[TheClimate.Vote] March 29, 2019 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Fri Mar 29 10:30:44 EDT 2019
/March 29, 2019/
/
/
[propose to start planning to make a plan]
*On Climate, Democrats Now Have a Plan to Make a Plan
*Starting with a new bill that would keep the U.S. in the Paris Agreement
ROBINSON MEYER
Democrats don't yet have a consensus plan to address climate change, but
they're trying. On Wednesday, the party's leadership in Congress issued
a demand to President Donald Trump and began searching for long-term
footing on the issue.
In the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi unveiled the Climate Action Now Act,
a new bill that would essentially forbid the United States from
withdrawing from the Paris Agreement. The bill would also require that
the White House develop a plan to meet the U.S. commitment under that
treaty.
"Despite what the president has said, America will not retreat, and
America will not cut and run," said Representative Kathy Castor, a
Democrat of Florida, in a press conference at the Capitol.
In the Senate, without a majority, Democrats can't do as much. On
Wednesday, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced a new Democratic
committee on climate change that will give his party a larger forum for
talking to experts and planning next steps. But the new group will lack
the powers of an official Senate committee: Democrats say they tried,
and failed, to interest the GOP in forming a bipartisan climate panel.
Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii will chair the new group. He told
reporters that he didn't think Democrats would be able to do much
without a Senate majority. "The truth is, we're preparing to lay the
predicate for action when and if Chuck Schumer becomes the majority
leader," he said...
- - -
Looming over the proceedings of both houses of Congress this week was
the Green New Deal, which--for all its vagueness--has generated more
debate over climate policy than anything has in years. On Tuesday,
Republicans in the Senate roundly defeated the progressive resolution,
57-0. All but three Senate Democrats essentially abstained from the
tally, voting only "present." On Wednesday, Schumer thanked Majority
Leader Mitch McConnell for holding that vote, saying that it underlined
that Democrats want to do something about climate change and Republicans
don't. (Which is true, as it goes.) But when a reporter asked Schumer
whether the new committee had been founded in response to the Green New
Deal, he avoided the question. Schatz then intervened, and recognized
the activists indirectly: "Whenever the cause, we certainly feel like we
have momentum. We have the moral high ground," he said.
But legislators may have a harder time talking in those moral terms.
Earlier in the week, dozens of activists associated with the Sunrise
Movement--the youth-led group that first brought national attention to
the Green New Deal--lined up outside the Capitol Dome. They wore shirts
with a clear (if philosophically interesting) demand: "We have a right
to a GOOD JOB and a LIVABLE FUTURE."
"The Green New Deal is more than a resolution, it is a revolution,"
declared Senator Edward Markey of Massachusetts, who sponsored the
original resolution with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
(Markey is also on the new Democratic climate committee.) He was one of
several senators to decry McConnell. Senators Kirsten Gillibrand of New
York compared the Green New Deal to President John F. Kennedy's
moonshot. Jeff Merkley of Oregon led the assembled activists in cheers...
Then Senator Ron Wyden, also of Oregon, took the lectern. Bedecked in an
emerald scarf, tie, and baseball cap, he told the crowd that, as the
ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, he knew there were 40
tax breaks for oil companies.
"Folks, let me promise you today--as part of our effort I'm going to
throw those dirty-energy tax breaks in the garbage can!" he said. When
Democrats take back the Senate, he promised, they would replace those 40
tax breaks with only three: "One for clean energy, one for clean
transportation, and one for energy efficiency."
It was an applause line, and the young people arrayed behind the senator
eventually figured that out, and clapped. The moment seemed to gesture
to the difficulty of making climate policy popular--at how, in the
day-to-day reality of government, a moral demand for a livable future
can transform into a reform to internal revenue collection. In the
months to come, Senator Schatz and Representative Castor are going to
propose plenty of tax-reform-style ideas. It will be interesting to see
whether they sate activists.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/03/democrats-try-to-resurrect-the-paris-agreement/585982/
[the thaw that chills]
*'We Can't Trust the Permafrost Anymore': Doomsday Vault at Risk in Norway*
"Not good."
by Eoin Higgins, staff writer
Just over a decade after it first opened, the world's "doomsday vault"
of seeds is imperiled by climate change as the polar region where it's
located warms faster than any other area on the planet.
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, which opened in late February 2008, was
built by the organization Crop Trust and the Norwegian government on the
island of Svalbard next to the northernmost town in the world with more
than 1,000 residents, Longyearbyen.
"Svalbard is the ultimate failsafe for biodiversity of crops," said Crop
Trust executive director Marie Haga.
Northern temperatures and environment on the island were a major reason
for the construction. According to in-depth reporting from CNN, the
project planners hoped that the permafrost around the construction of
the underground vault would, in time, refreeze. But the planet has other
plans.
Longyearbyen and, by extension, the vault, is warming more rapidly than
the rest of the planet. That's because the polar regions of Earth--the
coldest areas on the planet--are less able to reflect sunlight away from
the polar seas due to disappearing ice and snow cover.
'Doomsday vault' town warming faster than any other on Earth: 3.7
degrees Centigrade warming already in this Arctic town. Permafrost
melting. Buildings sinking.
https://twitter.com/johnrhanger/status/1110864180121354240
It's an ironic turn of events for the creators of the vault, who chose
the location for the vault "because the area is not prone to volcanoes
or earthquakes, while the Norwegian political system is also extremely
stable,'" said CNN.
Because of the warming, the permafrost around the underground vault's
tunnel entrance has not refrozen. That led to leaking water in the
tunnel in October 2016, which then froze into ice.
In response, CNN reported, "Statsbygg [the Norwegian state agency in
charge of real estate] undertook 100 million Norwegian krone ($11.7
million) of reconstruction work, more than double the original cost of
the structure."
But the warming now may become unsustainable for the structure. It's
already forcing changes to Longyearbyen's population of 2,144 as the
people in the town find themselves scrambling to avoid avalanches and
deal with a changing climate that's more often dumping rain rather than
snow.
"We can't trust the permafrost anymore," said Statsbygg communications
manager Hege Njaa Aschim.
British advocacy group Global Citizen was more to the point.
"Not good," the group tweeted.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/03/27/we-cant-trust-permafrost-anymore-doomsday-vault-risk-norway
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike
3.0 License
- - -
[Arctic Future Studies]
*The Expanding Footprint of Rapid Arctic Change*
First Published: 7 March 2019
- Rapid changes in the Arctic physical environment have substantial
impacts in low and midlatitudes
- Loss of sea ice, land ice, and permafrost is accelerating, and these
losses are further exacerbating climate change
- Effects of Arctic change include rising sea level, increased coastal
erosion, greater storm impacts, and ocean and atmospheric warming
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2018EF001088
[a Buddhist perspective - Sacred Mountain Singha]
*Declare Climate Emergency Now*
They are as children, playing with their toys in a house on fire. - The
Buddha
An invitation to Dharma friends and all who love our beautiful planet
and her myriad beings. Let us do what we can.
Breaking the Trance, Finding Refuge Together
This document aims to encourage collective engagement in a challenge so
great, a revolution so profound, that everything has to be re-examined,
overturned, and reconfigured. It has also arisen from within the
Buddhist core ethos and practice of "Avoid evil, cultivate the good, and
purify the heart."
This is a call to action founded in the understanding that the mind
precedes all and that action needs to be informed by inner spiritual
work for optimum sustainability and success. The core intention of this
document is to inspire us to come together to undergo, through deep
reflection and sacred ceremony, the recognition that we have moved into
a new world, a new calamitous reality that needs all of our conscious,
collective engagement.
This is an invitation into a conversation that clearly acknowledges our
world has undergone a state shift in the Earth's biosphere due to
exponential warming that is producing regular, devastating, extreme,
weather events. The Earth is also undergoing rapid environmental
dismemberment due to human activity. We are in the sixth mass extinction
and at the cusp of runaway climate feedback loops that are heralding the
collapse of human civilization.
In response to the urgency of our time, this document lays out, in
brief, a pathway for one practical and vital action. This is to Declare
Climate Emergency. This action starts with a conversation within our
close relationships and near community, moving out to be requested from
institutions, business, and demanded from government. Undertaking this
process overcomes denial and procrastination while empowering us to be
as creative and radical as we possibly can.
Our old way of high carbon use, of expendable resources, heightened
individualism at the expense of the whole, and assuming life will go on
as we've known it, needs to be recalibrated. For this we need each
other, we need to be truthful, we need to undergo deeper levels of
renunciation while drawing from the living Dharma, the living spirit of
the Earth, and the compassion, truth telling, and power of Sangha, the
community.
While the truth that we are headed toward extinction is a terrible
shock, it has the potential to quicken our collective awakening powering
a profound transformation of our world. This transformation begins
within. We need to know ourselves, not only as individuals, but as
co-creators within a deeply ensouled web of life where all is conscious.
Once we align with the reality and depth intelligence of consciousness
itself, we connect with a spiritual and moral power that gifts intuitive
wisdom, guidance, and courage. It is this courage that will enables us
to stand together to protect mother nature, grandmother earth, and all life.
Making the transition into our new reality, spiritually,
psychologically, and in embodied, practical acts, frees us to engage
this greatest challenge humanity has ever faced. The enormity of this
task, for sanity, health, and well-being, has to be grounded in a
careful, listening and mindful embodied presence while supported by
daily practices that care for body, heart, and mind and our near
relationships.
So welcome to journeying through these steps, we'll be with you along
the way.
*Alignment with the Sacred**
**Declaring Climate Emergency: Why & Our Demands**
**Resources & How to Stay in Touch...*
more at - http://sacredmountainsangha.org/climate-emergency/
[Opinion]
*Environmental Politics: The Non-sense of the Senate*
By Joel Stronberg, originally published by Civil Notion
March 28, 2019
On March 26th the Green New Deal, in the form of a resolution, was
brought directly to the Senate floor for a vote. S. J. Res. 8 made it
into the full Senate through a procedural ploy that limited public
debate by side-stepping what should have been a routine referral to a
standing subject matter committee, e.g., Energy and Natural Resources,
for open hearings.
As expected, the measure failed to garner the needed votes. Had it
succeeded, it would have put the Senate on record denying the
proposition that the Federal Government has a duty to create a Green New
Deal.
- - -
The noticeable shift in denier arguments from science to socialism is in
part a product of the increasing number of Republican senators and
representatives openly talking--rather than trashing--the evidence-based
realities of Earth's warming. Some, like Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN),
are willing publicly to admit humans have something to do with the
problem and governments something to do with the solution--even going so
far as proposing their own versions of retreaded World War II
mobilizations. What is it about the 1930s and 40s?...
- - -
I remain cautious of Republicans bearing environmental gifts. At the
same time, I believe that the newly charged national dialogue will
result in more Republican lawmakers coming to the defense of the
environment--if for no other reason than voters putting climate at or
very near the top of their political priority list.
Going forward it is critical for Congressional Democrats not to
engage--nor appear to be engaged--in the same senseless gamesmanship
that McConnell has just tried in the Senate. It is not to say that no
"sense of resolutions" should be introduced nor that all Republican
policy and program suggestions will be made in good faith...
- - -
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2019-03-28/environmental-politics-the-non-sense-of-the-senate/
[Extinction Rebellion - Impending Ecocide - video interview]
*On Contact: Extinction Rebellion*
RT America Published on Mar 16, 2019
Some environmental activists argue the only way to stop the impending
ecocide is to carry out nonviolent acts of civil disobedience to shut
down the capitals of the major industrial countries, crippling commerce
and transportation until the ruling elites are forced to publicly state
the truth about climate catastrophe, implement radical measure to halt
carbon emissions by 2025, and empower an independent citizens committee
to oversee the termination of our 150-year binge on fossil fuels. The
British-based group Extinction Rebellion has called for nonviolent acts
of civil disobedience on April 15 in capitals around the world to
reverse our "one-way track to extinction." Joining Chris Hedges in the
second part of a two-part discussion from London is Roger Hallam, the
co-founder of Extinction Rebellion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfXqq888HPY
[That anyone can read...]
*A reading list on women and climate change *
Women face disproportionate harm from climate change, but they can also
help their communities become more resilient.
The challenges posed by climate change cannot be met without also
addressing gender issues. Because their lives are more vulnerable even
under stable conditions, women face greater risks when climate-related
impacts – droughts, floods, hurricanes – disrupt their communities.
Conversely, giving women more power over their lives typically results
in more resilient communities. For these reasons, Yale Climate
Connections has chosen to observe Women's History Month by publishing a
list of books and reports on gender and climate change.
The descriptions of the twelve works listed below are drawn from copy
provided by the publishers or organizations that released them.
*Gender and the environment*
Why Women Will Save the Planet, edited by Friends of the Earth (Zed
Books 2015, 279 pages, $14.95)
This provocative collection gathers essays and interviews from the
leading lights of the international environmental and feminist movements
to mount a powerful case that gender equality is essential to
environmental progress. In Why Women Will Save the Planet, Ecofeminists
contributors like Vandana Shiva, Caroline Lucas, and Maria Mies lay out
the ways in which women's issues intersect with environmental issues,
and they detail concrete steps that organizations and campaigners big
and small can take to ensure that they are pursuing these goals in
tandem. A rallying cry designed to unify – and thus strengthen – two
crucial movements in the global fight for social justice, this book will
spur action and, crucially, collaboration.
- -
Gender and the Environment, by Nicole Detraz (Polity Press 2016, 240
pages, $22.95 paperback)
This timely and insightful book explains why gender matters to the
environment. Nicole Detraz examines contemporary debates around
population, consumption, and security to show how gender can help us to
better understand environmental issues and to develop policies to tackle
them effectively and justly. Our society has different expectations of
men and women, and these expectations influence the realm of
environmental politics. Drawing on example from around the world, Gender
and the Environment makes the case that it is only by adopting a more
inclusive focus that embraces the complex ways men and women interact
with ecosystems that we can move towards enhanced sustainability and
greater environmental justice on a global scale.
Routledge Handbook of Gender and Environment, edited by Sherilyn
MacGregor (Routledge 2017, 520 pages, $215.00)
The Routledge Handbook of Gender and Environment provides critical
analyses of the gender dimensions of a wide range of timely and
challenging topics, from sustainable development and climate change
politics, to queer ecology and interspecies. Presenting a comprehensive
overview of the development of the field from early political critiques
of the male domination of women and nature in the 1980s to the
sophisticated intersectional and inclusive analyses of the present, the
volume is divided into four parts: (I) Foundations, (II) Approaches,
(III) Politics, policy and practice, (IV) Futures. This Handbook will
serve as a vital resource for scholars, students, and practitioners in
environmental studies, gender studies, human geography, and the social
sciences.
*Gender and climate change*
Gender and Climate Change: An Introduction, edited by Irene Dankelman
(Routledge/Earthscan 2010, 312 pages, $44.95 paperback)
This new textbook provides a comprehensive introduction to the gender
aspects of climate change. It starts with a short history of the
thinking and practice around gender and sustainable development over the
past decades. Next it provides a theoretical framework for analyzing
climate change manifestations and policies from the perspective of
gender and human security. Drawing on new research, the actual and
potential effects of climate change on gender equality and women's
vulnerabilities are examined, both in rural and urban contexts. The
final section looks at how far gender mainstreaming in climate
mitigation and adaptation has advanced, the policy frameworks in place
and how we can move from policy to effective action.
Gender and Climate Change: Impacts, Science, Policy, by Joane Nagel
(Routledge 2015, 264 pages, $39.95)
This timely and provocative book uses a gender lens to see what has been
overlooked in popular discussion, research, and policy debates
concerning climate change. We see that more women than men die in
climate-related natural disasters; the history of science and war are
intimately interwoven masculine occupations and preoccupations; and
conservative men and their interests drive the climate change denial
machine. We also see that climate policymakers who embrace big science
approaches and solutions to climate change are predominantly male with
an economic agenda that marginalizes the interests of women and
developing economies. With vivid case studies, this book highlights the
differential, gendered impacts of climate changes.
Understanding Climate Change through Gender Relations, edited by Susan
Buckingham and Virginie Le Masson (Routledge, 280 pages, $49.95)
This book explains how gender, as a power relationship, influences
climate change related strategies, and explores the additional pressures
that climate change brings to uneven gender relations. It considers the
ways in which men and women experience the impacts of these in different
economic contexts. Part I addresses conceptual frameworks and
international themes concerning climate change and gender, and explores
emerging ideas concerning the reification of gender relations in climate
change policy. Part II offers a wide range of case studies from the
Global North and the Global South to illustrate and explain the
limitations to gender-blind climate change strategies.
Armed Conflict, Women and Climate Change, by Jody M. Prescott
(Routledge/Earthscan 2018, 258 pages, $42.95 paperback)
Little research has been conducted on the compounding effects that armed
conflict and climate change might have on at-risk population groups such
as women and girls. Armed Conflict, Women and Climate Change explores
the intersection of these three areas and shows how military
organizations across the world need to be sensitive to these
relationships to be more effective in civilian-centric operations of
humanitarian relief, peacekeeping and even armed conflict. This book
examines strategy and military doctrine from NATO, the UK, U.S. and
Australia, and explores key issues such as displacement, food and energy
insecurity, and male out-migration as well as current efforts to
incorporate gender considerations in military activities and operations.
Planetary Solidarity: Global Women's Voices on Christian Doctrine and
Climate Justice, edited by Grace Ji-Sun Kim and Hilda P. Koster
(Fortress Press 2017, 392 pages, $79.00)
Planetary Solidarity brings together leading Latina, womanist, Asian
American, Anglican American, South American, Asian, European, and
African woman theologians on the issues of doctrine, women, and climate
justice. Because women make up the majority of the world's poor and tend
to be more dependent on natural resources for their livelihoods and
survival, they are more vulnerable when it comes to climate-related
changes and catastrophes. Using doctrine as interlocutor, this book ask
how Christian doctrine might address the interconnected suffering of
women and the earth in an age of climate change. It reexamines ideas of
creation, the triune God, anthropology, sin, incarnation, redemption,
the Holy Spirit, ecclesiology, and eschatology.
On Infertile Ground: Population Control and Women's Rights in an Era of
Climate Change, by Jade S. Sasse (New York University Press 2018, 224
pages, $27.00 paperback)
Since the turn of the millennium, American media, scientists, and
environmental activists have insisted that the global population crisis
is "back" – that the only way to avoid catastrophic climate change is to
ensure women's universal access to contraception. What is bringing the
population problem back – and why now? In On Infertile Ground, Jade S.
Sasser explores how a network of development actors, including private
donors, NGO managers, scientists, and youth advocates, is bringing
population back to the center of public environmental debate. While
these narratives never disappeared, Sasser argues, histories of human
rights abuses, racism, and a conservative backlash against abortion in
the 1980s drove them underground – until now.
See also Climate Change and Gender Justice edited by Geraldine Terry
(Oxfam International 2011, 213 pages, free download available)
*Gender at the Poles*
Right To Be Cold coverThe Right to Be Cold: One Woman's Fight to Protect
the Arctic and Save the Planet from Climate Change, by Sheila
Watt-Cloutier (University of Minnesota Press 2018, 328 pages, $22.95
paperback)
The Right to Be Cold is the human story of life on the front lines of
climate change, told by a woman who rose from humble beginnings to
become one of the most influential Indigenous environmental, cultural,
and human rights advocates in the world. Raised by a single mother and
grandmother in the small community of Kuujjuaq, Quebec, Watt-Cloutier
describes life in the traditional ice-based hunting culture of an Inuit
community and reveals how Indigenous life, human rights, and the threat
of climate change are inextricably linked. The Right to Be Cold is at
once the intimate coming-of-age story of a remarkable woman and a
stirring account of an activist's powerful efforts to safeguard Inuit
culture, the Arctic, and the planet.
Antarctica as Cultural Critic: The Gendered Politics of Scientific
Exploration & Climate Change, by Elena Glasberg (Palgrave 2012, 204
pages, $89.99 paperback)
A new look at the "forgotten" continent, Antarctica as Cultural Critique
arrives at an auspicious time in history and on earth. Amid the
centennial celebrations of the European "race" to the last place on
earth, Antarctica is finally emerging as a center of global concern.
Antarctica as Cultural Critique connects the ice of environmental crisis
to its past as an impediment to progress through visualizations and
photographs of what Ursula Le Guin calls the "living ice." Glasberg
opens new ways of thinking human/non-human divides that disturb
assumptions about gender and progress under scientific management, and
about attachments to a heroic past that does not take into consideration
the radically non-human and shifting ontology of ice itself.
The Secret Lives of Glaciers, by M. Jackson (Green Writers' Press 2019,
224 pages, $24.95)
The Secret Lives of Glaciers explores just what happens when a
community's glaciers slowly disappear. Meticulously detailed, each
chapter unfolds complex stories of people and glaciers along the
southeastern coast of Iceland, exploring the history of glacier science
and the world's first glacier monitoring program, the power glaciers
enact on local society, perceptions by some in the community that
glaciers are alive, and the conflicting and intertwined consequences of
rapid glacier change on the cultural fabric of the region. Powerfully
written, The Secret Lives of Glaciers reaches beyond Iceland and touches
on changing glaciers worldwide, revealing oft-overlooked interactions
between people and ice throughout human history.
https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2019/03/a-reading-list-on-women-and-climate-change/
[correlation, not causation (yet proven)]
*Air pollution linked to psychotic experiences in young people*
Teens living in dirty air 70% more likely to have symptoms such as
paranoia, study finds
Damian Carrington Environment editor
@dpcarrington
Wed 27 - 2019
Exhaust fumes from a car
The study found that teens in place with higher levels of nitrogen
oxides, which come from diesel vehicles, were most at risk. Photograph:
Jinny Goodman/Alamy
Young people living with higher levels of air pollution are
significantly more likely to have psychotic experiences, according to
the first study of the issue.
Researchers analysed the experiences of more than 2,000 17-year-olds
across England and Wales and found that those in places with higher
levels of nitrogen oxides had a 70% higher chance of symptoms such as
hearing voices or intense paranoia.
People growing up in cities were already known to have more psychotic
experiences than those outside urban areas and the new work suggests
toxic air is one potential reason. But the type of study done cannot
prove a causal link, and other factors such as noise could be important.
Psychotic experiences are much more common in adolescents than in
adults, but those having these symptoms when young are more likely to
develop serious mental illnesses later. With more people around the
world living in cities every year, scientists are particularly keen to
uncover the reasons for mental ill health in urban centres.
The study took into account other potential causes of psychotic
experiences, such as smoking, alcohol and cannabis use, family income
and psychiatric history, and measures of neighbourhood deprivation.
"[Nitrogen oxides] explained about 60% of the association between urban
living and psychotic experiences," said Joanne Newbury at King's College
London, who led the research. Other factors may include genetic
susceptibility and experience of crime.
Nitrogen oxides come largely from diesel vehicles and are at illegal
levels in most British towns and cities, with the government having lost
three times in the high court over its failure to cut pollution quickly.
Research is linking air pollution with an increasing range of ill
health, including reduced intelligence, dementia and depression, while
other work has revealed air pollution can reach the brain.
"There seems to be some link between exposure to air pollution and
effects in the brain and this [new research] is perhaps another example
of this," said Prof Frank Kelly, at King's College London and also part
of the research team. "Children and young people are most vulnerable to
the health impacts of air pollution owing to the juvenility of the brain
and respiratory system."
The new study, published in the journal Jama Psychiatry, combined
high-resolution air pollution data and psychotic experiences disclosed
by the adolescents in private interviews. A third of the young people
lived in urban areas, with one fifth being rural and the rest suburban.
Overall, 30% of the young people reported at least one psychotic
experience, a rate considered normal for teenage years.
But psychotic experiences were significantly more common among teens
living in the top 25% most polluted places. "In areas with the highest
levels of [nitrogen oxides], there were 12 teens who reported psychotic
experiences for every 20 teens who did not, said Newbury. "In areas with
lower levels, there were only seven teens who reported psychotic
experiences for every 20 teens who did not."
The researchers also found a link to small particle pollution, with
psychotic experiences 45% more common for those teens exposed to higher
levels. However, they said that while this first study provided good
evidence, it was important other studies were done to confirm the findings.
"The study makes a valuable contribution to the growing body of evidence
that air pollution may affect more than just cardiovascular and
respiratory health," said Stefan Reis, the head of atmospheric chemistry
and effects at the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology. "This new study makes
a compelling case to investigate a range of mental health outcomes of
air pollution exposure."
"People living in cities are subjected to high concentrations of toxic
particles and gases from exhaust fumes on a daily basis," said Dr Ellen
Wood, from the Doctors Against Diesel campaign group. "This study adds
to the growing evidence that air pollution could have devastating and
far reaching consequences on our physical and mental health, that is put
at further risk if policymakers do not address this public health
emergency."
"We urgently need to see policies that equitably reduce polluting
vehicles on our roads, and replace them with affordable, sustainable and
accessible public transport," said Rebecca Daniels, at the global health
charity Medact.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/27/air-pollution-linked-to-psychotic-experiences-in-young-people?CMP=twt_a-environment_b-gdneco
[Wise words from a great climate scientist]
*How to Deal with Chaos in Climate and Politics*
In complex systems, small changes can make big differences
By Ben Santer on March 25, 2019
I am obsessed with "large initial-condition ensembles"--LICE. These are
climate models that run multiple scenarios to reflect uncertainties
about the system's past. I've been working with them for the last year.
Most major climate modeling centers have LICE. They are a valuable
scientific tool for trying to understand the relative sizes of a
human-caused global warming signal and the noise of natural climate
variability.
LICE work like this. You take the same climate model and run it dozens
of times, starting from a climate state in 1950 or earlier. In each run,
the model is driven by exactly the same external factors--such as
human-caused changes in atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases--but
starts from slightly different "initial conditions" of the atmosphere
and ocean.
One way of varying these initial conditions is by choosing the weather
from different days. Another way of scrambling the initial state is by
introducing a small random perturbation to the distribution of clouds.
Because the climate system is complex and nonlinear, small differences
in initial conditions grow over time. Within weeks, the atmosphere has
little or no "memory" of its initial state. Within years to a few
decades, the ocean, too, "forgets" the initial three-dimension ocean state.
As a result of this chaotic behavior, each individual member of the
large ensemble has a different sequence of natural internal climate
variability--phenomena like El Ninos and La Ninas. This natural climate
noise occurs against the backdrop of a slowly-evolving global warming
signal driven by greenhouse gas increases. Because these random
sequences of internal variability are not correlated across individual
runs, averaging over dozens of runs beats down the random noise,
yielding a better estimate of the model's global warming signal. LICE
are one of many lines of evidence that the warming since 1950 is large
relative to natural climate variability.
In the real world, of course, we don't have many slightly different
parallel Earths or a handy time machine. We can't travel back to 1950
and change the initial conditions of the climate system. Nor can we
travel back to 2016 and change the initial conditions of the U.S.
political landscape. We cannot tell the U.S. voters of 2016 that by
2019, students around the world will be striking to protest government
inaction on climate change. We cannot tell 2016 voters that some of them
will witness the death and destruction caused by hurricanes Harvey,
Maria, Florence and Michael. That Paradise will be lost in a firestorm.
That President Trump will opt out of the Paris climate accord. That
fossil fuel burning will continue unabated, warming the planet, melting
major ice sheets, raising sea level, diminishing the habitability of
low-lying cities and sowing the seeds of an unprecedented climate-change
diaspora.
With the benefit of hindsight, we clearly see consequences of the
decision taken by the citizens of the United States on November 8, 2016.
We cannot change the decision or the political initial conditions that
led to it. We can, however, influence the initial conditions before the
next presidential election on November 3, 2020. We can use the
intervening 19 months to call out bad behavior.
We can speak out when the president is untruthful, embraces dictators,
uses hateful speech, undermines democratic institutions, demeans allies,
abrogates treaties and initiates trade wars. We can ask our elected
representatives whether their pledge of allegiance is to "one nation,
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all" or to Donald J. Trump. We
can be tireless advocates for decency, honesty, kindness and
rationality. We can ensure that our children's concerns about their
climate future are heard, not mocked. Scientists can speak publicly
about the reality and seriousness of human-caused climate change; we can
encourage our professional institutions and academies to do the same.
In hindsight, vision is 20/20. While perfect hindsight is helpful in
identifying past mistakes and learning from them, a clear view of the
choices facing us in 2020 is even more important. Every U.S. citizen
needs to understand the possible political and climatic trajectories the
world may take after the next presidential election. Some of those
trajectories look grim. Others are more hopeful. All of us have
influence on the initial conditions.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/how-to-deal-with-chaos-in-climate-and-politics/
[Students demand improved curriculum]
*Climate change petition: Oxford students campaign for better teaching
on subject*
26 Mar 2019
An online petition for climate change to be given more prominence on the
curriculum has attracted more than 50,000 signatures.
The petition was launched by four school girls from Oxford, who say
there is growing demand for pupils to be taught more about the impact
and solutions to tackling climate change.
The government says the subject is already covered in science and geography.
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-england-oxfordshire-47709552/climate-change-petition-oxford-students-campaign-for-better-teaching-on-subject
[Atlantic waters mix with Arctic]
*Atlantification of the marine ecosystem in Kongsfjorden, Svalbard*
March 18, 2019
Climate warming is rapidly altering the physical marine environment in
fjords on the west coast of Svalbard towards a more temperate state.
Reductions in sea ice cover and increased ocean temperatures are
evident, resulting in changes of ice-associated and pelagic ecosystems...
- -
The changes we observe in Svalbard are happening fast: the fauna in the
west coast fjords is now less characteristic of the High Arctic, but
more and more resembles the ecosystems along the Norwegian coast, with
food webs partly composed of Atlantic species...
- -
Zooplankton has been monitored each summer in Kongsfjorden since 1996.
The time series shows an increase in the contribution of the Atlantic
copepod Calanus finmarchicus, possibly due to warming and loss of sea
ice in Kongsfjorden. Surprisingly, the abundance of its Arctic cousin C.
glacialis has not declined in Kongsfjorden nor in Isfjorden further
south. Earlier onset of the spring bloom, combined with warmer
temperatures does not appear to displace C. glacialis but rather to
improve its breeding efficiency, shorten its life cycle and reduce its
body size to resemble the smaller C. finmarchicus. The transfer of
energy, from primary producers through Calanus to higher predators, may
then become more efficient due to changes in generation length and
population turnover rate that accompany the changes in body size. For
size-selective predators, however, smaller copepods will be harder to
catch than larger ones, and as the efforts increase, the rewards decrease...
- - -
*Changes*
The marine ecosystems on the west coast of Svalbard are influenced by
the northwards flowing West Spitsbergen Current, a branch of the warm
North Atlantic Current, making the fjords respond to climate change
earlier than fjords situated elsewhere in the Arctic. The
"Atlantification" signal is penetrating deeper into the fjords along the
west coast than previously because of increased temperature in the West
Spitsbergen Current. This change influences the base of food webs, with
phytoplankton converting energy from the sun during the spring bloom
into sugars and lipids that are grazed by herbivorous zooplankton such
as the Calanus copepods. Atlantic predators such as Atlantic cod may
also change the ecosystem by increased predation pressure on smaller
fishes such as polar cod and lower trophic levels.
- - -
This analogy indicates that Arctic species remaining in the ecosystem
may gradually decline in abundance and eventually disappear altogether.
The change, however, does not appear to have reduced the productivity of
the system but has rather led to increasing secondary productivity.
Further, some Arctic species such as C. glacialis appear to be able to
adjust to the new regime by adopting life history strategies similar to
those of Atlantic species, thus making the ecosystems resilient to the
change. The jury is still waiting for more evidence on the outcome of
competitive interactions between the Atlantic newcomers and the Arctic
residents before proclaiming the losers and winners of the grand scale
climate experiment.
https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/node/5175
*This Day in Climate History - March 29, 2016 - from D.R. Tucker*
March 29, 2016: The New York Times reports:
"Deadly summer heat waves in the eastern United States may be
predictable nearly two months before they occur, giving emergency
planners and farmers more time to prepare, scientists reported on
Monday."
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/29/science/heat-wave-predictions-weather.html
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