[TheClimate.Vote] September 13, 2019 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/September 13, 2019/

[Mainstream-media discovers global warming]
*TIME Magazine Devotes Entire Issue To Climate Change | Velshi & Ruhle | 
MSNBC*
Time Magazine's brand new issue is solely dedicated to climate change 
and it's only the fifth issue where every page is dedicated to a single 
topic. TIME Editor in Chief and CEO Edward Felsenthal joins Stephanie 
Ruhle to discuss the surprising take on the climate crisis and whether 
it's too little too late...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8wwJ2q_edk
- - -
[IDEAS CLIMATE CHANGE]
*Why TIME Devoted an Entire Issue to Climate Change*
Edward Felsenthal @efelsenthal
This issue, if civilization can get its act together, might just mark a 
midpoint in TIME's coverage of the biggest crisis facing our planet.

Three decades ago--at a moment when much of the world was only beginning 
to wake up to the damage humanity had been wreaking on its home--TIME 
convened a group of 33 scientists and political leaders from five 
continents in Boulder, Colo., to discuss the threat. The result was one 
of the best-known issues TIME has ever produced, sounding one of the 
louder alarms to date. In the Jan. 2, 1989, issue, the editors named 
"Endangered Earth" the most important story of the year, replacing the 
annual "Person of the Year" with a planet, our own. The cover, by the 
artist Christo, showed a 16-in. globe wrapped in plastic and rag rope.
Three decades from now, we will be on the cusp of 2050, the year by 
which we must have already acted--with urgency as outlined by the U.N.'s 
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change--to have any chance of keeping 
average global warming to 1.5C above 19th century levels. That is the 
line above which scientists agree that the effects of climate 
change--extreme weather, rising seas, wildfires, a deepening refugee 
crisis--will be even more disastrous...
- - -
Notably, what you will not find in this issue are climate-change 
skeptics. Core to our mission is bringing together diverse perspectives. 
Experts can and should debate the best route to mitigating the effects 
of climate change, but there is no serious doubt that those effects are 
real. We are witnessing them right in front of us. The science on global 
warming is settled. There isn't another side, and there isn't another 
moment...
https://time.com/5669069/time-climate-change-issue/
- - - -
[Bill McKibben leads it off]
*HELLO FROM THE YEAR 2050. WE AVOIDED THE WORST OF CLIMATE CHANGE -- BUT 
EVERYTHING IS DIFFERENT *
Hello From the Year 2050. We Avoided the Worst of Climate Change -- But 
Everything Is Different
BY BILL MCKIBBEN SEPTEMBER 12, 2019
McKibben is the author of Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play 
Itself Out? and a co-founder of 350.org
Let's imagine for a moment that we've reached the middle of the century. 
It's 2050, and we have a moment to reflect--the climate fight remains 
the consuming battle of our age, but its most intense phase may be in 
our rearview mirror. And so we can look back to see how we might have 
managed to dramatically change our society and economy. We had no other 
choice.
There was a point after 2020 when we began to collectively realize a few 
basic things.

One, we weren't getting out of this unscathed...
- - -
What's changed most of all is the mood. The defiant notion that we would 
forever overcome nature has given way to pride of a different kind: 
increasingly we celebrate our ability to bend without breaking, to adapt 
as gracefully as possible to a natural world whose temper we've come to 
respect. When we look back to the start of the century we are, of 
course, angry that people did so little to slow the great heating: if 
we'd acknowledged climate change in earnest a decade or two earlier, we 
might have shaved a degree off the temperature, and a degree is measured 
in great pain and peril. But we also know it was hard for people to 
grasp what was happening: human history stretched back 10,000 years, and 
those millennia were physically stable, so it made emotional sense to 
assume that stability would stretch forward as well as past.

We know much better now: we know that we've knocked the planet off its 
foundations, and that our job, for the foreseeable centuries, is to 
absorb the bounces as she rolls. We're dancing as nimbly as we can, and 
so far we haven't crashed.
This is one article in a series on the state of the planet's response to 
climate change. Read the rest of the stories and sign up for One.Five, 
TIME's climate change newsletter.
view issue: 
https://time.com/magazine/us/5675279/september-23rd-2019-vol-194-no-11-u-s/


[PhysOrg]
*Indonesia forest fires surge, stoking global warming fears*
The number of blazes in Indonesia's rainforests has jumped sharply, 
satellite data showed Thursday, spreading smog across Southeast Asia and 
adding to concerns about the impact of increasing wildfire outbreaks 
worldwide on global warming...
- - -
"Industries are looking to expand plantations using fires."

And he warned Indonesia's blazes would add to the sprawling 
archipelago's climate-damaging emissions, already among the highest in 
the world...
https://phys.org/news/2019-09-indonesia-forest-surge-stoking-global.html


[FEWS NET - Famine Early Warning Systems Network]
*Several consecutive weeks of heavy rainfall have caused flooding across 
West and East Africa*
September 13, 2019 to September 19, 2019
http://fews.net/global/global-weather-hazards/september-13-2019


[military opinion]
*Gen. Middendorp and Bergema: How Climate Change Fuels Violent Extremism*
Sudan_Nile_agriculture_LandsatIn an article published yesterday on the 
anniversary of 9/11 by the IPI Global Observatory, General Tom 
Middendorp, Chair of the International Military Council on Climate and 
Security (IMCCS) and former Chief of Defence of the Netherlands, and 
Reinier Bergema of the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, 
highlight the links between climate change, water insecurity, and 
violent extremism - particularly in "Western, Central, and Eastern 
Africa, and several countries in the Middle East." The article is part 
of an article series that the IPI Global Observatory is publishing in 
advance of Climate Week in New York (watch this space for more).
for the full article 
https://theglobalobservatory.org/2019/09/where-macro-meets-micro-how-climate-change-fuels-violent-extremism/
https://climateandsecurity.org/2019/09/12/gen-middendorp-and-bergema-how-climate-change-fuels-violent-extremism/
- - -
*Where Macro Meets Micro: How Climate Change Fuels Violent Extremism*
September 11, 2019 by Gen. (ret.) Tom Middendorp and Reinier Bergema
Climate change is a "direct and existential threat," the Council of the 
European Union concluded in February 2019. In the past half-century, the 
most vulnerable--particularly across Western, Central, and Eastern 
Africa, and several countries in the Middle East...--have been hit 
disproportionately hard,.. with climate projections indicating further 
deterioration... The high level of climate vulnerability in these 
areas--more often than not combined with limited political, economic, 
governance, and social readiness to adapt to or mitigate these risks--is 
increasingly putting strain on populations already struggling to earn a 
living and feed their families. Poverty, (youth) unemployment, food 
insecurity, and, ultimately, the erosion of livelihoods will, if 
unaddressed, lead to population displacement, rural-urban migration, and 
increased local demand (and thus competition for land and water), 
fueling social tensions and violent conflict...
- - -
...While the relationship between climate change and violent extremism 
is not linear, climate change does impose further stress on water and 
food security, population dynamics, and societal institutions. Declining 
quantity and quality of water sources combined with the mushrooming of 
dams across water-poor areas fuels regional competition, further 
straining people's ability to provide for their families.
Taking advantage of growing instability in Syria and Iraq, the Islamic 
State was able to do just that...To expand their ranks, the Islamic 
State actively recruited among suffering farmers who were forced to give 
up their farms or sell their cattle due to water scarcity that was 
partially orchestrated by the violent extremists. Joining the Islamic 
State would provide them with money, food, and a share in their spoils 
of war--so was promised--and those who resisted were forced to hand over 
a share of their harvest, were cut off from water and electricity, put 
to trial, or killed.

Gaining control over water was not the Islamic State's only strategic 
interest. Following the killing of a high-level strategist, an Islamic 
State blueprint outlined their strategic rationale to seize mills, 
silos, and grain stockpiles. Controlling such stockpiles, similar to the 
control of water, would allow them to exert influence over local 
communities.

Similar dynamics have unfolded in the Sahel. In March 2017, the United 
Nations Security Council recognized "the adverse effects of climate 
change and ecological changes" on the stability in the Lake Chad region, 
pointing out the effects of water scarcity, drought, desertification, 
land degradation, and food insecurity. As a result of climate change 
combined with rapid population growth and poor governance, the lake, 
which provides water to more than 30 million people, has shrunk by 90% 
since the 1960s, leading to the displacement of millions of people. To 
make matters worse, Boko Haram was able to monopolize access to parts of 
the lake. These factors combined allowed Boko Haram to lure young men 
for their campaign of terror, as they often lacked sustainable alternatives.
- - -
Moreover, combating the threat stemming from terrorist organizations 
requires more than just a military solution. Climate change acts as a 
threat multiplier, especially in fragile countries that are held back by 
weak governance, poor economic perspectives, food- and water scarcity, 
and failing local (security) institutions. Stabilization efforts need to 
address this full spectrum of weaknesses and threats comprehensively.

But most importantly, it requires the political courage to tackle the 
urgency of this issue. To effectively address climate change requires 
large consumer countries to invest significantly in sustainable 
alternatives, for example, by making the transition away from 
non-renewable energy resources, such as oil coal and natural gas--even 
if that opposes immediate political and economic interests. The 
countries that are hit hardest by the effects of climate change are not 
the largest consumers. If we will not pay our share of the price, they 
will...

General (ret.) Tom Middendorp is Chair of the International Military 
Council on Climate and Security and former Chief of Defense of the 
Netherlands. Reinier Bergema is a Research Fellow & Project Manager at 
International Centre for Counter-Terrorism - The Hague.

This article is part of a series on climate, peace, and security in 
partnership with the Center on Climate and Security.  Footnotes and more at:
https://theglobalobservatory.org/2019/09/where-macro-meets-micro-how-climate-change-fuels-violent-extremism/



[2 of 3 articles of informed conjecture]
*This is a worst-possible wildfire scenario for Southern California*
**Every year, climate change makes a "catastrophic" fire like this one 
more and more likely.
By Eliza Barcla
- - -
The wildfire that smashes all of California's previous notions of "the 
worst that could happen" begins with an illegal firecracker set off by 
campers in the the San Bernardino National Forest. Patches of this 
forest, near the spa city of Palm Springs, have burned many times 
before. But this fire becomes monstrously big in a matter of hours 
because a severe, multi-year drought and an extra-long hot summer have 
left an unprecedented number of trees and shrubs bone dry, defenseless 
to flame.

As tall Ponderosa and sugar pine trees in the federally protected area 
are engulfed, embers from their crowns fly forward, propelled by wind, 
igniting the next patch of forest. US Forest Service firefighters try to 
contain it, but the fire is too big and moving much too fast with fierce 
winds helping it along. In just two days, the fire is 10 miles wide.

The fire can spread in all directions inside the national forest with so 
much available fuel, and at first there isn't much threat to human life. 
But as it grows bigger, it will race eastward toward the edge of Palm 
Springs, population 48,000, and northeast toward San Bernardino, 
population 220,000....
- - -
In some directions, the fire will hit bare rocky hills and sputter out. 
But in other directions, the trees and shrubs turn abruptly to tract 
housing, mobile homes, and unattached homes. Here, the embers will blow 
onto roofs, onto parched lawns and bushes, and begin burning thousands 
of buildings, block by block.

Some residents have evacuated in time, but others die in their cars or 
their homes as the flames overtake them. The fire's girth and speed will 
overwhelm the capacities of Palm Springs's and San Bernardino's fire 
departments to put it out until reinforcements are sent in. Small towns 
also in its path, like Anza and Hemet, have even fewer resources to 
fight it.

Smoke from the growing blazes begins carrying 100 miles west into Los 
Angeles and 100 miles south to San Diego, leading to hazardous air 
quality throughout Southern California. Thousands of children and 
elderly are rushed to the hospital with asthma attacks and respiratory 
illness. Some with heart and lung disease die. Hundreds of schools 
close, and officials tell 10 million Southern Californians now living 
under a massive smoke cloud to stay indoors with their windows and doors 
closed. This smoke hazard will last for two-and-a-half weeks as the fire 
burns and the smoke lingers.

In its second week, the fire will grow wider as it finds abundant new 
fuel to the south in the Cleveland National Forest and the Anza-Borrego 
Desert State Park in San Diego County. At its widest, it will be 60 
miles across. It now will have burned through several different 
ecosystems: coastal sage scrub, chaparral, oaks, and conifer trees, all 
of them parched by drought and hot air. It will leap into the town of 
Temecula, population 114,000, and Oceanside, population 176,000...
- - -
In all it will burn over 1.5 million acres, an area the size of Delaware 
and more than three times the size of the Mendocino Complex fire of 
2018, the largest wildfire in state history. It could destroy 100,000 
buildings and take hundreds of lives. And if it happens in the coming 
years, human-induced warming will undoubtedly be a factor...

Southern California is susceptible to a horrifically gigantic fire 
disaster like this
This nightmare fire is hypothetical, created by a wildfire simulator, a 
computer model called FSim. Scientists use FSim to figure out extreme 
scenarios the environment is capable of, using data on historical 
weather patterns, available fuel on public and private lands, and 
several other variables.

It doesn't predict specific wildfire events -- that would be impossible, 
since every wildfire begins with an unpredictable ignition, or spark -- 
but it imagines new fire seasons by recombining what has happened in the 
past. And every scenario it spits out is within the physical bounds of 
the possible.

Alan Ager, a researcher at the US Forest Service who studies how to 
manage wildfire risk on federally managed forests and other lands, found 
the 1.5 million-acre fire simulation in a database of simulated fires at 
the Missoula Fire Lab after I asked about the largest possible fire that 
could hit Southern California. I chose the region because it's the most 
densely populated part of the state with very high wildfire hazard, 
according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, 
or Cal Fire...
- - -
FSim estimated that this fire would destroy 82,000 buildings. But Ager 
said the structural toll would actually be much higher, since the 
simulator only models the spread of fire into wildlands and calculates 
the lost buildings on that land.

The simulation, however, clearly shows that the flames could spread to 
the edges of several towns and cities, including Anza, Palm Springs, and 
Temecula, where hundreds of thousands of people live.

"There's tons of fuel for wildfires in the houses," Ager said. "Once the 
fire is at the edge it can ignite other houses." Homes built before 2008 
are at particular risk of burning, according to a recent investigation 
by several California newspapers and the Associated Press...

The model doesn't estimate a death toll, but Ager said you can imagine a 
fire of this magnitude could be catastrophic given the 86 deaths in 
Paradise in the 2018 Camp Fire, a fire one tenth of the size.

David Sapsis, a wildland fire scientist with Cal Fire who reviewed the 
simulation, agreed. "The damage would likely be massive, potentially 
dwarfing what we have seen recently."

And it's a scenario that becomes more likely in the near future given 
what scientists know about how climate change will increase wildfire 
risk in California.

Climate models show that as temperatures continue to rise, the 
atmosphere and land in some regions, like California's forests, will 
grow more arid. This in turn will make shrubs and trees drier and more 
flammable...

"Climate change is amplifying fire behavior and fire size," Ager said. 
Which means a worst-case scenario fire like the one described above 
could be even worse in the future.
- - -
*Why California can expect wildfire season to get worse*
California's forests and shrublands have been subjected to wildfire 
pretty much forever; fire is a natural part of many of the state's 
ecosystems. What's different now is that the season is getting longer 
and the fires are on average getting bigger and more destructive.

*The basic recipe for a monster, 21st-century wildfire is this: Take hot 
air and no rain and moisture evaporating from trees, shrubs, and soil. 
After a series of long, expansive, hot, dry spells, trees and shrubs 
will be transformed into ideal tinder to feed a fire. The bigger the 
area affected, the more available fuel. All you need then is a spark, 
which could come from a power line failure, a cigarette, or a firecracker.*

"Fire can travel larger distances [than in the past because there's more 
fuel] to get to communities," Ager said. "Meanwhile communities are 
expanding. Every time someone builds another house, the risk increases."
- - -
Some 11.3 million people -- more than any other state with regular 
wildfires -- live in what scientists call the "wildland-urban interface" 
in California. That's 30 percent of the population living near a lot of 
potential wildfire fuel. And more than 2.7 million Californians 
currently live in "very high fire hazard severity zones," areas where 
the population is expected to keep growing. (Cal Fire is currently 
updating its hazard zone maps and expects to roll out new ones by 2021.)

Parts of Northern California and the Sierra Nevada can expect to see the 
most fire activity directly linked to human-caused climate change in the 
coming decades, according to a recent paper by Abatzoglou and colleagues.

But "you can throw a dart anywhere around Los Angeles and San Diego and 
you will hit an area with significant fire potential," too, Keithley said...
- - -
California and other wildfire-prone states still allow a lot of new 
construction in high-hazard fire zones. Local firefighters aren't 
equipped to fight huge fires leaping from structure to structure. Just 
as it's time to consider retreating from the coasts because of sea-level 
rise, it may be time to consider encouraging people to retreat from some 
of the riskiest areas...

    "[W]e've pretty much given private-property owners the ability to
    build a house or a ranch just about anywhere that they own land. And
    yet the assumption for those private-property owners is that we will
    have the public fire resources to protect them in case of
    emergencies and wildfires. Property owners can't make that
    assumption any longer. And our fire was a case in point … The fire
    came so hard, so fast, that no fire agency or agencies could have
    saved homes."

In response to the billions of losses from the California wildfires of 
2017 and 2018, insurance companies are now beginning to refuse to renew 
fire and homeowners liability insurance and hike rates for homeowners in 
fire-prone areas, the New York Times has reported.

But forcing people to move is an especially tough ask in California, 
which has a serious housing crisis. Many Paradise residents who lost 
their homes in the Camp Fire had moved there to escape the unaffordable 
rents and home prices of the Bay Area...
- - -
Climate change has created a new reality in the State of California. 
It's not a question of 'if' wildfire will strike, but 'when,'" said 
Newsom in a June report. "Our recent, terrifying history bears that out. 
Fifteen of the 20 most destructive wildfires in the state's history have 
occurred since 2000 and 10 of the most destructive fires have occurred 
since 2015. Wildfires don't discriminate -- they are a rural, suburban 
and urban danger. We all have an individual responsibility to step up 
and step in for our communities as we confront new and growing threats."

But he and other California leaders still have a long way to go in 
helping communities play better defense against wildfire. "We are 
overloaded with assessments and short on actions," said Ager.
https://www.vox.com/2019/9/10/20804560/climate-change-california-wildfire-2019


*This Day in Climate History - September 13, 2010 - from D.R. Tucker*
September 13, 2010: Brad Johnson of Think Progress reports on the legion 
of climate-change deniers running for US Senate seats.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2010/09/13/174788/gop-senate-deniers/
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