[TheClimate.Vote] October 31, 2019 - Daily Global Warming News Digest.

Thu Oct 31 11:41:50 EDT 2019

/October 31, 2019/

[chaotic political destabilizations]
*Chile cancels climate and Apec summits amid mass protests*
Chile has pulled out of hosting two major international summits, 
including a UN climate change conference, as anti-government protests 
continue.
- -
The COP25 climate summit was scheduled for 2 to 13 December, while the 
Apec trade forum was next month.

The UN said it was now looking at alternative venues.

World leaders were to gather at this year's Conference of the Parties 
(COP) to discuss the implementation of the Paris Accord - a landmark 
international climate agreement, first signed at COP21 in December 2015.

This is the first time a country has pulled out of hosting the 
conference at such short notice...
- - -
*Why was Chile hosting COP25?*
COP25 was originally supposed to be hosted by Brazil.

But in November last year, just two months after being announced as the 
summit's host nation, then President-elect Jair Bolsonaro pulled out.

The far-right leader said this was due to the change of government and 
budget restrictions, according to local media. However, he had recently 
chosen a foreign minister who claimed "climate alarmism" was just a plot 
by "cultural Marxists".

A month later, Chile was selected to host the climate conference 
instead. Costa Rica, the other frontrunner, withdrew because of the 
costs involved in hosting.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-50233678

[Calif fires]
*"This will only get worse in the future": Experts see direct line 
between California wildfires and climate change*
California is likely to continue to experience larger and more 
destructive wildfires as the nation's most populated state gets hotter 
and drier.

A recent study published in Earth's Future suggests that the increasing 
size of wildfires occurring across California in the last 50 years is 
attributable to climate change drying out the landscape.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/this-will-only-get-worse-in-the-future-experts-find-direct-line-between-california-wildfires-and-climate-change/

- -

[archive 1974 source report says no, it cannot]
*Can Southern California Wildland Conflagrations **be Stopped?*
USDA FOREST SERVICE GENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT psw- 7 11974
https://wildfiretoday.com/documents/Countryman_conflagrations_1975.pdf

[Obvious Opinion ]
*It's the End of California as We Know It*
The fires and the blackouts are connected to a larger problem in this 
state: a failure to live sustainably.
By Farhad Manjoo - Oct 30, 2019
I have lived nearly all my life in California, and my love for this 
place and its people runs deep and true. There have been many times in 
the past few years when I've called myself a California nationalist: 
Sure, America seemed to be going crazy, but at least I lived in the 
Golden State, where things were still pretty chill.

But lately my affinity for my home state has soured. Maybe it's the 
smoke and the blackouts, but a very un-Californian nihilism has been 
creeping into my thinking. I'm starting to suspect we're over. It's the 
end of California as we know it. I don't feel fine...
- - -
The apocalypse now feels more elemental -- as if the place is not 
working in a fundamental way, at the level of geography and climate. And 
everything we need to do to avoid the end goes against everything we've 
ever done...
- - -
But who wants to do all this? Not the people of this state. Sure, we'll 
ban plastic bags and try to increase gas-mileage standards (until the 
federal government tries to stops us, which of course it can, because 
our 40 million people get the same voting power in the Senate as 
Wyoming's 600,000).

But the big things still seem impossible here. In a state where 40 years 
ago, homeowners passed a constitutional amendment enshrining their 
demands for low property taxes forever, where every initiative at 
increasing density still seems to fail, where vital resources like 
electricity are managed by unscrupulous corporations and where cars are 
still far and away the most beloved way to get around, it's hard to 
imagine systemic change happening anytime soon.

And so we muddle on toward the end. All the leaves are burned and the 
sky is gray. California, as it's currently designed, will not survive 
the coming climate. Either we alter how we live here, or many of us 
won't live here anymore.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/30/opinion/california-fires.html

Special Section*Understanding the Zombie Apocalypse as concept mascot to 
the subject- classic archive Links*:

- - -
*What Zombies Can Teach Us About Fighting Climate Change*
According to Environmental Humanities expert Malcolm Sen.
Climate change and a zombie apocalypse are two very different scenarios. 
Generally, to incapacitate zombies it is best practice to aim for the 
head and not the heart. But for climate change, and the humans who cause 
it, it is essential to aim for both body parts: not to incapacitate, but 
to jolt us out of our zombie-stupor as we face our greatest-ever 
challenge to civilization. Our rational abilities and our empathetic 
capacities both need to be energized to imagine the consequences of not 
wholeheartedly addressing the effects of human activity on climate.

Unlike climate change, a zombie apocalypse isn't real. Nonetheless, the 
projected fear of the end of humanity that zombies narrate may be worth 
our attention. If there is one tag line that is universally relevant to 
all zombie movies it is this: "Save Humanity." To my mind, it should 
replace the common environmentalist chant, "Save the Planet." All 
worthwhile geoscientists attest to the fact that what is at stake here 
is the future of civilization as we know it and not necessarily the 
longevity of the planet...
- -
If we were to take a lesson from zombies it would be this: Zombies are 
deadly to humans, and it's only through collective, urgent action that 
we can ward them off. Addressing climate change in the Anthropocene 
demands a similar response.
https://chireviewofbooks.com/2018/02/15/what-zombie-literature-can-teach-us-about-fighting-climate-change/

- -

[from The Atlantic magazine]
*The Zombie Diseases of Climate Change*
"If there are microbes infectious to humans or human ancestors, we are 
going to get them."..
"And then, as they watched, a virus appeared in their viewfinder: 
Pithovirus sibericum, a massive ovular virion that had survived 30,000 
years frozen in the ice core. It was also the largest virion ever 
discovered."
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/11/the-zombie-diseases-of-climate-change/544274/

- - -

[Audio podcast from the Union of Concerned Scientists 2018]
*Geoengineering: Scarier than a Zombie Apocalypse?*
Published Oct 30, 2018
Just in time for Halloween, an episode that'll scare the daylights out 
of you. Frank Keutsch joins us to explain what geoengineering is, why it 
isn't a magic fix for climate change, and why we still need to greatly 
reduce CO2 emissions...
Fortunately, we're not powerless against the monster. There are ways to 
drive a stake through the heart of climate change. The single most 
powerful tool we have is cutting our global warming emissions, CO2 and 
methane--that's the best way to minimize the scary consequences of 
climate change.

But is there a shortcut? A string of garlic bulbs we can use to fend off 
the beast and buy some time?
https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/geoengineering-scarier-zombie-apocalypse

- - -

Blog: Ask NASA Climate
*The zombie apocalypse is nigh *
https://climate.nasa.gov/blog/1059/

- - -

[clip from The Nautilus]
*Here's How to Make Climate Change Extra Scary*

"The whole notion of a really nasty virus that has been frozen for a 
long time and could be dangerous to people--the notion of that thawing 
and working its way into human populations is undoubtedly going to be 
seen as a very unsettling prospect," Maibach says. "It's exactly like 
zombies are suddenly amongst us."

If people aren't concerned enough about the problems of climate change, 
what could be better than the threat of a zombie apocalypse?
http://nautil.us/blog/-heres-how-to-make-climate-change-extra-scary

- - -

[clips from MIT Technology Review]
*Lessons from a genocide can prepare humanity for climate apocalypse*
The bad news is that our slow-motion ecological catastrophe demands new 
ways of thinking. The good news? We've faced the end of the world before.
by Roy Scranton - Apr 24, 2019
- -
Earth's climate is not a thermostat--we cannot just dump a bunch of 
carbon into the atmosphere and then pause it like a video game.
- -
All of this will happen day by day, month by month, year by year. There 
will certainly be "events," like the events we've seen in the past 
decade--heat waves, massively destructive hurricanes, the slowdown in 
vital Atlantic Ocean currents, and political events connected to climate 
change, such as the Syrian civil war, the Mediterranean refugee crisis, 
France's gilets jaunes riots, and so on--but barring nuclear war, we are 
unlikely to see any one global "Event" that will mark the transition 
we're waiting for, make climate change "real," and force us to change 
our ways.

The next 30 years are likely, instead, to resemble the slow disaster of 
the present: we will get used to each new shock, each new brutality, 
each "new normal," until one day we look up from our screens to find 
ourselves in a new dark age--unless, of course, we're already there.

This was not the apocalypse I grew up with. It's not an apocalypse you 
can prep for, hack your way out of, or hide from. It's not an apocalypse 
with a beginning and an end, after which survivors can rebuild. Indeed, 
it's not an "Event" at all, but a new world, a new geological era in 
Earth's history, in which this planet will not necessarily be hospitable 
to the bipedal primate we call Homo sapiens. The planet is approaching, 
or already crossing, several key thresholds, beyond which the conditions 
that have fostered human life for the past 10,000 years no longer hold.

This is not our future, but our present: a time of transformation and 
strife beyond which it is difficult to see a clear path. Even in the 
very best case--a swift, radical, wholesale transformation of the energy 
system upon which the global economy depends (which would entail a 
complete reorganization of human collective life), coupled with massive 
investment in carbon capture technology, all occurring under the aegis 
of unprecedented global cooperation--the stressors and thresholds we 
confront will continue to put immense pressures on a growing human 
population.
Goodbye, good life
- -
It is psychologically, philosophically, and politically difficult to 
come to terms with our situation. The rational mind quails before such 
an apocalypse. We have taken a fateful leap into a new world, and the 
conceptual and cultural frameworks we have developed to make sense of 
human existence over the past 200 years seem wholly inadequate for 
coping with this transition, much less for helping us adapt to life on a 
hot and chaotic planet.

Our lives are built around concepts and values that are existentially 
threatened by a stark dilemma: either we radically transform human 
collective life by abandoning the use of fossil fuels or, more likely, 
climate change will bring about the end of global fossil-fueled 
capitalist civilization. Revolution or collapse--in either case, the 
good life as we know it is no longer viable...
- - -
One historical analogy stands out with particular force: the European 
conquest and genocide of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. Here, 
truly, a world ended. Many worlds, in fact. Each civilization, each 
tribe, lived within its own sense of reality--yet all these peoples saw 
their lifeworlds destroyed and were forced to struggle for cultural 
continuity beyond mere survival, a struggle that the Anishinaabe poet 
Gerald Vizenor calls "survivance."
- -
Nevertheless, the fact that our situation offers no good prospects does 
not absolve us of the obligation to find a way forward. Our apocalypse 
is happening day by day, and our greatest challenge is learning to live 
with this truth while remaining committed to some as-yet-unimaginable 
form of future human flourishing--to live with radical hope. Despite 
decades of failure, a disheartening track record, ongoing paralysis, a 
social order geared toward consumption and distraction, and the strong 
possibility that our great-grandchildren may be the last generation of 
humans ever to live on planet Earth, we must go on. We have no choice.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613343/lessons-from-a-genocide-can-prepare-humanity-for-climate-apocalypse/

[scary just because it is]
*Cyclone Kyarr, the Strongest Storm on Earth, Is Breaking All Sorts of 
Records*
The northern hemisphere's quietest tropical cyclone basin is currently 
going off. Cyclone Kyarr formed on Thursday and quickly spun up in the 
Indian Ocean into the most powerful storm on the planet. While the storm 
won't have a huge impact on land, it's already making its present felt 
in the record books in what's been a weird and bad year in general for 
tropical cyclones, a classification that includes tropical storms, 
hurricanes, and typhoons as well.

Cyclone Kyarr rapidly intensified over the weekend, going from the 
equivalent of a Category 2 to Category 4 storm in just six hours on 
Saturday...
https://earther.gizmodo.com/cyclone-kyarr-the-strongest-storm-on-earth-is-breakin-1839417139
- -

[Another type of Zombie - article in The Nautilus]
*Omniviolence Is Coming and the World Isn't Ready*
Posted By Phil Torres on Oct 21, 2019
Will emerging technologies make the state system obsolete? It's hard to 
see why not.
http://nautil.us/blog/omniviolence-is-coming-and-the-world-isnt-ready

[Serious topic]
*Helping People With Serious Mental Illness and Substance Use Disorder 
During Disasters: The Dialogue, *Volume 15, Issue 3-4, 2019
Source: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)
Date Published: 10/2019
Format: PDF
Annotation: This 33-page issue of The Dialogue, a quarterly technical 
assistance journal on disaster behavioral health, focuses on assisting 
disaster survivors with serious mental illness and/or substance use 
disorders after a disaster. Article topics include Caring for People 
With Mental Illness in Disasters; Activating Legal Mechanisms in a 
Disaster May Help Meet the Temporary Needs of Individuals With Substance 
Use Issues; U.S. Virgin Islands Recovery; and Missouri Planning 
Activities Around Serious Mental Illness and Disasters [less]
URL: 
https://www.samhsa.gov/sites/default/files/dtac/dialogue-vol-15-issue-3-4.pdf
Authors: Gakh, Maxim; Gierer, Beckie; Ligenza, Linda; Llanos, Lizette; 
Medina, Keila; et al.
Type: Report
ID: 20233. From: Disaster Lita database of the U.S. National Library of 
Medicine.

*This Day in Climate History - October 31, 1978 - from D.R. Tucker*
President Carter signs the National Climate Program Act into law.
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/STATUTE-92/pdf/STATUTE-92-Pg601.pdf
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