[TheClimate.Vote] October 16, 2019 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/October 16, 2019/

[Start with zero]
*John Kerry declares 'World War Zero' in response to climate crisis*
This is the war we must wage and win, says former U.S. Secretary of 
State as he encourages everyone, from politicians and generals to 
activists and influencers around the world to join.

By Thomas Nilsen - October 14, 2019
John Kerry's speech at the Arctic Circle Assembly in Reykjavik this 
weekend was followed by loud and long lasting applause from the audience 
of Arctic stakeholders from around the globe.

The fast-escalating climate crisis has never been worded in such 
dramatic tone as at this year's assembly in the Icelandic capital.

Scientist after scientist entered the stage with facts and scenarios, 
which in sum painted a picture of a word heading towards Ragnarök, the 
old Nordic mythology's destruction of the world.

We are moving towards the tipping points of the Greenland Ice Sheet and 
the Atlantic Ocean circulation. The permafrost in the circumpolar north 
is about to melt, likely to cause even greater releases of methane. 
While CO2 is described as having a warming effect akin to wrapping the 
planet in a sheet, methane released from the Arctic permafrost is more 
like wrapping the planet in a wool blanket...(more)
https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/ecology/2019/10/john-kerry-declares-world-war-zero-response-climate-crisis
- - -
[see the video]
*John Kerry at the Arctic Circle 2019 Assembly*
Oct 14, 2019
The Arctic Circle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8VuZqX2KAo
- -
[Portal for World War Zero]
*The future is watching. *
https://worldwarzero.com/



[McKibben opinion]
*Divestment works – and one huge bank can lead the way*
Bill McKibben
On 15 October, the European Investment Bank meets to decide its policy 
on fossil fuels. The hand of history is on its shoulder
- - -
Anyone who believes in physics and chemistry knows that the time for 
change is here – indeed, it's past due.

The fifteenth of October is a crucial day in the most important fight 
the planet has ever faced, and a sign of whether Europe's governments, 
particularly those of Germany and Italy, who insiders report have been 
strongly against a fossil-free EIB policy, will respond with open hearts 
to the outpouring of hope we have seen in the past weeks.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/13/divestment-bank-european-investment-fossil-fuels



[Military concern]
*Typhoon Haigibis: Lives Lost and Security Infrastructure Damaged*
By Marc Kodack
Typhoon Hagibis came ashore in eastern Japan this past weekend resulting 
in multiple deaths while damaging or and destroying buildings and other 
infrastructure. It is the most powerful storm to hit Japan since 1958. 
U.S. military installations reported no deaths, but U.S. Naval Air 
Facility Atsugi, approximately 21 miles south of downtown Tokyo, 
incurred "structural or water damage to more than 20 structures." 
Cleanup efforts continue across Japan.

Future attribution studies regarding climate change effects on the size 
and intensity of Typhoon Hagbis will determine the degree to which (or 
the probability that) it played a role. Two general climate 
change-driven trends for Japan, however, are that typhoons are likely to 
become more frequent and intense because ocean temperatures have been 
increasing as a result of global anthropogenic CO2 emissions. More 
intense typhoons have been occurring further north than in the past, 
partially driven by climate change. This drift in location may affect 
areas in northern Japan that are not used to being struck by these more 
intense storms. Storm damages has already been increasing since 1950, 
with even greater damages possible in the future because of changes in 
storm frequency and intensity.
https://climateandsecurity.org/2019/10/15/typhoon-haigibis-lives-lost-and-security-infrastructure-damaged/
- - -
[planning for the future]
*Why Typhoon Hagibis packed such a deadly, devastating punch in Japan*
Storm's track, intensity, and 24- to 48-hour rainfall totals stand out 
from past storm events
By Andrew Freedman
October 14
Typhoon Hagibis proved to be extraordinarily devastating for northern 
Japan when it struck this weekend, unleashing more than three feet of 
rain in just 24 hours in some locations, causing widespread flash 
flooding as well as river flooding. The storm has killed at least 58, 
according to the Japanese public broadcaster NHK.

In addition, high winds lashed Tokyo and Tokyo Bay, along with pounding 
surf and storm surge flooding as the storm, once a Category 5 behemoth, 
barreled across Honshu as the equivalent of a Category 2 and then a 
Category 1-equivalent storm.

One reason the storm caused such severe impacts is that the inner core 
of the typhoon, with its heaviest rains and highest winds, remained 
intact as it swept across Tokyo and dumped heavy rains across 
northeastern Japan as well. According to reporting from The Washington 
Post's Simon Denyer, by Sunday, more than 20 rivers in central and 
northeastern Japan had burst their banks, flooding more than 1,000 homes 
in cities, towns and villages...
- - -
Typhoon Hagibis will go down in Japanese history as a multibillion 
dollar disaster.

The storm's widespread impacts and high death toll are unusual for 
Japan, since the country is one of the best-prepared in the world for 
natural disasters given that it faces risks from earthquakes and 
associated tsunamis, volcanoes and other natural and human-influenced 
hazards, from heat waves in the summer to wintertime blizzards in its 
far northern areas.

Japan can expect more high-impact storms like 
Hagibishttps://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2019/10/14/why-typhoon-hagibis-packed-such-deadly-devastating-punch-japan/


[I have a little bit of one]
*There are three types of climate change denier, and most of us are at 
least one*
Iain Walker, Zoe Leviston - October 9, 2019
Last week, amid the cacophony of reactions to Greta Thunberg's 
appearance before the United Nations Climate Action Summit, a group of 
self-proclaimed "prominent scientists" sent a registered letter to UN 
Secretary-General António Guterres. The letter, headed "There is no 
climate emergency", urged Guterres to follow:

    …a climate policy based on sound science, realistic economics and
    genuine concern for those harmed by costly but unnecessary attempts
    at mitigation.

The group, supported by 75 Australian business and industry figures, 
along with others around the world, obviously rejects the scientific 
consensus on climate change. But this missive displays remarkably 
different tactics to those previously used to stymie climate action.

The language of climate change denial and inaction has transformed. 
Outright science denial has been replaced by efforts to reframe climate 
change as natural, and climate action as unwarranted.

However, this is just another way of rejecting the facts, and their 
implications for us. Denial can take many forms.

*Shades of denial*
The twin phenomena of denial and inaction are related to one another, at 
least in the context of climate change. They are also complex, both in 
the general sense of "complicated and intricate", and in the technical 
psychological sense of "a group of repressed feelings and anxieties 
which together result in abnormal behaviour".

In his book States of Denial, the late psychoanalytic sociologist 
Stanley Cohen described three forms of denial. Although his framework 
was developed from analysing genocide and other atrocities, it applies 
just as well to our individual and collective inaction in the face of 
the overwhelming scientific evidence of human-induced climate change.

*The first form of denial is literal denial*. It is the simple, 
conscious, outright rejection that something happened or is happening – 
that is, lying. One Nation senators Pauline Hanson and Malcolm Roberts, 
among others, have at one time or another maintained this position – 
outright denial that climate change is happening (though Senator Hanson 
now might accept climate change but denies any human contribution to it).

Interestingly, former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull yesterday blamed 
"climate change deniers" in his own government for blocking any attempt 
to deal with climate change, resulting paradoxically in higher energy 
prices today.

It is tempting to attribute outright denial to individual malice or 
stupidity, and that may occasionally be the case. More worrying and more 
insidious, though, is the social organisation of literal denial of 
climate change. There is plenty of evidence of clandestine, orchestrated 
lying by vested interests in industry. If anyone is looking for a 
conspiracy in climate change, this is it - not a collusion of thousands 
of scientists and major science organisations.

*The second form of denial is interpretive denial. *Here, people do not 
contest the facts, but interpret them in ways that distort their meaning 
or importance. For example, one might say climate change is just a 
natural fluctuation or greenhouse gas accumulation is a consequence, not 
a cause, of rising temperatures. This is what we saw in last week's 
letter to the UN.

The most insidious form of denial
*The third and most insidious form is implicatory denial.* The facts of 
climate change are not denied, nor are they interpreted to be something 
else. What is denied or minimised are the psychological, political, and 
moral implications of the facts for us. We fail to accept responsibility 
for responding; we fail to act when the information says we should.

Of course, some are unable to respond, financially or otherwise, but for 
many, implicatory denial is a kind of dissociation. Ignoring the moral 
imperative to act is as damning a form of denial as any other, and 
arguably is much worse.

The treatment of Thunberg, and the vigour with which people push away 
reminders of that which they would rather not deal with, illustrate 
implicatory denial. We are almost all guilty, to some extent, of 
engaging in implicatory denial. In the case of climate change, 
implicatory denial allows us to use a reusable coffee cup, recycle our 
plastic or sometimes catch a bus, and thus to pretend to ourselves that 
we are doing our bit.

Almost none of us individually, or we as a nation, has acted as we ought 
on the science of climate change. But that does not mean we can't change 
how we act in the future. Indeed, there are some recent indications 
that, as with literal denial, implicatory denial is becoming an 
increasingly untenable psychological position.

While it is tempting, and even cathartic, to mock the shrill responses 
to Thunberg from literal and interpretive deniers, we would do well to 
ponder our own inherent biases and irrational responses to climate change.

For instance, we tend to think we are doing more for the planet than 
those around us (and we can't all be right). We also tend to think 
literal deniers are much more common in our society than they in fact are.

These are just two examples of common strategies we use to deny our own 
responsibility and culpability. They make us feel better about what 
little we actually do, or congratulate us for accepting the science. But 
they are ultimately self-defeating delusions. Instead of congratulating 
ourselves on agreeing with the basic scientific facts of climate change, 
we need to push ourselves to action.
https://theconversation.com/there-are-three-types-of-climate-change-denier-and-most-of-us-are-at-least-one-124574



[Changes baselined]
*Scientists Want to Make a 3D Map of the Entire World Before Climate 
Change Ruins It*
By Brandon Specktor - Senior Writer 18 hours ago Planet Earth
To record the world's most vulnerable places before they disappear, 
we're going to need a lot of lasers.
https://www.livescience.com/map-the-earth-with-lasers.html


[watch the birdie]
*Commentary: As a birder, I see the effects of climate change every day. 
Now, Audubon has quantified the threat*
by Kenn Kaufman
For serious birders who regularly observe birds in the wild, ignoring 
climate change isn't possible. We have been seeing and documenting the 
effects of a warming climate since at least the 1950s...
- - -
New research from the National Audubon Society released on Thursday 
highlights the dangers of the trend. For its new report, "Survival by 
Degrees," Audubon scientists analyzed the current geographic ranges of 
604 North American bird species, and modeled how those ranges would 
change at different levels of warming.

At a global temperature rise of three degrees Celsius, they found that 
389 of those species--or nearly two-thirds of those studied--would 
become endangered, losing much of their current habitat. Even if some 
could shift their range northward, they would soon start to run out of 
room on the map.

Ironically, the changes will make birding more exciting for a while, 
with birders finding new species in unexpected places, but the downside 
will be brutal. If warming continues unchecked, Audubon's models show, 
many birds will lose massive amounts of territory...
- - -
But bird populations are in many ways the canaries for all of us, and 
their shifting ranges warn of increasing droughts, floods, fires, 
desiccating heat, rising seas, untillable farms and unlivable cities.

We still have time to do something about it, however. The potential loss 
of 389 North American species projected in the Audubon study is what 
would happen if global readings go up by 3 degrees. But the scientists 
also modeled what would happen at lesser levels of warming, and the 
results are striking. Limiting warming to 1.5 degrees would reduce the 
danger for three-quarters of those threatened birds, Audubon's modeling 
found. The obvious canary-in-the-mine message is that this would also be 
of huge benefit to humans, reducing the potential suffering for people 
worldwide.

Audubon's "Survival by Degrees" is not a gloomy forecast but rather a 
call to action. Audubon is working on ways to help bird species survive 
the climate change already underway. But the report also stresses the 
need for action at every level, by individuals and governments alike, to 
reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Audubon cares about preserving the 
diversity of bird species, and that is the focus of its new report. But 
every action to help birds pull through will also make entire ecosystems 
more resilient...
https://phys.org/news/2019-10-commentary-birder-effects-climate-day.html



[Some deeper thinking]
*The Case Against Doing Nothing*
Taking a fatalist approach to climate change -- or anything else -- 
merely plays into conservative hands.
- - -
Doing nothing -- to reverse climate change, to create a more equitable 
society, to elevate the marginalized and to heal the sick -- is exactly 
what the other side is already doing. Doing nothing is exactly what the 
climate deniers, the Koch network, the N.R.A., the fossil fuel industry 
and every self-important yahoo in every gerrymandered district in this 
country wants us to do, as well. It doesn't matter whether the reason 
we're doing nothing is because we just don't care, or because we don't 
think it will make any difference in the end.

Despair is paralyzing, and we have no time left for paralysis. Many 
small efforts, especially when amplified by those of others, can have a 
big effect. What if every homeowner in the entire subdivision stopped 
using poisons and planted a pollinator garden? What if all the 
neighborhoods in a city, in a state, in the nation, did likewise? These 
efforts alone are unlikely to save the pollinators -- on whom so much of 
our farming, and thus our very lives, depends -- but they are the first 
steps toward the kind of collective consciousness raising that can be 
leveraged into political will.

Maybe it sounds like pie-in-the-sky Pollyannaism even to hope for such a 
thing, but hope is not a thing we can risk dismissing anymore. Until 
next year's election, at least, hope seems to be all we've got.

Margaret Renkl is a contributing opinion writer who covers flora, fauna, 
politics and culture in the American South. She is the author of the 
book "Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss."
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/14/opinion/the-case-against-doing-nothing.html



[Tesla owners can breath easier]
*Watch Tesla with 'Bioweapon Defense' air system drive through scary 
wildfires*
Fred Lambert
- - -
The automaker claims that it is about 10 times larger than a normal car 
filter.

When working at full capacity, which Tesla calls "Bioweapon Defense 
Mode," the company says that it is "100 times more effective than 
premium automotive filters" as it removes "at least 99.97% of fine 
particulate matter and gaseous pollutants, as well as bacteria, viruses, 
pollen, and mold spores."

They eventually also added the feature to Model S, and it is proving 
useful beyond just protecting drivers from general air pollution.

During the wildfire season in California last year, CEO Elon Musk 
suggested that the "Bioweapon Defense Mode" could be useful to escape 
some areas where the air quality is extremely bad due to the fires.

Now with the 2019 wildfire season in full effect, some owners are 
finding the feature truly useful.
- - - -
When asked if he activated the "Bioweapon Defense Mode" (BWD), the owner 
responded:

It was activated, but as soon as I saw the fire I was like LET'S TURN ON 
BWD… it felt pretty epic hitting that button knowing that it would be 
filtering the air from the fire.

Several other owners are reporting the air filtration system to be 
useful to combat the air quality created by the fires in California 
right now.

The fires have already burned several thousand acres in California, 
where there's a high concentration of Tesla vehicles.
https://electrek.co/2019/10/13/tesla-bioweapon-defense-air-wildfires/



[Classic climate political/philosophical opinion from 2014]
*Call climate change what it is: violence*
Rebecca Solnit
Social unrest and famine, superstorms and droughts. Places, species and 
human beings – none will be spared. Welcome to Occupy Earth
- - -
In every arena, we need to look at industrial-scale and systemic 
violence, not just the hands-on violence of the less powerful. When it 
comes to climate change, this is particularly true. Exxon has decided to 
bet that we can't make the corporation keep its reserves in the ground, 
and the company is reassuring its investors that it will continue to 
profit off the rapid, violent and intentional destruction of the Earth.

That's a tired phrase, the destruction of the Earth, but translate it 
into the face of a starving child and a barren field – and then multiply 
that a few million times. Or just picture the tiny bivalves: scallops, 
oysters, Arctic sea snails that can't form shells in acidifying oceans 
right now. Or another superstorm tearing apart another city. Climate 
change is global-scale violence, against places and species as well as 
against human beings. Once we call it by name, we can start having a 
real conversation about our priorities and values. Because the revolt 
against brutality begins with a revolt against the language that hides 
that brutality.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/07/climate-change-violence-occupy-earth?CMP=share_btn_tw


*This Day in Climate History - October 16, 1988 - from D.R. Tucker*
Discussing the role of global warming in the 1988 presidential election, 
Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman observes:

    "Last summer, one of the hottest and driest on record, the nation
    was roused by alarms about the 'greenhouse effect'--the gradual
    warming of the globe that threatens to turn coastal cities into
    underwater ruins and corn fields into salt flats.

    "The problem is that for the last century or so industrial societies
    have been releasing substances into the air that capture heat and
    erode the Earth`s shield against the sun. The villains? Carbon
    dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels, methane from natural and
    man-made sources and aerosol propellants.

    "But as soon as the heat dissipated, so did interest in the issue.
    In the campaign, the greenhouse effect has gone almost unmentioned...

    "Both candidates pretend the solutions will be painless and free.
    Both pass over the obvious remedies in favor of the politically
    appealing ones.

    "The nations of the world have taken one step by agreeing on a
    treaty to reduce the use of aerosol propellants. But any serious
    attempt to slow the warming of the Earth requires at least three
    additional measures: discouraging the use of fossil fuels like coal,
    oil and gas; big improvements in energy efficiency; and greater
    reliance on nuclear power."

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1988-10-16/news/8802080029_1_greenhouse-effect-global-warming-environmentalism
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