[TheClimate.Vote] October 10, 2019 - Daily Global Warming News Digest.

[richard pauli]

/October 10, 2019/

[no power, no smoke]
*Northern California hit by mega power cuts over wildfire fears*
Large swathes of the San Francisco Bay Area - though not the city itself 
- have lost power, angering residents.
The region's utility company, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), has 
warned the shutdown could last several days.
The company's transmission lines started the deadliest wildfire in 
California's history last year.
With weather forecasts predicting high winds, the move is intended to 
prevent the risk of fallen power lines igniting more wildfires.
"The conditions are ripe: dry fuel, high winds, warm event. Any spark 
can create a significant event," said Ray Riordan, director of the 
Office of Emergency Management in San Jose, during a press conference on 
Tuesday.
The National Weather Service has issued a red flag warning for the Santa 
Cruz Mountains, North and East Bay regions until Thursday, warning that 
conditions could result in "the strongest offshore wind event in the 
area since the October 2017 North Bay fires"...
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49982236
- -
*How PG&E’s historic blackouts will put California's medical emergency 
planning to the test*
https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/health-and-medicine/article235940257.html#storylink=cpy


[future battery power]
*Nobel Prize in Chemistry goes to development of lithium batteries*
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/10/nobel-prize-chemistry-goes-development-lithium-batteries



[sez the NYT]
*One Thing You Can Do: Talk to Your Children About Climate Change*
By Jillian Mock
Last month, young people around the world skipped school to join global 
climate strikes. Children of all ages marched, chanted and carried signs 
with slogans like, "You'll die of old age, I'll die of climate change."
Dark messages like that highlighted the worry many young people feel 
about climate change.
Climate change and related natural disasters can take a toll on mental 
health, according to a 2017 report by the American Psychological 
Association. That can include depression and anxiety.
Children may be one of the hardest-hit groups. According to a poll by 
the Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation, more than seven in 
10 teenagers and young adults in the United States say climate change 
will cause harm to their generation. That includes young people who 
identify as Democratics and Republicans.

In order to lighten that anxiety, experts say, parents should talk to 
their children.
To address these fears, find a calm moment to ask your child what 
they've seen or heard about climate change and how that makes them feel, 
said Dr. Lise Van Susteren, a psychiatrist in Washington and a founder 
of the Climate Psychiatry Alliance. She said parents should gently 
correct irrational fears but not downplay anxieties just to make 
children feel better. That could just make the child feel she can't 
trust adults to be honest with them on this topic.
"Talk about the problem, then pivot to the solution," Dr. Van Susteren said.
Once you've discussed your child's climate fears, talk about people and 
organizations that are already working on large-scale climate solutions, 
said Maria Ojala, a psychologist at Orebro University in Sweden who 
studies young people and climate change.

If possible, talk about solutions in a personal context. Highlight steps 
you've already taken as a family or as individuals to reduce your carbon 
footprints and brainstorm new ideas together. Taking action can be an 
empowering antidote to fear, Dr. Van Susteren said. Encourage your child 
to take action with her peers as well, like joining a group at school or 
volunteering with a local organization. Collective action has mental 
health benefits, according to Dr. Ojala. "We are social beings and it's 
very good for our well-being to work together with others and be part of 
a group," she said.
You probably won't get rid of your child's fears altogether, and that's 
O.K., Dr. Ojala said. The goal is to help your child cope with her fears 
in a constructive way to avoid hopelessness.
Finally, think about your own personal choices and lead by example, Dr. 
Van Susteren said. Your children are probably watching.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/09/climate/children-anxiety-climate-newsletter-nyt.html



[infrastructure for carbon energy]
*Pipelines!*
09 October 2019
James Hansen
How much effort to spend fighting pipelines?  What is the best use of 
our time and resources?  On one hand, educating lawmakers and the public 
about the merits of a rising carbon fee is crucial.  Once enacted, a 
rising carbon fee will make the most carbon-intensive energy sources 
uneconomic.  Oil derived from tar sands or tar shale is high on the list 
of the most carbon-rich.

However, as part of my testimony last week to the Illinois Commerce 
Commission, in opposition to the proposed expansion of the Dakota Access 
pipeline, I did a calculation of the amount of CO2 that will be released 
by the additional crude oil, if the pipeline capacity is increased from 
570,000 bpd (barrels per day) to 1,100,000 bpd.  The additional CO2 
emitted is equivalent to fifteen 1,000-megawatt coal plants.

The lawyers asked the question "If the proposed expansion does not 
occur, won't refiners find other sources of crude?"  The real question, 
it seems to me, is whether the Illinois Commerce Commission will pave 
the way for expanded use of this exceptionally harmful fuel or whether, 
by making the right choice, the Commission will exercise leadership that 
other authorities can emulate, which decisions, in combination, will 
function to restrict full exploitation of this carbon-intensive crude.

Stopping pipelines is difficult.  Yet climate science is clear. Most of 
the additional CO2 pumped into the air will need to be extracted, 
somehow, if we are to maintain shorelines and an hospitable climate for 
future generations.  Just slowing approval of pipelines has merit.  If 
construction is delayed long enough to allow governments to come to 
their senses, we may prevent some pipelines from ever being built.

My testimony to the Illinois Commerce Commission is available here 
[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fsOV_5k5Yrkckf0POyH3yMasVn5iIVO6/view].
https://mailchi.mp/caa/pipelines-1143507?e=c4e20a3850




[It's called destabilization]
*Global Warming: rising temperatures could bring more snow | Just The FAQs*
Oct 9, 2019
USA TODAY
Climate change is making winters colder, despite rising temperatures and 
hotter summers. Here's why.
RELATED: https://youtu.be/vsCK-5K_Mfo

Forget fall - portions of central U.S. will feel downright winter-like 
over the next few days as a potent snowstorm and bitter cold take aim on 
the region.

The powerful system is expected to produce heavy snow, as much as 12 
inches, from the north-central Rockies into the northern Plains, the 
National Weather Service said. Winter storm warnings and watches are 
already widespread across the region, all the way from Idaho to Minnesota.

Significant travel impacts, tree damage and sporadic power outages will 
be possible where the heaviest snow occurs, the weather service in Grand 
Forks, North Dakota, warned.

Both Denver and Minneapolis could see their first snow of the season.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoA9TYLVYNE




[To the Point - podcast - Elizabeth Kolbert - "We are the cause of it"]
*Human activity: as damaging as an asteroid*
66 million years ago, an asteroid caused Earth's Fifth Extinction, 
destroying the dinosaurs and most other life forms. Now Earth is facing 
another extinction, as fish, plants and animals vanish forever. But this 
time, it's not the asteroid, it's us.

This week, hundreds of people, both young and old, took to the streets 
in cities all over the world to begin weeks of protest called the 
Extinction Rebellion.

In the natural course of evolution, the decline and disappearance of a 
life form takes thousands of years. In the course of a human lifetime, 
not even one species might disappear. But now, some 28,000 species are 
vanishing all of a sudden.

Elizabeth Kolbert of the New Yorker magazine has written a book called 
"The Sixth Extinction."  She says, "Extinction rates are hundreds, 
perhaps thousands, of times higher than what is known as the background 
extinction rate that has pertained over most of geological history."

In her words, "You should not be able to see all sorts of mammals -- to 
name just one group -- either going extinct or on the verge of 
extinction. And that is a tipoff that something very, very unusual, and 
I would add, very dangerous, is going on."

"We're running geological history backwards. Fossil fuels that were 
created over the course of hundreds of millions of years buried a lot of 
carbon underground. We're now combusting it, putting that carbon back 
into the atmosphere over a matter of centuries.  So we're taking a 
process that hundreds of millions of years to run in one direction and 
then, in a matter of centuries, running it in another direction."

We'll hear what that means now and for the future of life as we know it.
https://podcasts.google.com/?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cua2Nydy5jb20vbmV3cy9zaG93cy90by10aGUtcG9pbnQvcnNzLnhtbA&episode=ZmE3NDdjNzBlZGU3NDQ1NDljNmQ3YWMyZWEzNzI5MjQ&hl=en&ep=6&at=1570661349327
-- - -
[great pictures]
*VANISHING*
October 2019 Issue
*What we lose when animals go extinct*
Animals are disappearing at hundreds of times the normal rate, primarily 
because of shrinking habitats. Their biggest threat: humans.
BY ELIZABETH KOLBERT
PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOEL SARTORE
A recent intergovernmental report on the biodiversity crisis estimated 
that extinction threatens up to a million animal and plant species, 
known and unknown. The IUCN hopes to raise the number of species 
assessments to 160,000 by 2020. Next up on its agenda: a "green list" of 
conservation successes. It will be much shorter than the red one...
- - -
But trace all these back and you find yourself face-to-face with the 
same culprit. The great naturalist E.O. Wilson has noted that humans are 
the "first species in the history of life to become a geophysical 
force." Many scientists argue that we have entered a new geologic 
epoch—the Anthropocene, or age of man. This time around, in other words, 
the asteroid is us...
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/09/vanishing-what-we-lose-when-an-animal-goes-extinct-feature/



*This Day in Climate History - October 10, 2009 - from D.R. Tucker*
In a New York Times opinion piece, Senators John Kerry and Lindsey 
Graham express confidence that bipartisan climate-change legislation 
will receive 60 votes in the Senate. Graham would later disavow support 
for such legislation, setting the stage for its demise in 2010.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/opinion/11kerrygraham.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
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