[TheClimate.Vote] November 1, 2019 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

Fri Nov 1 09:08:00 EDT 2019

/November 1, 2019/

[Ventura county, fast moving this morning - 0% contained]
*Maria Fire Explodes To More Than 8,300 Acres Overnight*
About 250 firefighters were on scene, supported by three water-dropping 
helicopters and more than 30 engines, which were positioning to defend 
homes, according to the fire department.
https://laist.com/2019/11/01/maria-fire-day-2-evacuations-closures.php

["She is speaking of California - posted [Tuesday] on Facebook]
*Essentially entitled, "The End of Normal Days"**by Rebecca Solnit,*

    If you haven't been in the blackout zones, where I spent much of my
    weekend (climate benefit aside), it's like this: no traffic lights.
    No gas stations. No stores. No schools. No internet. No banks and no
    bank machines. Not a lot of options for recharging what wasn't
    charged. It is shut down. No pharmacies. Hospitals probably running
    on generators, some Sonoma County hospitals evacuated. People can't
    work or go to school or run their businesses. The stars were
    beautiful last night in the darkness but I am sure people are
    feeling isolated and distressed and concerned about what's next in
    the short term and the long. The billions lost by people whose lives
    were put on freeze because of an antiquated evil corporation and its
    outdated, unmaintained grid and a growing climate catastrophe hasn't
    been estimated, but it's huge- to reduce what is productive and
    creative and socially beneficial and personally meaningful work to
    dollars.I was fine at a house with headlights and solar lights and a
    gas stove, but the no communications but my phone losing its charge
    wasn't fun. I'm back in the city, but getting up this morning to the
    brown horizon, the smell o smoke, and the two helicopters near
    overhead: I thought, this is a war, and then I thought, nature
    finally pushed back. Most of the north bay and a lot of east bay is
    shut down and there was a traffic jam of people pouring into the
    city at midmorning. To San Francisco where everything works, since
    we don't have wildfires (because we barely have anything wild). The
    winds are due to start up again tomorrow.

    It's so clear we're not adequately prepared for this. I don't even
    know where the 180,000 (official figure) Sonoma County evacuees
    went--people with resources have options; people without don't; and
    people who aren't documented have a whole other layer of issues to
    cope with (which is why the Undocufund supporting that community
    specifically is so great). Evacuations by car, Southern California
    reminded us, leads to traffic jams, which when gas is hard to come
    by, become a mess. I heard someone on the radio (in my car, coming
    back to SF) saying they're getting emergency alerts that are just
    links that, without a smart phone you can't follow up on and also
    some cell towers are out, and not a lot of people (except me and
    your grandma) still have land lines. There's physical stranding and
    there's information stranding. And of course people with health
    issues, disabilities, and mobility issues have a harder time with
    all this, and then there's people who are close to the financial
    edge who will be pushed over by losing work, or home, or both.

    We here in California are the seventh largest economy in the world.
    We are also a disaster zone. This is climate chaos. This can't be
    the new normal. This is why I did a benefit for climate action and
    data last night. This is why I'll keep working on it.

[Attributed, shared via email, no link found]

[The RAND Blog]
*Turning Off Power to Combat Wildfires Could Harm the Very People Who 
Need Protection*
by Joie D. Acosta and Regina A. Shih
- -
While intentionally shutting off power may be a practical way to prevent 
power lines from sparking wildfires, is it worth the risks?

Indeed, planned power outages may be hurting the very populations they 
seek to protect.

California has had the 10 costliest wildland fires in the United States, 
with damage ranging from $1.3 billion to $10.5 billion.

These wildfires disproportionately affected older adults because older 
adults are more likely than other age groups to be socially isolated, to 
face challenges with evacuating, and to have chronic health conditions...
- - -
For example, during 2017's Hurricane Irma, the most common causes of 
death were related to power outages that exacerbated existing medical 
issues. Among the power outage-related deaths, most were heat-related 
deaths of older adults, followed by a much smaller number of deaths 
among patients on electricity-dependent medical treatment, such as 
ventilators and dialysis machines.

Within California there are at least 176,483 electricity-dependent 
individuals.

Despite the fact that these individuals are unlikely to be enrolled in a 
registry with their county or city or with their electric company, this 
population is frequently included in public health and health care 
emergency plans, where they receive education on how to create a 
personal preparedness plan to best preserve medications and, in some 
instances, access backup power generators.

However, the same is not true for older adults, particularly those who 
are aging in place. There is no national-level agency identified in 
policy or by legal frameworks that is directly accountable for older 
adults' protection and resilience.

Nearly 6 million Californians are over 65 years of age. This is the 
fastest-growing population in California.
- - -
Public health authorities, in partnership with utility companies and 
emergency management agencies, could rely on existing aging-in-place 
efforts to locate and reach older adults.

For instance, there are almost 400 communities enrolled in AARP's 
Age-Friendly Network. And more than 200 villages in 45 states and the 
District of Columbia that facilitate social support and community 
connections for older adults.

Groups such as these can bring critical expertise on the needs of and 
access to older adults across the spectrum, from those with multiple 
vulnerabilities to those that are high-functioning. This expertise is 
needed to ensure that older adults are protected during planned as well 
as unplanned power outages.

We recently designed a toolkit based on our research to promote older 
adults' resilience and to provide operational guidance on aligning 
public health departments with other agencies to protect the health and 
well-being of older adults; utility companies might also benefit from 
these collaborations.

Older people stand to suffer when the power goes out. Until more 
thoughtful and comprehensive decisions are made, planned power outages 
need to be planned better.

Joie Acosta and Regina Shih are senior behavioral scientists at the 
nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation.
https://www.rand.org/blog/2019/10/turning-off-power-to-combat-wildfires-could-harm-the.html

[Washington Post]
*Climate change isn't just about extreme weather. Entire ecosystems are 
collapsing. *
By Robert Gebelhoff - Assistant editor and Opinions contributor
Oct 31, 2019
Windstorms have whipped up wildfires across California, forcing tens of 
thousands to flee the inferno. But while our collective attention has 
justifiably focused on the fires, they aren't the only climate 
change-influenced event that's menacing the state.

As fires rage on land, a massive ecosystem just off California's 
northern coast that has buoyed a thriving fishing industry has 
collapsed. It's an example of a much larger, potentially more ominous 
climate change story: the ongoing collapse of our planet's biodiversity...
- - -
If you think such collapses don't affect you, think again. Climate 
change, along with habitat destruction and overconsumption, is 
eviscerating species that are crucially important to humans. Most insect 
species are either declining or endangered. Over the past half-century, 
North America lost a quarter of its bird populations. These are the 
pollinators, seed distributors and food chain managers that are 
essential to life on Earth -- and, by extension, human civilization.

The media does the public a disservice by almost exclusively focusing on 
climate change when extreme weather directly threatens people. And even 
when climate change does take up our news feeds, it seems that the 
public has become largely numb to the crisis. But climate change never 
takes a pause; humanity's excesses endanger Earth's biodiversity. It's 
time we recognized that we're putting ourselves at risk as well.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/10/31/life-earth-is-groaning-under-weight-humanity-do-we-hear-it/

[Carbon capture essential]
*Carbon capture is vital for planet, scientists say*
October 31st, 2019, by Paul Brown
Carbon capture and storage is now proved to work and is essential to 
prevent global average temperatures exceeding 1.5C, Norwegian scientists 
say.

LONDON, 31 October, 2019 − If the world is to avoid dangerous 
overheating, some climate scientists say, carbon capture and storage 
(CCS) is essential. But compared with other ways of tackling global 
heating, it is a method that is developing slowly.

Norway, though, one of the world's biggest oil producers, has been 
successfully using carbon capture since 1996. Now, Norwegian scientists 
say, the rest of the world must learn to do so as quickly as possible, 
arguing that all large industrial plants could and should capture and 
store the carbon dioxide they produce before it reaches the atmosphere...
more at - 
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/carbon-capture-is-vital-for-planet-scientists-say/

[continuing video talk US military in 20 years ]
*Rapid Climate Change Threat Multipliers to U.S. Military Risk Collapse 
Within Twenty Years*
Oct 31, 2019 - Paul Beckwith
I continue discussing how the U.S. military impacts rapid climate change 
(via operational, material, and logistical emissions) and also how rapid 
climate change threatens entire collapse of the U.S. military within 20 
years. As climate change accelerates much "faster than expected", we 
face an emergency of unprecedented scale in the history of humanity. I 
recently discussed Caribbean nations facing the prospect of becoming 
uninhabitable due to stalled superstorms; same for Middle East regions 
reaching 35C wet-bulb temperatures. Will we need to add parts of 
California to this list now due to mega fires?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxddcgWpXcw

[optimistic invention news - better hurry up deployment]
*Scientist have developed a lithium ion battery* that charges at an 
elevated temperature to increase reaction rate but keeps the cell cool 
during discharge, showing the potential to add 200 miles of driving 
range to an electric car in 10 minutes. If scaled, the design is one 
potential strategy to alleviate concerns that all-electric vehicles lack 
sufficient cruise range to safely reach a destination without stalling 
mid-journey. The Pennsylvania State University researchers present the 
work October 30 in the journal Joule.
 From the Journal Joule
*Asymmetric Temperature Modulation for Extreme Fast Charging of 
Lithium-Ion Batteries*
https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(19)30481-7

[Which is which witch?]
*We're Incentivizing Bad Science*
Current research trends resemble the early 21st century's financial bubble
- - -
Unless and until leadership is taken at a structural and societal level 
to alter the incentive structure present, the current environment will 
continue to encourage and promote wasting of resources, squandering of 
research efforts and delaying of progress; such waste and delay is 
something that those suffering diseases for which we have inadequate 
therapy, and those suffering conditions for which we have inadequate 
technological remedies, can ill afford and should not be forced to endure.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/were-incentivizing-bad-science/

[Democracy Now]
*New Study: 300 Million Face Severe Risk of Climate-Fueled Coastal 
Flooding by 2050*
Oct 31, 2019
Democracy Now!
As a shocking new report finds that many coastal cities will be flooded 
by rising sea levels by 2050, Chile's President Sebastian Pinera 
announced Wednesday that the U.N. Climate Summit in Santiago has been 
canceled. Anti-inequality protests have entered their third week in the 
country with protesters calling for the Pinera government to resign. The 
U.N. said it is now looking for an alternative venue for the annual 
climate meetings. Meanwhile, a dire new report has warned 300 million 
people are at risk from rising sea levels, with the most vulnerable 
populations concentrated in the Global South. According to the study 
published in Nature Communications, global sea levels are expected to 
rise between two and seven feet or possibly more, with some coastal 
cities being wiped off the map. We speak with Harjeet Singh, the global 
lead on climate change for Action Aid who is based in New Delhi, India; 
and Benjamin Strauss, co-author of the study in Nature Communications 
and CEO and chief scientist at Climate Central.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkJLV6pEfHQ

[Interactive Map]
COASTAL RISK SCREENING TOOL
*LAND PROJECTED TO BE BELOW ANNUAL FLOOD LEVEL IN 2050*
Improved elevation data indicate far greater global threats from sea 
level rise and coastal flooding than previously thought, and greater 
benefits from reducing their causes. A report and scientific paper 
(below) detail research methods and results for 135 nations and globally.
Compare elevation datasets here or select "Change projections" to see or 
change projection details such as year or pollution scenario.
https://coastal.climatecentral.org/map/8/100.6166/13.2746/

[generational turn-about]
*'OK Boomer' Marks the End of Friendly Generational Relations*
Now it's war: Gen Z has finally snapped over climate change and 
financial inequality.
- - -
  Shannon O'Connor, 19, designed a T-shirt and hoodie with the phrase 
"ok boomer" written in the "thank you" style of a plastic shopping bag. 
She uploaded it to Bonfire, a site for selling custom apparel, with the 
tagline "Ok boomer have a terrible day." After promoting the shirt on 
TikTok, she received more than $10,000 in orders...
- - -
...while older generations have always looked down on younger kids or 
talked about things "back in their day," she and other teens believe 
older people are actively hurting young people. "Everybody in Gen Z is 
affected by the choices of the boomers, that they made and are still 
making," she said. "Those choices are hurting us and our future. 
Everyone in my generation can relate to that experience and we're all 
really frustrated by it."
"Gen Z is going to be the first generation to have a lower quality of 
life than the generation before them," said Joshua Citarella, 32, a 
researcher who studies online communities. Teenagers today find 
themselves, he said, with "three major crises all coming to a head at 
the Gen Z moment."...
- - -
"Millennials and Gen Xers are on our side, but I think Gen Z is finally 
putting their feet in the ground and saying enough is enough," he said.

Teens say "ok boomer" is the perfect response because it's blasé but 
cutting. It's the digital equivalent of an eye roll. And because boomers 
so frequently refer to younger generations as "snowflakes," a few 
teenagers said, it's particularly hilarious to watch them freak out 
about the phrase.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/29/style/ok-boomer.html

[Samantha Bee on Climate Terror!]
*Full Frontal Rewind: Sam's Takes on Climate Change | Full Frontal on TBS*
Sep 2, 2019
Full Frontal with Samantha Bee
Unfortunately, the DNC declined to have a presidential debate on the 
very real, very serious topic of climate change. Fortunately, we've put 
together some of our top pieces on the topic from over the year. 
#FullFrontalRewind
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=421&v=EyMAmakw1dU

*This Day in Climate History - November 1, 1987 - from D.R. Tucker*
At a Democratic presidential candidates' forum on the environment in 
Manchester, New Hampshire, Boston Globe environmental reporter Dianne 
Dumanoski asks Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis and Sen. Al Gore about 
their plans to address acid rain and climate change. Dukakis and Gore 
note that the US must show global leadership on both issues.

http://c-spanvideo.org/program/Envir (19:55-26:44)
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