[TheClimate.Vote] June 24, 2019 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/June 24, 2019/

[heatwave in Europe 104 F]
*Intense heat is forecast across much of Continental Europe over the 
coming days.* Temperatures are expected to peak at close to 40C on 
Thursday in Paris... Accuweather says this will set the stage for "a 
potentially dangerous heatwave to occur over a large portion of western 
and central Europe".
https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/2018-europe-summer-forecast-sweltering-heat-from-france-to-germany-storms-to-rattle-poland-italy-and-balkan-peninsula/70004928
- - -
*Europe Awaits Record-Smashing June Heat Wave*
https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/Europe-Awaits-Record-Smashing-June-Heat-Wave


[Government failure]
*Agriculture Department buries studies showing dangers of climate change*
The Trump administration has stopped promoting government-funded 
research into how higher temperatures can damage crops and pose health 
risks.
By HELENA BOTTE, MILLER EVICH 06/23/2019
- - -
Among the ARS studies that did not receive publicity from the 
Agriculture Department are:

    A 2017 finding that climate change was likely to increase
    agricultural pollution and nutrient runoff in the Lower Mississippi
    River Delta, but that certain conservation practices, including not
    tilling soil and planting cover crops, would help farmers more than
    compensate and bring down pollutant loads regardless of the impacts
    of climate change.

    A January 2018 finding that the Southern Plains -- the
    agriculture-rich region that stretches from Kansas to Texas -- is
    increasingly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, from the
    crops that rely on the waning Ogallala aquifer to the cattle that
    graze the grasslands.

    An April 2018 finding that elevated CO2 levels lead to "substantial
    and persistent" declines in the quality of certain prairie grasses
    that are important for raising cattle. The protein content in the
    grass drops as photosynthesis kicks into high gear due to more
    carbon dioxide in the atmosphere -- a trend that could pose health
    problems for the animals and cost ranchers money.

    A July 2018 finding that coffee, which is already being affected by
    climate change, can potentially help scientists figure out how to
    evaluate and respond to the complex interactions between plants,
    pests and a changing environment. Rising CO2 in the atmosphere is
    projected to alter pest biology, such as by making weeds proliferate
    or temperatures more hospitable to damaging insects.

    An October 2018 finding, in conjunction with the USDA Forest
    Service, that climate change would likely lead to more runoff in the
    Chesapeake Bay watershed during certain seasons.

    A March 2019 finding that increased temperature swings might already
    be boosting pollen to the point that it's contributing to longer and
    more intense allergy seasons across the northern hemisphere. "This
    study, done across multiple continents, highlights an important link
    between ongoing global warming and public health--one that could be
    exacerbated as temperatures continue to increase," the researchers
    wrote...

President Donald Trump, for his part, has been clear about his views on 
climate science and agricultural research generally: He doesn't think 
much of either.

In each of his budgets, Trump has proposed deep cuts to agricultural 
research, requests that ignore a broad, bipartisan coalition urging more 
funding for such science as China and other competitors accelerate their 
spending. Congress has so far kept funding mostly flat.
The president has also repeatedly questioned the scientific consensus on 
climate change. After the government released its latest national 
climate assessment in November, a sweeping document based on science, 
Trump bluntly told reporters: "I don't believe it."
Officials at USDA apparently took the hint and the department did not 
promote the report, despite the fact that it was drafted in part by its 
own scientists and included serious warnings about how a changing 
climate poses a threat to farmers and ranchers across the country...
- - -
During the Obama years, USDA became increasingly outspoken about climate 
change and the need to involve agriculture, both in terms of mitigation 
and adaptation.
The department came up with sweeping action plans on climate change and 
climate science and highlighted its work on a number of different 
platforms, including press releases, blog posts and social media blasts. 
In 2014, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack also launched Climate Hubs in 
10 regions across the country aimed at helping farmers and ranchers cope 
with an increasingly unpredictable climate.

"We were trying to take science and make it real and actionable for 
farmers," said Robert Bonnie, who served as undersecretary for natural 
resources and the environment at USDA during the Obama administration. 
"If you're taking a certain block of research and not communicating it, 
it defeats the purpose of why USDA does the research in the first place."
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/23/agriculture-department-climate-change-1376413


[intervention]
*Climate change could affect symbiotic relationships between 
microorganisms and trees*
Some fungi and bacteria live in symbiosis with tree roots in forest soil 
to obtain mutual benefits. The microorganisms help trees access water 
and nutrients from the atmosphere or soil, sequester carbon, and 
withstand the effects of climate change. In exchange, they receive 
carbohydrates, which are essential to their development and are produced 
by the trees during photosynthesis.
- - -
The analysis suggested that climate variables associated with organic 
decomposition rates, such as temperature and moisture, are the main 
factors influencing arbuscular mycorrhizal and ectomycorrhizal 
symbioses, while nitrogen-fixing bacteria are likely limited by 
temperature and soil acidity.

"Climate changes occurring in the Northern Hemisphere may displace 
ectomycorrhizal fungi to other regions, leading to a drastic reduction 
in the density of these symbiotic relationships or their total loss," 
Vieira said.

"This can affect nutrient cycling and above all carbon fixation, which 
depends on these symbiotic associations if forest vegetation is to 
absorb nutrients that are scarce or not available in the requisite form."

*Effects of climate change*
To gauge the vulnerability of global symbiosis levels to climate change, 
the researchers used their mapping survey to predict how symbioses may 
change by 2070 if carbon emissions continue unabated.

The projections indicated a 10 percent reduction in ectomycorrhizal 
fungi and hence in the abundance of trees associated with these fungi, 
corresponding to 60 percent of all trees.

The researchers caution that this loss could lead to more CO2 in the 
atmosphere because ectomycorrhizal fungi tend to increase the amount of 
carbon stored in the soil.

"CO2 limits photosynthesis, and an increase in atmospheric carbon could 
have a fertilization effect. Faster-growing plant species may be able to 
make better use of this rise in CO2 availability in the atmosphere than 
slower-growing plants, potentially leading to species selection. 
However, this remains to be seen," Joly said.

The researchers are also investigating the likely impact of increased 
atmospheric CO2 and global warming on plant development. Plants must 
expend more resources on respiration in a warmer climate, so 
photosynthesis will accelerate. What the net outcome of this growth 
effect will be is unclear, according to the researchers.

"These questions regarding tropical forests are still moot. Continuous 
monitoring of permanent forest plots will help us answer them," Joly said.
https://phys.org/news/2019-06-climate-affect-symbiotic-relationships-microorganisms.html


[Sea ice loss,  methane panic revives a science controversy]
*Methane: The Arctic's hidden climate threat : Natalia Shakhova's latest 
paper.*
Just Have a Think
Published on Jun 23, 2019
A methane burst from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf could happen at any 
time and needs only a trigger. That's the conclusion of the world's 
leading research scientist in that region - Natalia Shakhova. On 5th 
June Shakhova and her team released their latest findings and 
conclusions in a paper published by Geosciences. This week we take a look.
Research links -
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3263/9/6/251/htm
https://medium.com/@cecilepineda/eyewash-by-the-ipcc-enables-pentagon-inertia-ddce12fb188a
https://ourworldindata.org/search?q=co2+emissions
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osmzTSYRJJE
- - -
[link to the controversial article]
*Understanding the Permafrost-Hydrate System and Associated Methane 
Releases in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf*
Natalia Shakhova, Igor Semiletov and Evgeny Chuvilin
- - -
*Abstract:* This paper summarizes current understanding of the processes 
that determine the dynamics of the subsea permafrost-hydrate system 
existing in the largest, shallowest shelf in the Arctic Ocean; the East 
Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS). We review key environmental factors and 
mechanisms that determine formation, current dynamics, and thermal state 
of subsea permafrost, mechanisms of its destabilization, and rates of 
its thawing; a full section of this paper is devoted to this topic. 
Another important question regards the possible existence of 
permafrost-related hydrates at shallow ground depth and in the shallow 
shelf environment. We review the history of and earlier insights about 
the topic followed by an extensive review of experimental work to 
establish the physics of shallow Arctic hydrates. We also provide a 
principal (simplified) scheme explaining the normal and altered dynamics 
of the permafrost-hydrate system as glacial-interglacial climate epochs 
alternate. We also review specific features of methane releases 
determined by the current state of the subsea-permafrost system and 
possible future dynamics. This review presents methane results obtained 
in the ESAS during two periods: 1994-2000 and 2003-2017. A final section 
is devoted to discussing future work that is required to achieve an 
improved understanding of the subject...
- - -
[closing discussion]
...To further improve estimates of CH4 emissions from the ESAS, 
multi-level and multi-seasonal investigations should be performed, aimed 
at quantifying different components of annual emissions and defining the 
factors controlling them. There are several flux components that await 
incorporating into the annual CH4 flux budget: flux during ice break up; 
flux during deep fall convection; flux during storm events; flux through 
winter polynyas; non-gradual flux by strong ebullition caused by mass 
wasting, seismic/tectonic events, and sediment settlement/adjustment 
caused by releases of pre-formed gas from seabed deposits (different 
types of hydrates). To assess whether sudden, large-scale CH4 releases 
are likely to occur in the future, there exists a need to investigate 
the characteristics of migration pathways and to identify the factors 
controlling CH4 vertical flux from the seabed, through the water column, 
and into the atmosphere. A new challenge is the unknown scale of the ice 
scouring mechanism of CH4 release; this mechanism could unroof an 
ascending gas front in the upper sediment layers, opening gas-migration 
pathways for underlying gas. The relative importance of the various flux 
components should also be independently evaluated by detailed 
observations of atmospheric mixing ratios throughout the year. In this 
regard, establishing a monitoring network (including non-coastal 
observatories, satellites, unmanned aircraft, helicopter surveys, and 
summer cruises) over the entire area of the ESAS is of critical importance.
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3263/9/6/251/htm


[Ice melts]
*Climate Shake-Out w/ Dahr Jamail--The End of Ice & climate 
disruption--Radio Ecoshock 2019-05-29*
Stop Fossil Fuels
Published on Jun 23, 2019
Weather extremes and uncommon danger erupting are around this warming 
world. We need a tough investigative climate journalist. 
Indie-journalist and author of "The End of Ice" Dahr Jamail covers the 
climate threats and how to cope. From the Arctic to the Amazon to middle 
America we globe-trot through the latest science and what it means for 
our common future.

Show by Radio Ecoshock, reposted under CC License. Episode details at 
https://www.ecoshock.org/2019/05/climate-shake-out-with-dahr-jamail.html

Stop Fossil Fuels researches and disseminates effective strategies and 
tactics to halt fossil fuel combustion as fast as possible.
*SHOW DETAILS*
"The reporting in this [new] book has turned out to be far more 
difficult to deal with than the years I spent reporting from war-torn 
Iraq". During the course of writing, what he found tipped him toward 
personal depression. The book contains excellent black and white photos 
of Alaska and glaciers and important guests.

Dahr Jamail publishes regular articles at Truthout, an index to the 
latest news and science about climate disruption. His climate dispatch 
articles provide all the links to original sources in his reporting. He 
really shows how to publish using online media.

"As a species, we now hang over the abyss of a geoengineered future we 
have created for ourselves. At our insistence, our voracious appetite is 
consuming nature itself. We have refused to heed the warnings Earth has 
been sending, and there is no rescue team on its way."

The book (and the interview) are not all about the ice. He travels to 
many parts of the Earth to document the unraveling of life on this 
planet. For example, he visits with Dr Thomas Lovejoy, the Godfather of 
Biodiversity, in the Amazon Base 41 station.

*NEW SCIENCE ON JET STREAM AND EXTREME WEATHER*
"One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone 
in a world of wounds..."  Aldo Leopold

Last week another punishing round of strong tornadoes hit the southern 
US, part of a long string of extreme storms that frightened Oklahoma, 
flooded Houston again, and cut agricultural planting in key mid-West 
states in half. These tornadoes, floods and storms signal the new 
climate paradigm.

All of us will have to learn what an atmospheric Rossby Wave is. We've 
just seen what can happen in the southern US with hundreds of tornadoes 
a week, flooding rains, and slow-moving powerful storms when we get 
stuck in a weather system between two big meandering paths of the Jet 
Stream.

Paul Beckwith has been talking about waves in a stalled Jet Stream for 
years. Patterns of land and seas in the Northern Hemisphere are starting 
to form relatively predictable zones of extreme weather. Are we starting 
to glimpse a new "normal" for the Anthropocene?

*WHAT I EXPECT*
Some people worry the economy will crash as weather violence, rising 
seas, and other stresses just break civilization down. I worry that this 
fossil economy will not break down until we wreck everything beyond any 
hope of repair. As more serious disasters develop over the coming 
decades, I think two awful developments are inevitable: millions of 
climate refugees will flood over borders and at some point, hundreds of 
millions of people will die, likely of famine or disease.

*HOW TO COPE?*
Industrial humans are ruining the world not just for ourselves but for 
millions of other species. Dahr's coping mechanisms could help our 
listeners. He talks about Stephen Jenkinson who helps people with 
palliative dying who says about climate change: "If you awaken in our 
time, you awaken with a sob." We can learn about dying.

Dahr writes "PTSD--we all have it now, as the biosphere of the planet is 
perpetually being assaulted by the industrial growth machine." As 
soldiers returned from the endless Middle East wars, we all learned 
about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Years ago I suggested those who 
know about the bad times yet to come are developing Pre-Climatic Stress 
Disorder. Millions of people all over the world suffer climate trauma 
directly.

Dahr recommends that people travel to the wilderness, including to 
places only realistically available by airplane. That is my one small 
criticism of his work. Beyond that, Dahr has made many changes to reduce 
his impact on the atmosphere and the planet. He also talks about "living 
right" or "living angry". Meditation has played a big role in his 
ability to cope as he documents the climate nightmare unfolding.

He found a tree in the Olympic Mountains that clings to life in the most 
hostile high peak. I think we're tough like that tree. Some people will 
hang on. Dahr agrees that very near-term human extinction has been 
overblown.

He's let go of the idea that he can change the federal government or 
awaken the public, instead becoming hyper-local, being the change & 
caring for the land where he lives. He hopes his changes will be 
explainable to a young kid 30 or 40 years from now: "I did everything I 
could."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QIjiuMMFX0



[Classic talks on climate psychology]
*Climate Bind: trauma & psychoanalysis--Interview w/Judith 
Deutsch--Radio Ecoshock 2019-02-27*
Stop Fossil Fuels
Published on Mar 24, 2019
Is climate change getting you down? Does it keep you up at night? 
Artists and academics are trying to express this new dis-ease. And some 
mental health professionals are seeing a new kind of climate trauma.

Judith Deutsch is a psychoanalyst with a private practice in Toronto, 
Canada. Raised and educated in California, Judy has been on the faculty 
of the Toronto Psychoanalytic Institute. She is a wide-ranging voice for 
social conscience,  as past president of "Science for Peace", a member 
of "Independent Jewish Voices Canada", a respected columnist for 
Canadian Dimension magazine, and contributor to CounterPunch.

Show by Radio Ecoshock, reposted under CC License. Episode details at 
https://www.ecoshock.org/2019/02/uninhabitable-earth-david-wallace-wells.html

Stop Fossil Fuels researches and disseminates effective strategies and 
tactics to halt fossil fuel combustion as fast as possible. Learn more 
at https://stopfossilfuels.org

*TRANSCRIPT EXCERPT*
On Radio Ecoshock, dozens of scientists expressed their personal worries 
and loss concerning climate science they have published. Two of the 
saddest cases are the Australian coral reef scientist Charlie Veron. He 
is losing his life's work as the corals get wiped out by hotter oceans, 
Dr. Orrin Pilkey established the science of coasts. Now the Carolina 
coasts he loves are being eroded, flooded, and buried under the sea. 
Scientists talk about being "kept up at night" and "deeply worried".

In October 2018, PNAS published "Empirical evidence of mental health 
risks posed by climate change". The authors compared public mental 
health records with extreme events like hurricanes, very hot weather, 
and multi-year warming. They used "2 million randomly sampled US 
residents across a decade of data collection" and conclude that 
"environmental stressors produced by climate change pose threats to 
human mental health."

But does this approach tell us anything beyond the obvious? Judy 
suggests it can be pretty shallow to work up numbers when we don't know 
the specifics about individuals. We are all different. Some of us will 
react with a sense of doom, while others may be stimulated by the 
challenge. As a clinical psychoanalyst, Judy doesn't like to generalize.

*PRETRAUMATIC STRESS SYNDROME?*
In 2016, the American Professor E. Ann Kaplan wrote "Climate Trauma". 
She surveyed global warming in movies and literature, and she talks 
about "the traumatic imagining of future catastrophe". Kaplan calls it 
"Pretraumatic Stress Syndrome". Knowledge of the climate future, she 
warns, can lead to nightmares, paranoia, and depression. But in the 
psychoanalysis founded by Sigmund Freud, must trauma always be something 
that occurred in the past, or did the early pioneers of mind consider 
the possibility of "future trauma"?

Carl Jung, the famous Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, developed 
several concepts that might help us understand ourselves in climate 
shift. Do you think Jung's idea of "the shadow" could apply to denial of 
climate change? With a deep discussion of fairy tales and myths, Jung 
described a "collective unconscious". I wonder if our collective 
unconscious affects our ability to adapt to a radically changed future 
which has no model in our memory.

In a review of "The Life and Works of Karl Marx" by Sven-Eric Liedman, 
Judy writes: "nature is just as much a source of the use values that 
people live on...Humanity is a part of nature; society and its culture 
develop out of nature. Class society creates a gap between society and 
its source."
*
**CLIMATE CHANGE REFUGEES*
The 1951 UN convention on refugees, and subsequent international law, 
still does not recognize climate refugees. Rising seas and extreme 
climate-driven events will set off the greatest mass migrations ever. 
Are governments waking up, are we ready at all?

*TALK TO ONE ANOTHER ABOUT CLIMATE STRESS*
Psychoanalysts recommend talking about our problems and our selves. But 
there can't be enough trained health professionals to deal with the 
tsunami of upset people arriving as the future is disrupted. I talked 
with UK psychotherapist Rosemary Randall about her healing movement 
called "Carbon Conversations," circles of people who meet to share 
feelings about climate change. Can we help ourselves with local climate 
conversation or support groups?

We know we are damaging the climate every day by driving cars, by the 
food system, everything. Yet we have to keep on doing it, because we 
depend on the carbon culture. That predicament sounds familiar to people 
with other damaging personal behaviors they feel unable to control. 
Should we be talking about carbon addiction? Judy doesn't think that is 
the best way to look at it.

*THE MILITARIZATION OF CLIMATE CHANGE*
As a Peace activist, Judy has been writing about the dangers of nuclear 
weapons and militarization for decades. In the last ten years, she added 
new warnings about "climate militarization".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aDaV7f4vCs



[pluck for the future]
*David Gilmour auctions personal guitar collection, nets $21M for 
climate action - "We need a civilized world that goes on for all our 
grandchildren and beyond in which these guitars can be played and songs 
can be sung"*
A collection of guitars from the personal guitar collection of rock and 
roll legend David Gilmour of Pink Floyd on display for auction, 21 June 
2019. By Danielle Haynes - 21 June 2019
(UPI) - The auction of David Gilmour's guitar collection netted more 
than $21 million, which the legendary Pink Floyd guitarist is donating 
to efforts to battle climate change, Christie's announced.

The auction house said the 8-hour auction Thursday drew bidders from 
more than 66 countries. The collection of more than 120 guitars earned 
$21,490,750.
https://desdemonadespair.net/2019/06/david-gilmour-auctions-personal-guitar-collection-nets-21m-for-climate-action-we-need-a-civilized-world-that-goes-on-for-all-our-grandchildren-and-beyond-in-which-these-guitars-ca.html


[bird and bare wire ]
*Bird into power lines sparks Northern California wildfire*
Officials say large bird flew into power line
https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/06/23/wildfire-breaks-out-in-richvale-damages-power-line/


*This Day in Climate History - June 24, 2004 - from D.R. Tucker*
June 24, 2004: NYTimes.com reports:

    "The Supreme Court handed a major political victory to the Bush
    administration today, ruling 7 to 2 that Vice President Dick Cheney
    is not obligated, at least for now, to release secret details of his
    energy task force.

    "The majority of the justices agreed with the administration's
    arguments that private deliberations among a president, vice
    president and their close advisers are indeed entitled to special
    treatment -- arising from the constitutional principle known as
    executive privilege -- although they said the administration must
    still prove the specifics of its case in the lower courts.

    "'A president's communications and activities encompass a vastly
    wider range of sensitive material than would be true of any ordinary
    individual,' the court said in a summary of the majority opinion
    written by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy.

    "By sending the case back to the lower federal courts, the majority
    removed a significant political headache for President Bush and Vice
    President Cheney. As a practical matter, the outcome today means
    that the final resolution will not come until well after the
    November elections."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/24/politics/24CND-CHEN.html
https://www.fas.org/sgp/jud/cheney062404.pdf

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