts out restful and mellow between 1880 and the 1930s. For 
the first few decades of this period, Earth's temperature actually 
decreased slightly due to volcanic eruptions that partially shielded the 
planet from solar radiation. For the next 50 years, the music increases 
energy and intensity as greenhouse gases permeate the atmosphere and 
temperature rises again. Jones says the final part of the piece is 
frantic, imperiled, "accelerating toward who knows where."

Jones recalls hearing someone describe this type of music--referred to 
as polyphony for its apparent lack of a distinct melody and harmony--as 
a dinner conversation. The piece starts with a short musical idea, which 
different instruments pick up and modify, sending it back and forth and 
building on it--sometimes to a chaotic degree.

"This is sort of a dinner conversation about the climate," Jones says. 
She named it In Nomine Terra Calens (In the Name of a Warming Earth).

For those not so musically inclined, Jones collaborated with Ming Tai at 
the Art Center College of Design to produce an aesthetically pleasing 
visualization of the song:

The piece is played by a string quartet of viola da gambas (relatives of 
the violin), recorded in part by Josh Lee, Jones's musical mentor. Jones 
had been playing the baroque instrument for over 40 years, so she felt 
most comfortable composing a piece that it could play. As it turned out, 
translating the climate data into musical notes formed a range identical 
to the viola da gamba's--the instrument plays both the lowest and 
highest note it can possibly play. The ending section proved especially 
difficult, because the highest note literally went off the end of the 
instrument's fingerboard.

Jones says when she gave Lee the score to play, he saw the challenging 
high notes and said, "Oh my god, we're so screwed." That told her she 
got the emotion right: Without drastic action to adapt to and mitigate 
climate change, the planet's screwed too. There's physically no more 
room on the fretboard for Jones to add another year of higher 
temperatures to the composition--the symbolic urgency couldn't get any 
more intense.

"I want people to feel the emotion that something fundamental has 
changed and it's not natural," Jones says. She hopes this creepy 
composition will stay with listeners, reminding them how existential of 
a threat the climate crisis is to humanity. But the intention isn't to 
resolve people to the gloom and doom of global warming--it's to 
encourage them to take action. So Jones ends the piece with a musical 
question mark. The sustained, haunting F-sharp gives humanity a choice: 
Keep our heads in the sand and let this crisis win, or come up with 
solutions that make the planet better for everyone. There's still time 
to write a better ending to this song.
https://www.popsci.com/climate-data-song-warming
- - - - -
[video - hear the data]
*In Nomine Terra Calens: In the name of a warming Earth*
Dr. Lucy Jones Center for Science and Society
Published on May 15, 2019
This original instrumental work by seismologist Dr. Lucy Jones, "In 
Nomine Terra Calens: In the name of a warming earth", allows the 
listener to hear Earth's temperature data over the last 138 years. 
Recorded by Josh Lee and Ostraka, the piece is performed by four viols 
with one of the bass viols playing the temperature data. The 
accompanying animation by Ming Tai, El Ogorodova, and Christopher Yoon 
captures the rising temperatures as delicate colored spheres while 
highlighting world events. The haunting bass line chronicles the rise of 
global temperature and progresses through an increasingly frantic rising 
of pitch to end with a stripping away of harmonies that converges on one 
lone note. It ends without direction to represent the uncertain future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4plSXjcjxVA
- - -
[Her web site]
May 15, 2019 Lucy Jones
*The Music of Climate Change*
I am an experimental seismologist. That means I spend a lot of time 
looking at data about the earth. I am not an atmospheric scientist so I 
cannot make detailed models for the future of the world's climate, but I 
can look at data and recognize alarming trends. And the basic data for 
the temperature of the earth, averaged over the whole atmosphere is 
terrifying. The world is warming and the rate at which it is warming is 
getting faster...
- -
I realize that just knowing the Earth is warming is not enough. As 
scientists, we understand a lot about how earthquakes, floods and other 
disasters will affect people, but we have found that it is much easier 
for people to understand the problem and take action when we clearly 
connect the consequences to the problem.  I spent a decade creating 
science-based scenarios of natural disasters to provide people with the 
information to make better decisions.

With climate change, if we do nothing, if we continue to add CO2 to the 
atmosphere through burning fossil fuels, we will change life on earth. 
Even though there have been warmer times on Earth, those were times with 
different ecologies - that had time to adapt to the changes in climate.  
The speed with which we are changing the climate is unprecedented. The 
world is already warmer by almost 2 F.  Everywhere on Earth, ecosystems 
are experiencing a different climate than that in which they evolved. 
Within the lifetime of children now born, with no action, the climate 
could be 5-10 F warmer. What does this mean?
-- More disasters. Heat is energy and with more energy in the 
atmosphere, storms will be more severe. The strongest hurricane, the 
biggest daily rainfall, the longest duration of Cat 5 winds, have all 
happened in the last few years. Storms will be bigger and more devastating.
-- More wildfires. Every ecosystem in the world will be stressed by a 
different climate, mostly warmer. Wildfires are spreading through the 
boreal forests in Scandinavia and Alaska. The California wildfires of 
the last few years are just the beginning.
-- Food shortages. Farmers are already having to adapt their techniques 
to the changing climate. Some places will become unfarmable.
-- Water availability crises. Some places are getting wetter and some 
drier. Getting water to people will require different delivery systems 
than we currently have.
-- Climate refugees. Some countries will be underwater as the polar ice 
melts. Others will lose the ability to grow enough food for their 
populations. Millions, maybe hundreds of millions of people will need to 
move to stay alive.
-- Social disruption? We humans have many choices to make about how we 
respond to these disruptions. How will we respond to 50 million refugees?
I think many people, especially in America, think that dealing with 
climate change means giving up modern life. We talk about individuals 
driving an electric car, forgoing an airplane trip or reducing plastic 
use, as though that is the solution. We don't want to give up modern 
life so we don't think about climate change or we try to believe it 
isn't really true.

But the answer to climate change is not a Prius and reusable grocery 
bag.  With 7 billion people on Earth, we could give up every aspect of 
modern life and not solve the problem. We still need to keep warm in 
winter and move our food to where people are. The only solution is to 
move forward, to a world with a carbon neutral energy system, a society 
where the production of energy does not increase the carbon in the 
atmosphere. Until we get to carbon neutral energy, any life, let alone 
modern life, increases the CO2 in the atmosphere.

Dealing with climate change means technological innovation to create a 
better world. It can be done. Solar energy is already much cheaper than 
it was a decade ago. When we decided to go to the moon, we solved 
innumerable technical challenges and we were proud of doing it. We did 
that together and we need to do it again.

As an individual, you might be one of the technical innovators. But 
every one of us can say we want our government to fund and support the 
innovation. Why would we want someone else to own the technologies that 
are going to be needed by the future world? Dealing with climate change 
means investing in the future.  Look again at the consequences of our 
current trajectory. The true threat to modern life is not dealing with 
climate change.

I end In Nomine Terra Calens with a stripping away of harmonies to 
finally land on one, lone, very high note. I end without direction to 
represent the uncertain future. We stand at a decision point where the 
future of the world really rests on our decisions.
http://drlucyjones.com/the-music-of-climate-change/


*This Day in Climate History - June 3, 1977 - from D.R. Tucker*

June 3, 1977: The New York Times reports

*Climate Peril May Force Limits On Coal and Oil, Carter Aide Says*
By WALTER SULLIVAN - JUNE 3, 1977 ,


To avoid accumulation in the air of sufficient carbon dioxide to
cause major climate changes, it may ultimately be necessary to
restrict the burning of coal and other fossil fuels, according to
Dr. William D. Nordhaus of the President's Council of Economic Advisers.

This would limit the dependence on coal that, under present policy,
is to replace rapid expansion of nuclear energy.

Dr. Nordhaus, who is on leave from his post as professor of
economics at Yale University, told this week's spring meeting of the
American Geophysical Union in Washington that by early in the next
century, the burning of coal, oil and as might have to be curtailed
by taxation or rationing.

He said he was speaking as an individual and not presenting a
Government policy. He has been investigating the climatic and
economic implications of carbon dioxide accumulation, having also
worked on the problem at the International Institute for Applied
Systems Analysis near Vienna.

He cited estimates that if the trend toward heavy use of fossil
fuels continued, by early in the next century the level of carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere will have doubled. This, it has been
proposed, could make the worldwide climate warmer than at any time
in the last 100,000 years..
Dr. Nordhaus's argument was based in part on calculations by Dr.
Wallace S. Broecker of Columbia University's Lamont‐Doherty
Geological Observatory, who also presented a report. Each ton of
coal or other fossil fuel burned, he said, produces three tons of
carbon dioxide.

*Gas Acts Like Greenhouse Glass*

In the atmosphere carbon dioxide acts much like the glass of a
greenhouse. It readily permits the passage of sunlight, warming the
earth, but it inhibits the escape of heat into space as infrared
radiation.

While carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere by absorption
into the oceans and incorporation into trees and other plants, these
processes have been unable to keep pace with the addition of the gas
from smokestacks, automobile exhaust and other sources.

If, as now seems likely, the development of nuclear energy is slowed
in favor of heavier coal consumption, a more rapid rise in
atmospheric carbon dioxide must be expected. While there is still
muchuncertainty as to how much of an increase could occur without
major influences on climate, Dr. Nordhaus proposed that within 40
years severe restraints might become necessary.

He cited Dr. Broecker's estimate that by 1985 to 1990, there will
have been a 20 percent increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide,
leading to a mean global warming of about one degree Fahrenheit.
This would still be within the range of naturally occurring changes
over the last 100,000 years, Dr. Nordhaus said.

In that period, which included the last ice age, the fluctuations
remained within 10 degrees, but the current climate is near the
upper (warmer) limit of that range. Dr. Nordhaus referred to an
analysis by Dr. Syukuro Manabe and R. T. Wetherald at Princeton
University's Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, which predicted a rise of
almost six degrees if the carbon dioxide doubles.

*Serious Consequence Feared*

This would exceed the fluctuations of the last 100,000 years,
deduced from analysis of ocean sediments and cores from ice sheet
drill holes, and could have serious consequences. Dr. Nordhaus also
noted that the Princeton studies indicated a far more marked warming
in the polar regions than near the Equator.

In the long run, as noted by Dr. Broecker, this could melt polar
ice, raising sea levels enough to flood many coastal cities and food
producing areas.

To limit the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the air to an
increase of 100 per cent, he suggested an escalating tax schedule
that would impose 14 cents a ton of released gas in 1980, increasing
to $87.15 a ton by 2100.

This would force energy consumers to shift to other sources, such as
nuclear energy, which he termed presently “the only proven
large‐scale and low‐cost alternative.” The shift from carbon‐based
fuels would not reach major proportions until about 40 years hence.

By then energy sources now at an early stage of development, such as
solar power and atomic fusion, might be able to contribute electric
power and noncarbon fuels.

Since the United States contributes 10 to 20 percent of the carbon
dioxide, any solution must be international, Dr. Nordhaus said. It
will be “expensive, but not unthinkable,” he added.

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30E15FC355D167493C1A9178DD85F438785F9
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