[TheClimate.Vote] June 19, 2019 - Daily Global Warming News Digest.
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Wed Jun 19 07:43:41 EDT 2019
/June 19, 2019/
[on a single day]
*Rising Temperatures Precipitating Arctic Ice Melt, Threatening Sea Rise
and Permafrost*
In climate news, Arctic monitors found that over 40% of Greenland
experienced melting over a single day last week, with temperatures
soaring 40 degrees higher than normal. Scientists say the extent of the
melting is unusual for this time of year and will contribute to the
worsening global sea level rise.
Meanwhile, a new study shows that climate change has led to the thawing
of permafrost in the Canadian Arctic over 70 years earlier than
expected. Thawing of the permafrost releases carbon dioxide and other
greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, causing temperatures to further rise.
https://www.democracynow.org/2019/6/18/headlines/rising_temperatures_precipitating_arctic_ice_melt_threatening_sea_rise_and_permafrost
- -
*Greenland Loses 2 Billion Tons of Ice in a Single Day*
- - -
The sudden spike in melting "is unusual, but not unprecedented,"
according to Thomas Mote, a research scientist at the University of
Georgia who studies Greenland's climate.
"It is comparable to some spikes we saw in June of 2012," Mote told CNN,
referring to the record-setting melt year of 2012 that saw almost the
entire ice sheet experience melting for the first time in recorded history.
This much melting this early in the summer could be a bad sign,
indicating 2019 could once again set records for the amount of Greenland
ice loss...
- - -
Jason Box, an ice climatologist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and
Greenland, predicted in late May that "2019 will be a big melt year for
Greenland."
Box pointed out that this year had unusually early season melt days in
April, and the melt season was "happening about three weeks earlier than
average, and earlier than the record-setting melt year of 2012."
In addition to the early season melt, the snow cover is already lower
than average in Western Greenland, and combining these factors "mean
that 2019 is likely going to be a very big melt year, and even the
potential to exceed the record melt year of 2012."...
https://ktla.com/2019/06/14/greenland-loses-2-billion-tons-of-ice-in-a-single-day/
- - -
[just the facts]
*Scientific Data for Research*
The number of surface melting days was well above the 1981 to 2010
average for the beginning of the 2019 Greenland melt season,
particularly along the southeastern coast. Surface melting was detected
up to 26 out of the 61 days between April 1 to May 31. A narrow band of
melting was also present along the western coast, from the southern tip
of Greenland to the region around Thule in the northwest, exceeding 20
days in some locations. This represents an early onset, but not an
unprecedented extent or intensity relative to recent years.
http://nsidc.org
[activism]
*Leading the Public Into Emergency Mode*
Introducing the Climate Emergency Movement
- - -
The initial publication of Leading the Public into Emergency Mode in
2016 suggested this approach as a "New Strategy for the Climate
Movement." I am absolutely thrilled to report that in the 3 years since
publication, this approach--both as a policy program and as a mode of
campaigning and communicating, has been adopted by an extremely
energized set of organizations. My claim that embracing the truth and
campaigning for an emergency response to the climate crisis would be
highly effective is proving true. The climate emergency movement has
exploded onto the US and global political scene, and is growing all the
time...
- - - -
We are all, at times, confronted with emergency situations. Children,
and adults who are overwhelmed by the situation for whatever reason,
enter either panic mode, in which they act without thinking, or are
paralyzed and unable to act. Children, for example, will often hide
during house fires. However, healthy adults respond to emergencies by
entering emergency mode...
- - -
Bill McKibben reports that the question he is most often asked is "What
can I do?" This is accurate to my experience as well--millions of
Americans want to help fight the climate crisis, but don't know how to
do so effectively. The more the climate movement can provide structures
for people's engagement--providing directions and support for people who
are ready to tackle the climate emergency--the more people will go into
emergency mode. Effective, transparent leadership is also critical in
enabling people to enter emergency mode. Confidence that leaders and
decision makers are competently addressing questions of strategy and
policy for the emergency mobilization allows participants to focus on
their contribution.
Essential to long emergencies is the human capacity for dedication and
commitment--the mind state that brings a person back, over and over, to
the emergency issue despite inevitable interruptions and temptation to
avoid the issue. It also takes a good deal of courage, and ability to
stay calm under intense stress. The famous "Keep Calm and Carry On"
posters from wartime United Kingdom addressed this challenge. We could
translate them into this framework as meaning, "Don't Panic and Stay in
Emergency Mode."
https://medium.com/@margaretkleinsalamon/leading-the-public-into-emergency-mode-b96740475b8f
[Climate Fiction]
*The Climate Crisis Is Mind-Boggling. That's Why We Need Science Fiction.*
Only 29% of Americans report being "very worried" about the climate
crisis. Climate fiction writers can help change that.
BY Amy Brady
Cli-fi is leading the charge to envision new, sustainable and
compassionate social structures.
Climate fiction, or "cli-fi " as it's sometimes called, has officially
exploded onto the literary scene. The genre has been around since at
least the 1960s, with such writers as Margaret Atwood, Octavia Butler
and J.G. Ballard giving early narrative shape to the climate crisis.
Those classic works helped inspire waves of cli-fi over the past 60
years, ranging from futuristic sci-fi to literary fiction set in the
present day, and even mainstream movies. George Washington University
writing professor Michael Svoboda recently listed a bevy of
climate-themed films that hit theaters in 2018, including the dystopian
films Downsizing starring Matt Damon and First Reformed starring Ethan
Hawke...
- - -
Why do Americans have such a hard time grasping the dire threat posed by
climate change? In his 2015 nonfiction book, What We Think About When We
Try Not To Think About Global Warming: Toward a New Psychology of
Climate Action, psychologist Per Espen Stoknes argues it's because
politicians and the media tend to present climate change as a series of
abstract facts and cold statistics, which do little to appeal to the
human heart.
- - -
Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, assistant professor of environmental studies
at Yale-NUS College, surveyed more than 100 U.S.-based readers and found
that works of climate fiction "nudge [their] audience in a slightly more
progressive direction" and that "most readers attested to the value of
cli-fi as a tool for enabling the imagination of potential climate
futures." One reader, an IT administrator from Tennessee, was
particularly struck by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway's fictional
history, The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View From the Future, a
harrowing tale in which humans barely survive the widespread catastrophe
of global warming. The reader reported that climate change "was more
theoretical before. Now, while fiction, the book has made me more aware
of what our planet could become." The reader also reported "subsequently
[sharing] the book with his wife and son, among others." Other readers
also reported sharing their favorite cli-fi stories with loved ones, a
pattern that suggests climate fiction might be a useful tool to open
dialogues about the crisis with those closest to us.
But dystopian narratives can also have a paralyzing effect on readers,
despite climate fiction's ability to drive home the gravity of the
crisis. In the same study, Schneider-Mayerson writes, "From the emotions
these readers described, it is clear that their affective responses were
not only negative but demobilizing. While some negative emotions (such
as anger) can be fuel for personal or political action, others (such as
guilt, shame, helplessness and sadness) are much less likely to lead to
active responses."
In other words, the dystopian framing of cli-fi narratives might
actually be undermining their potential to spur political and social
change.Schneider-
Mayerson goes on, "In place of doom, psychologists suggest that climate
communications be framed positively," which "might include …' values and
a common cause' and'opportunities for innovation and job growth.' "...
- - -
The mainstream film industry has yet to catch on to this "positive
framing." In a recent article in Literary Hub, Rebecca Solnit critiques
the typical storyline of recent climate disaster movies: "The standard
action movie narrative requires one exceptional person in the
foreground, which requires the rest of the characters to be on the
spectrum from useless to clueless to wicked, plus a few moderately
helpful auxiliary characters. There are not a lot of movies about
magnificent collective action." Downsizing, First Reformed and Marvel
Studios' Infinity War and Endgame all feature environmental concerns,
but these movies still focus on singular individuals trying to save the
planet, often through superhuman means, when in reality no one person
can stop climate change.
- - -
Of course, reading climate fiction won't change the world alone, nor
will simply imagining climate catastrophe and its potential solutions.
Creating real social change requires real political action, such as the
massive, youth-led Sunrise Movement, which advocates for the Green New
Deal. To achieve a livable future in a climate-changed world, we need
policy reforms on a global scale.
But cli-fi has the potential to inspire us to get started. Rather than
be discouraged by bleak scientific reports or the doom and gloom of
today's popular climate-related films, novels like Robinson's--and
others, like Richard Powers' 2018 The Overstory, a Pulitzer Prize winner
that features an anti-logging protest camp--are leading the charge to
envision new, more sustainable and compassionate social structures.
Americans already know climate change is happening; now we need to
believe we can band together to stop it.
Amy Brady is the deputy publisher of Guernica Magazine and the editorial
director of the Chicago Review of Books. Her writing on art, literature
and climate change has appeared in the New Republic, O magazine, Pacific
Standard, the L.A. Times and elsewhere.
http://inthesetimes.com/article/21907/climate-change-science-fiction-collective-action
Opinion [near sighted]
*Where the Climate Change Action Is*
*Hint: It's not Washington.**
*By The Editorial Board
The editorial board represents the opinions of the board, its editor and
the publisher. It is separate from the newsroom and the Op-Ed section.
June 14, 2019
With time running out on the legislative session in Albany, Gov. Andrew
Cuomo, the State Senate and the Assembly should set aside their
differences and find common ground on a climate bill that would greatly
reduce the state's greenhouse gas emissions. This would be enormously
beneficial to the country and to the planet, and would ensure that, as
the federal government slides backward, New York remains in the
forefront of increasingly aggressive efforts by state governments to
address the dangers of global warming.
At issue are two bills. One is the Climate and Community Protection Act,
much favored by environmental activists. It passed the Assembly three
years in a row but never the Senate, which until this year was dominated
by Republicans. The other is the governor's Climate Leadership Act,
introduced early this year. As is often the case in Albany, the argument
has not been helpful, and suggests that the sides are miles apart. On
Tuesday, protesters invaded the State Capitol, demanding that Mr. Cuomo
sign the first bill and suggesting that he simply didn't care about
climate change. Mr. Cuomo sniffed that he had already put in place a
host of regulatory measures reducing power plant emissions, promoting
energy efficiency and building out wind and solar power. He said he had
no intention of playing politics.
Both sides agree on one major point: Some form of legislation is
necessary to codify existing regulations, to encourage new ones and to
give the new regulations the force of law. And both bills point in the
same direction, toward a steady reduction in fossil fuel use in New
York's power sector and in its economy as a whole. The governor's bill
would ramp up renewable energy sources somewhat more quickly. The
Assembly bill sets a more ambitious target of eliminating all statewide
greenhouse gas emissions by midcentury, which would require the
electrification of the entire transportation sector. The Assembly bill
also includes a provision similar in spirit to the Green New Deal
requiring that 40 percent of the funds collected from ratepayers for
energy efficiency and renewables be invested in "disadvantaged
communities." Mr. Cuomo says this is too rigid and could restrict
investments in other emissions-reducing strategies, like new technologies.
These are not insurmountable differences. Action to combat climate
change is taking place in the states right now, and New York should get
in on it. Despite all the talk about the Green New Deal in Washington,
the odds of major national climate legislation passing before the next
election are vanishingly small, given Republican control of the Senate,
the Trump administration's denial that a problem even exists and its
relentless work to undo all of President Barack Obama's efforts to
address the issue.
It's a different story out in the country. Twenty-three states and
Puerto Rico have now joined the United States Climate Alliance, which
pledges to uphold the Paris climate agreement and to try to meet its
goals despite President Trump's disavowal of the accord. The alliance,
which includes New York, now covers more than half the nation's
population and more than one-third of its greenhouse gas emissions.
Meanwhile, in the last year, five states have enacted mandates that,
with slightly different deadlines, require a transition to carbon-free
or carbon-neutral electricity. California last September was the first
to move ahead with a clean electricity standard, with a target of 2045.
New Mexico, Nevada, Washington State and Colorado have followed. Several
others are in the wings, including New York: Mr. Cuomo's bill would
require that all of the state's electricity come from carbon-free
sources by 2040.
Key in all these plans are the words "carbon free" or, in the case of
Washington State, "carbon neutral." They are technologically agnostic.
They do not rely exclusively on renewable energy sources, like wind and
solar, but allow for a host of strategies. Those strategies include
renewables, efficiencies on the consumer side (weatherization of houses,
for instance), programs to capture and store emissions and, not least,
nuclear power.
Nuclear power is hugely important. Nearly every major authority on
climate change, including the International Energy Agency, has said that
carbon-free nuclear energy must be part of the solution if, as the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned, the world is to be
on a clean energy diet by midcentury and escape the worst consequences
of global warming.
But nuclear plants are in grave danger in this country, and it's up to
the states to save them. Owners are threatening to close nearly a dozen
of the nation's nearly 100 reactors. That's equal to more than all the
solar generation in the country. To meet their own emissions reduction
goals, three states--Illinois, New York and New Jersey -- have wisely
agreed to provide financial support to keep their reactors going. In
March, Connecticut found a way to save two reactors in Waterford.
In time, federal officials may figure out a way to rejuvenate the
nuclear power industry. In time, they may figure out how to do a lot of
things -- rebuild the grid, devise a national clean energy standard,
pour billions into new technologies. But right now, Washington is
paralyzed, with Republicans frozen in place and Democrats offering
competing climate plans (some big, like the one from former Vice
President Joe Biden, some very big, like the one from Gov. Jay Inslee of
Washington). The prospects for national action are sure to improve if
any Democrat wins the presidency, and without national action America
cannot hope to be the world leader on climate change, as it aspired to
be at the end of Mr. Obama's tenure. The states can do only so much. But
what they are doing is heartening. It will be even more so if New York's
leaders can agree on a strategy that is in plain sight.
[Courts are awake to some things]
*Michael E. Mann took climate change deniers to court. They apologized.*
In 2011, renowned scientist Michael E. Mann sued a Canadian think tank
that published an interview suggesting his work on climate change was fraud.
Eight years later, the Winnipeg-based Frontier Center for Public
Policy--which often promotes climate change denial -- apologized Friday
and wiped the inflammatory interview from its website.
"(The apology) gives me faith in our legal system that truth can still
win out, even in an era of'fake news' and'alternative facts,'" Mann said
in an email to National Observer.
In the fight against climate disinformation, experts like Mann, an
atmospheric scientist at Pennsylvania State University, are turning to
new arenas.
Mann is best known as the lead researcher on a landmark 1998 paper on
climate change. He and three colleagues reconstructed global
temperatures going back about 500 years, producing a now-infamous
sideways-hockey-stick-like graph of global temperatures that showed a
sharp upswing beginning in the 1900s.
Mann has spent the two decades since the paper's publication defending
it and his reputation against climate change deniers--sometimes in
court. He settled with the Frontier Center on Friday, but a related case
in British Columbia and a similar one in the United States are ongoing.
In a message posted to its website, the Frontier Center apologized for
publishing "untrue and disparaging" comments about Mann...
"Although the Frontier Center for Public Policy still does not see eye
to eye with Mr. Mann on the subject of global warming and climate
change, we now accept that it was wrong to publish allegations by others
that Mr. Mann did not comply with ethical standards," the think tank
wrote in part...
https://grist.org/article/michael-e-mann-took-climate-change-deniers-to-court-they-apologized/
[Boaty Lives!]
*Boaty McBoatface makes major climate change discovery on maiden outing*
aty McBoatface's maiden outing has made a major discovery about how
climate change is causing rising sea levels. Scientists say that data
collected from the yellow submarines's first expedition will help them
build more accurate predictions in order to combat the problem.
The mission has uncovered a key process linking increasing Antarctic
winds to higher sea temperatures, which in turn is fuelling increasing
levels.
Researchers found that the increasing winds are cooling water on the
bottom of the ocean, forcing it to travel faster, creating turbulance as
it mixed with warmer waters above.
Experts said the mechanism has not been factored into current models for
predicting the impact of increasing global temperatures on our oceans,
Boaty McBoatface - the publicly named robotic submersible carried on the
research vessel RRS Sir David Attenborough - took its first expedition
in April 2017, studying the bottom of the Southern Ocean
The three-day mission saw Boaty travel 112 miles (180 kilometres)
through mountainous underwater valleys measuring the temperature,
saltiness and turbulence of the water at the bottom of the ocean, at
depths of up to 4,000 metres.
In recent decades, winds blowing over the Southern Ocean have been
getting stronger due to the hole in the ozone layer above Antarctica and
increasing greenhouse gases.
The new data, along with other ocean measurements collected from
research vessel RRS James Clark Ross, have revealed a mechanism that
enables these winds to increase turbulence deep in the ocean, causing
warm water at mid depths to mix with cold, dense water in the abyss.
The resulting warming of the water on the sea bed is a significant
contributor to rising sea levels.
The mission was part of a project involving the University of
Southampton, the National Oceanography Centre, the British Antarctic
Survey, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Princeton University.
Research leader Professor Alberto Naveira Garabato from the University
of Southampton, said: "Our study is an important step in understanding
how the climate change happening in the remote and inhospitable
Antarctic waters will impact the warming of the oceans as a whole and
future sea level rise."
Dr Eleanor Frajka-Williams of the National Oceanography Centre said:
"The data from Boaty McBoatface gave us a completely new way of looking
at the deep ocean - the path taken by Boaty created a spatial view of
the turbulence near the seafloor."
*This Day in Climate History - June 19, 2003 - from D.R. Tucker*
The New York Times reports:
"The Environmental Protection Agency is preparing to publish a draft
report next week on the state of the environment, but after editing
by the White House, a long section describing risks from rising
global temperatures has been whittled to a few noncommittal paragraphs."
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/19/us/report-by-epa-leaves-out-data-on-climate-change.html
The AP reports:
"The chief goal in a White House plan to study global warming is
learning more about natural causes of climate change, drawing
criticism from environmentalists who say reducing industrial carbon
emissions is the real problem.
"The new 10-year, $103 million plan to speed up research in some
high-priority areas was released Thursday by Commerce Secretary Don
Evans and Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, who pointed to $4.5
billion in government spending on climate change-related programs...
"The first of the 364-page plan's five goals is to study the'natural
variability' in climate change. The second is to find better ways of
measuring climate effects from burning fossil fuels, industrial
production of warming gases and changes in land use.
"Other goals are to reduce uncertainty in climate forecasting; to
better understand how changes in climate affect human, wildlife and
plant communities; and to find more exact ways of calculating the
risks of global warming, according to plan summaries obtained by The
Associated Press.
"But environmentalists said the administration was focusing too much
on natural causes and reopening scientific issues already well studied."
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-climate-plan-draws-heat/
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