[TheClimate.Vote] May 4, 2019 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/May 4, 2019/


[Pew research finding]
*Dissatisfaction with how democracy is working is increasing around the 
world*
More people around the world are unhappy with the state of democracy in 
their country than satisfied. Discontent with a country's democracy is 
linked to concerns about its economy and individual rights, along with 
perceptions that politicians are corrupt and out of touch.
In many countries, dissatisfaction with democracy is tied to views about 
economic conditions, personal rights
https://www.pewglobal.org/2019/04/29/many-across-the-globe-are-dissatisfied-with-how-democracy-is-working/ 



[XR talks directly with British government]
*Extinction Rebellion meets Michael Gove* [full length version 1 hour]
ExtinctionRebellion
Published on May 3, 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMGqP5rP8v8


[Interview with a master veteran climate activist]
*Bill McKibben has been sounding the climate alarm for decades. Here's 
his best advice.*
"Climate change is clearly harder because no one made $1 trillion a year 
being a bigot."
By Sean Illing  May 3, 2019
One of the first writers to sound the alarm on climate change was Bill 
McKibben.
His 1989 book, The End of Nature, introduced a mainstream audience to 
the problem of rising greenhouse gas emissions, and propelled him to 
eventually form the international environmental group 350.org in 2007.
McKibben's latest book, Falter, is a depressing vindication of his first 
one. Thirty years ago, he warned that human beings were altering the 
planet in such a way that we would imperil our own existence. Today, he 
says, "we are even deeper in the hole."- - - [the partial transcript 
concludes] - -
*Sean Illing*
I see the gap between our actual interests -- protecting the environment 
-- and the incentives guiding our civilization -- neoliberal capitalism 
-- growing. Am I too pessimistic?

*Bill McKibben*
The only way to square that circle is for human beings to do what we've 
done a few times in the past, which is to build movements big enough to 
demand that those in power make change. That's what I've spent the last 
10 years trying to do. And we've had success doing this.

But I think we're at the beginning of something quite remarkable right 
now, and much of it has nothing to do with the work that my organization 
has done. We've seen incredible leadership from indigenous communities, 
we've seen the ascent of this Green New Deal, we've seen kids around the 
world protesting climate inaction, we've seen the Extinction Rebellion 
protests in London -- all sorts of antibodies are kicking in.

I'm hopeful that we're going to see much more of this in the near future.
- - -
*Sean Illing*
I appreciate that your book ends with a call to nonviolent organization; 
as far as I can tell, this is the best way to undermine the 
concentrations of wealth and power that currently block the way to 
meaningful solutions.
Can you briefly lay out your vision here?

*Bill McKibben*
The antibodies kick in when the body has a fever, but you don't always 
get enough antibodies in time -- sometimes the patient dies. That's a 
realistic possibility here. But it's also a realistic possibility to 
imagine people continuing to rise up in sufficient numbers and with 
sufficient savvy that we change the zeitgeists pretty quickly.

That's what activists play for at this level: a change in the 
zeitgeists. A change in what people perceive as normal, natural, or 
obvious. And when it happens, the consequences can be immediate and 
breathtaking. You're a young man, but you're probably still old enough 
to remember that there was a time not long ago when gay marriage seemed 
like a preposterous idea that would never ever happen.

It's only five or six years ago that people like Barack Obama were still 
against it. But great organizing caused a shift in the zeitgeist. Now, 
climate change is clearly harder because no one made $1 trillion a year 
being a bigot. So the fight is harder, but the principle's the same.

It's a very hard task. I've watched the climate movement build from 
nothing to where it is now and that's been very hard work and now we 
need another order of magnitude. I don't know if we can do it, but I 
know that we will try and I know that human beings will put up a good 
fight, and if we go down, we'll go down with our dignity intact. There's 
something to be said for that.

The thing that always worried me the most was that we'd just go over 
this cliff without hardly even noticing it or putting up a fight. But 
now I'm confident that won't happen.
https://www.vox.com/2019/5/3/18307660/climate-change-green-new-deal-bill-mckibben-falter


[Lessons not learned, will be repeated]
*Despite floods, Nebraska utility leaders still hesitant to address 
climate change*
WRITTEN BY Karen Uhlenhuth
Extreme weather this spring hasn't prompted members of the Nebraska 
Public Power District board to consider a speedier shift from fossil fuels.
While scientists warn that climate change is a likely factor in the 
unprecedented flooding that inundated eastern Nebraska in March, 
directors at the state's largest utility largely do not see the event as 
a call to hasten the utility's transition away from fossil fuels.

"I don't think the … flood has necessarily affected the thinking of the 
board very much," said Gary Thompson, chairman of the publicly elected 
board of directors of the Nebraska Public Power District, or NPPD.

The flood was estimated to have caused about $1.3 billion in damage to 
roads, dams, levees and other structures, as well as farm crops and 
livestock. Three Nebraskans died as a result. One of them was a man 
swept from his home downstream of the Spencer Dam, an NPPD hydropower 
facility that collapsed under the pressure of heavy rain and large ice 
chunks.

Workers at the utility's Cooper nuclear plant, located on the Missouri 
River, had to be ferried in by helicopter after roads were cut off. Had 
the river risen another two feet, the plant would have shut down.

Thompson, from Clatonia, remarked that he was "not terribly surprised" 
by the flood and its aftermath.

"I have recognized that climate change is causing these extreme events 
we've seen around this country and the world for several years," 
Thompson said. "[The Nebraska flood] reaffirms my feelings about it."

Although he views the flooding as a consequence of the warming world, 
Thompson didn't exactly advocate accelerating the utility's shift away 
from fossil fuels and the adoption of more renewable generation. 
Currently, NPPD derives about 65% of its electricity from 
non-carbon-emitting sources, including 48% percent nuclear and 8% each 
from wind and hydropower.

What he did advocate was to prepare for government carbon-reduction 
mandates that he thinks are likely.

"As we look at the potential regulations and laws that may be coming, 
what are the risks we face and how do we mitigate those? We are moving 
into a world of decarbonization, and we want to look at how do we 
mitigate the impacts of that.

"Reducing our carbon footprint is inevitable. We want to develop a plan 
where we are moving towards reducing our carbon footprint and at the 
same time assuring we have reliable energy."

Fred Christensen, an NPPD board member from Lyons, concurred that 
"there's a very good chance that climate change is affecting our 
weather. I don't think anybody can prove it, but I lean towards that 
position."

His flood-related concerns, he said, are of a more immediate nature: 
washed-out roads that prevent crews from reaching transmission towers 
and other infrastructure that requires repair and maintenance, for example.

"As far as the future, we're working probably as much as we can towards 
renewables and non-emitting sources of power. Sixty-some percent of our 
energy source is non-carbon-emitting, which in the industry is very 
good. We're working towards more of that all the time."

Recently, for example, NPPD announced an 8.5-megawatt community solar 
project it will develop with the City of Norfolk.

Getting in the way of more aggressive adoption of renewables, in 
Christensen's view, is money.

"We've got a lot of customers and board members who would be very, very 
hesitant to do more than we are doing now. They are very conservative 
and don't want to spend too much money. They feel a responsibility for 
the lady on the end of the road who is on a fixed income.

"To do too much, we have to increase our rates and that is just not in 
the cards. Maybe it should be, but right now it isn't."

Other board members read little into the floods that left a lot of farm 
ground so saturated that farmers couldn't get into their fields to plant 
crops.

"We've had some weather," said Bill Johnson, from Pilger. "There's all 
kinds of different theories out there. I went to a wind and solar 
meeting yesterday, and the lady there was well-read on climate change 
and she was saying it was due to the wind towers causing turbulence in 
the atmosphere."

The comment Johnson references was likely referring to a commonly 
misunderstood 2018 study that identified a temporary, localized warming 
effect around wind turbines. Climate change is caused by man-made 
emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, which wind 
turbines do not emit.

Ken Kunze, a director from York, said climate change does not factor 
into his thinking.

Flooding "is just something that happens," he said. "I don't think 
there's anything unusual about it."

Jerry Chlopek, from Columbus, also sees the flood as nothing more than a 
freak occurrence.

"I don't think it has anything to do with climate change. It was just a 
perfect storm. You had your ice from the cold winter from the river, 
frozen ground, and a fast thaw. The water had no place to go."

Director Ed Schrock from Elm Creek said he's not sure what to make of 
the flood.

"I don't know what to blame on climate change and what not to blame on 
climate change. I saw a lot of strange weather events 50, 60 years ago."

He is sure, however, that the utility he helps to run "should take 
little steps, not big ones. If you're taking big steps, tell me how you 
replace 1,350 megawatts of power." The utility's largest coal-fired 
plant has a capacity of 1,365 MW.

"How do you replace that on a hot summer day when the wind is not blowing?"

That is a critical question, according to Mary Harding, a director from 
Plattsmouth. Among the eight directors interviewed, she's the only one 
who sees the flood as a compelling reason to act more decisively now.

"For me, it gives us greater urgency and maybe a platform to discuss why 
climate change is so important for the people of Nebraska," she said. 
"Now we can talk about, 'It's your income, your livelihood, your 
lifestyle, your children's future.'

"For me, it's obvious evidence that we have more extreme and more 
frequent extreme weather events that we need to take into account as we 
decide what we are doing in the future with generation. Nobody's going 
to care if we save half a cent on a kilowatt-hour if the weather makes 
living here a challenge, if it makes raising crops and livestock here a 
challenge. That's what I'm hoping people are seeing out of this."

And yet, she said, straight talk about the changing climate is 
considered bad sportsmanship in her home state.

"I feel like in the culture of rural communities in Nebraska, there's a 
very strong value of being loyal to your community, to your team. And 
climate change has become one of those things where if you say, 'This 
might be climate change,' you are no longer being loyal to the scripture 
of your community, the prevailing belief system. It's a betrayal of your 
people and your culture."

However, she added, "I sense more and more people going, 'There's 
something going on here that is not normal.'"

The utility's board is considering a small step toward possibly 
increased use of renewable generation.

"We have tentatively given a head nod to a study of what are the 
economic and reliability implications of reducing our carbon footprint," 
Harding said. "That draft is going out to wholesale and retail customer 
managers in the next couple weeks." She said the study would be framed 
"in terms of risk mitigation for NPPD."

Harding said the board likely will vote in May on whether to pursue the 
study. She hopes her colleagues will proceed, and that the study will be 
completed by the end of 2019. She is not optimistic, but she believes 
the utility must rethink its business.

"We have a broader charge to look at the economic well-being of our 
community," she said. "When we face the utter devastation of this last 
big event, the millions and millions of dollars of income and capital 
that are gone for people who were already struggling a little to make 
ends meet, I think people are beginning to wonder if it's responsible to 
just say, 'No, it couldn't be climate change and we need to keep doing 
what we're doing.'"
https://energynews.us/2019/05/03/midwest/despite-floods-nebraska-utility-leaders-still-hesitant-to-address-climate-change/



[Climate Refugees Documentary]
*Fleeing climate change - the real environmental disaster | DW Documentary*
DW Documentary
Published on May 1, 2019
How many millions of people will be forced to leave their homes by 2050? 
This documentary looks at the so-called hotspots of climate change in 
the Sahel zone, Indonesia and the Russian Tundra.

Lake Chad in the Sahel zone has already shrunk by 90 percent since the 
1960s due to the increasing heat. About 40 million people will be forced 
to migrate to places where there is enough rainfall. Migration has 
always existed as a strategy to adapt to a changing environment. But the 
number of those forced to migrate solely because of climate change has 
increased dramatically since the 1990s. It is a double injustice: after 
becoming rich at the expense of the rest of the world, the 
industrialized countries are now polluting the atmosphere with their 
emissions and bringing a second misfortune to the inhabitants of the 
poorer regions. One of them is Mohammed Ibrahim: as Lake Chad got hotter 
and drier, he decided to go where the temperatures were less extreme and 
there was still a little water, trekking with his wife, children and 70 
camels from Niger to Chad and then further south. The journey lasted 
several years and many members of his herd died of thirst. Now he and 
his family are living in a refugee camp: they only have seven camels 
left. Mohammed is one of many who have left their homelands in the Sahel 
- not because of conflict and crises, but because of the high 
temperatures. He's a real climate refugee.
https://youtu.be/cl4Uv9_7KJE


[Oxfam report from India]
*Devastation as Cyclone Fani makes landfall in India | Oxfam GB*
Oxfam GB
Published on May 3, 2019
#cyclonefani #cycloneindia
Cyclone Fani has made landfall on India's east coast.
Heavy rain, flooding and over 100mph winds have been reported.
Oxfam teams are on the ground, ready to respond with water, sanitation 
and food. https://donate.oxfam.org.uk/emergency...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78cHtdAdOT0
- - -
[from cyclone Idai]
*Cyclone Idai - delivering aid by motorbike and canoe | Oxfam GB*
Oxfam GB
Published on May 3, 2019
Oxfam's Fashion Mawere talks through delivering vital water purification 
cubes - Lifesaver cubes, to remote villages in Mozambique, following the 
devastating #cycloneIdai. When the main vehicle could go no further the 
Oxfam team improvised using motorbikes and canoes. 
https://www.oxfam.org.uk/cyclone-idai
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CnZ_-8PAmc


[US preparations from the EPA]
*Planning for Natural Disaster Debris (PDF)(150 pp, 6 MB, April 2019, 
EPA-F-19-003) *
https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2019-05/documents/final_pndd_guidance_0.pdf 



[detailed look at Inslee's climate plan - target goals 2030 - 2035]
"*Governor Jay Inslee's 100% Clean Energy for America Plan* will achieve 
100% clean electricity, 100% zero-emission new vehicles and 100% 
zero-carbon new buildings. This plan will empower America to make the 
entire electrical grid and every new car and building climate 
pollution-free, at the speed that science and public health demand. "
This plan looks to build upon, accelerate, and redefine the movement for 
100% clean energy - taking it from the power sector, and enshrining it 
into policy for 100% new zero-emission vehicles, and 100% zero-carbon 
buildings. And it takes the proven leadership of state and local climate 
progress - like Washington state's new 100% clean electricity law ("the 
strongest clean energy legislation in the country") and uses them as a 
model for national action.
Specifically, this plan calls for a 10 year action plan is a roadmap to 
achieve:

    CLEAN ELECTRICITY: Set a national 100% Clean Electricity Standard
    that requires 100% carbon-neutral power - including an end to
    coal-fired power generation - by 2030,  putting America on a path to
    100% clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy by 2035.
    CLEAN VEHICLES: Reach 100% zero emissions for all new light- and
    medium-duty vehicles, and all buses by 2030.
    CLEAN BUILDINGS: Achieve 100% zero-carbon pollution from all new
    commercial and residential buildings, by 2030.

This is the first policy rollout as part of Gov. Inslee's comprehensive 
Climate Mission agenda that will enable America to meet crucial 
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's targets - cutting climate 
pollution 50% by 2030 and reaching net-zero emissions before 2045. In 
the coming weeks Inslee will bring forward further announcements on 
investment in jobs, infrastructure, and innovation; environmental 
justice and economic inclusion; and ending fossil fuel giveaways. Much 
more to come!

We feel that this 100% Clean Energy for America Plan is a critical 
starting point in our fight to defeat climate change: We must establish 
smart rules and clear goals if we are going to achieve real pollution 
reductions and unleash a new generation of innovation, investment and 
job creation.
https://www.jayinslee.com/issues/100clean


[Science press release - Argo ocean studies]
*UW, partners reach milestone in program using robots to monitor world's 
oceans*
   Around the planet's oceans, nearly 4,000 floats -- many of them built 
at the University of Washington -- are plunging up and down, collecting 
and transmitting observations of the world's oceans.

This fall, one of these diving robots made the program's 2 millionth 
measurement, reporting temperature and salinity recorded to a depth of 
about a mile...

The Argo Program is a 20-year-old project to gather 3D data on the 
oceans. The U.S. program is part of an international observing effort 
with 26 countries that operate floats throughout the planet's waters.

"When we started in 1999, no one would have even considered the 2 
million profile milestone," said Stephen Riser, a UW professor of 
oceanography. "In the beginning there was some question about whether 
the instruments would even work well enough to do this. We were just 
hoping it would work for the first few years."

The UW has manufactured between one third and one half of the U.S. 
floats now in use, Riser said, which account for about half the 
international total. So the UW has manufactured about a fifth or a sixth 
of the world's supply.

The UW manufactures roughly 110 floats per year that get deployed around 
the planet. Two undergraduates work in the lab and three graduate 
students are working with the data. Of this year's UW floats, two-thirds 
were destined for the South Pacific and the other third are going to 
Antarctica.

Scientists say the nearly 20-year-old robotic fleet has transformed 
oceanography: Satellites track information only from the ocean's 
surface, while ship-based observations are expensive and see only a 
small snapshot.

"Not to be too hyperbolic, but Argo has really revolutionized physical 
oceanography," said Alison Gray, an assistant professor of oceanography. 
"I think it's been one of the largest successes of any observational 
program of its kind."

The cylindrical robots, about the size of a large rolled-up poster, dive 
down to a depth of 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) to drift with currents, then 
later sink down to 2 kilometers. After 10 days below the surface they 
adjust their buoyancy and gather data on the upward trip. Once at the 
surface, an antenna beams data back to computers onshore. A single 
battery lets the robot explore unaided for four to five years.

"One of the most important practical uses for the data is in weather 
forecasting, in that the data that we get from Argo have significantly 
improved weather forecasts and marine forecasting around the world," 
Gray said. "But scientists are interested in the data to understand the 
processes that are controlling the ocean, and how the ocean impacts the 
climate system."

More than 4,000 scientific papers and 275 doctoral theses have been 
written using Argo data. Observations are uploaded to the internet every 
three hours and are then available for free for anyone to use.

"That's become the norm, the real-time availability of data," Riser 
said. "But that was not the norm when we started in 2000."

In the future, Deep Argo and Biogeochemical Argo floats will travel 
deeper and measure more things than the original devices. Both are in 
small-scale prototype mode now, Riser said, and researchers hope to 
secure funding for a larger-scale deployment. In addition to temperature 
and salinity these can measure ocean pH, oxygen, nitrate, chlorophyll 
found in microscopic algae, and light penetration.

While the existing Argo array helps to understand the movement of heat 
in the oceans, the newer technology will explore the deep ocean and help 
track the movement of carbon, which is the other half of the climate 
puzzle, Riser said.

"In coming years, it will be really important to maintain the core 
array, the high-quality data that's coming in, but also to expand into 
these new areas: sensors that can measure new variables, and technology 
that lets us go into deeper water or even into coastal regions," Gray said.

The UW has already been building biogeochemical floats as part of a 
dedicated project to study the ocean around Antarctica. A global Argo 
version would be similar, Riser said, but without the ice-avoidance 
capabilities.

"The biogeochemical floats will be a whole different set of results that 
we can't even imagine right now," Riser said. "It won't just be the heat 
part of the ocean cycle, it will be the carbon cycle. There's a 
tremendous amount to learn."
  - - ###
https://www.washington.edu/news/2019/01/14/uw-partners-reach-milestone-in-program-using-robots-to-monitor-worlds-oceans/


[Southern Ocean videos from the UW]
*DEEP DIVE INTO THE SOUTHERN OCEAN*
**https://vimeopro.com/user19301588/deep-dive-into-the-southern-ocean


[Let's eat!, don't miss this recent series in the NYTimes]
Food+Climate
*How to shop, cook and eat in a world dealing with climate change*
https://www.nytimes.com/spotlight/food-climate-change


*This Day in Climate History - May 4, 2010 - from D.R. Tucker*
May 4, 2010: MSNBC's Keith Olbermann rips syndicated columnist George 
Will for continuing to peddle myths about wind energy.
http://mediamatters.org/video/2010/05/04/olbermann-names-will-krauthammer-in-worst-perso/164226
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