[TheClimate.Vote] September 22, 2019 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Sun Sep 22 08:48:28 EDT 2019
/September 22, 2019/
[weather defines climate]
*Flooded again: Climate change is making flooding more frequent in
Southeast Texas*
When it rains, it pours, and southeastern Texas is ground zero now
Tropical Storm Imelda enters the history books as one of the top five
wettest tropical cyclones to ever strike the lower 48 states, with a
maximum rainfall total of 43.39 inches. On Friday morning, floodwaters
continued to block roads, damage homes and cause gridlock in the Houston
metro area and especially in the vicinity of Beaumont and Port Arthur,
where new flood warnings were issued for additional rainfall of up to
four inches.
That this storm comes just two years after Hurricane Harvey dumped an
almost unimaginable 60.58 inches of rain on the same general area is no
accident. In addition, other major rain events in Southeast Texas in the
past five years have caused extensive disruptions and damage.
Recent studies show that slow-moving tropical cyclones in the United
States are becoming more frequent, and increased ocean heat content is
supercharging the rainfall potential of such storms, making them more
formidable rain producers than they otherwise would be...
- - -
The 2018 study found that the energy released into the atmosphere from
Harvey's rainfall was equivalent to the amount of energy removed from
the ocean in the storm's wake. In other words, the study found that the
amount of heat stored in the ocean is directly related to how much rain
a storm can produce...
- - -
Since 1970, Houston's average yearly rainfall has climbed between four
and eight inches, depending on the location analyzed and how the data is
parsed. Of the top 100 rainiest days since 1970 in Houston, 54 have
occurred since 2000. These top-tier rainy days are twice as common in
the 2000-2017 period, compared with the 1970-1999 interval...
What's happened in Texas isn't unique to that state...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2019/09/20/flooded-again-climate-change-is-making-flooding-more-frequent-southeast-texasthanks-part-climate-change/
[UN News - likely the least bias]
*Youth leaders at UN demand bold climate change action*
Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg opens the first ever Youth Summit on
climate change at the UN headquarters.
A day after climate strikes convulsed cities across the globe, with
hundreds of thousands of young people opting to skip school and take to
the streets instead, youth leaders have gathered at the United Nations
to demand radical action on climate change.
The UN invited 500 young activists and entrepreneurs to take part in
Saturday's meeting - the first of its kind - at the body's headquarters
in New York.
It came days before a climate action summit scheduled to begin on
Monday, which UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called to seek
greater commitments from world leaders on reducing their greenhouse gas
emissions in line with the Paris accord to avert runaway global warming.
Among those in attendance on Saturday was 16-year-old Swedish activist
Greta Thunberg, who started the climate strike movement with her lone
protest in front of her country's parliament.
"We showed we are united and young people are unstoppable," she said.
Fellow activist Bruno Rodriguez, 19, who led school strikes in his
native Argentina, warned that "climate and ecological crisis" was the
"political, economic and cultural crisis of our time".
"Many a time, we hear that our generation is going to be the one in
charge of dealing with the problems that current leaders have created,
and we will not wait passively to become that future: the time is now
for us to be leaders," Rodriguez said, watched by Guterres, who was
billed as the "keynote listener".
'Change in momentum'
The pair's comments came after masses of children skipped school on
Friday to join global strikes that Thunberg said were "only the
beginning" of the movement.
Some four million people filled city streets around the world,
organisers said, in what was billed as the biggest-ever protest against
the threat posed to the planet by rising temperatures.
Youngsters and adults alike chanted slogans and waved placards in
demonstrations that started in Asia and the Pacific, spread across
Africa, Europe and Latin America, before culminating in the United States.
Strike organisers 350.org said Friday's rallies were the start of 5,800
protests across 163 countries over the next week.
The protests will coincide with a landmark UN report due to be unveiled
next week which will warn global warming and pollution are ravaging
Earth's oceans and icy regions in ways that could unleash misery on a
global scale.
But Guterres struck a more optimistic note on Saturday, telling youth
leaders that "there is a change in momentum" on the issue of climate
change.
"This changing momentum was due to your initiative and to the courage
with which you have started these movements," Guterres said.
"Hold my generation accountable. My generation has largely failed until
now to preserve both justice in the world and the planet," he added.
Al Jazeera's James Bays, reporting from the UN, said Guterres was hoping
to capitalise on the "people power" seen on Friday and the leading role
taken by youth activists, in particular, to fuel global action on
climate change.
"What the UN are hoping is that they can leverage all of this public
pressure with the mass protests and the youth summit to Monday," Bays
said, referring to the upcoming climate action summit.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/09/youth-leaders-demand-bold-climate-change-action-190921163443033.html
[Pew Research Center]
*Why Americans Don't Fully Trust Many Who Hold Positions of Power and
Responsibility*
Members of Congress and technology leaders are rated lower in empathy,
transparency and ethics; public gives higher scores to military leaders,
public school principals and police officers
People invest their trust in institutions and those who have power for a
variety of reasons. Researchers have found that people's confidence in
others and organizations can include their judgments about the
competence, honesty and benevolence of the organizations or individuals
they are assessing, as well as factors such as empathy, openness,
integrity and accountability. These perceptions can be seen as building
blocks of trust...
- - -
The survey shows that beyond the realms of ethics and transparency,
Americans have varying levels of confidence in key aspects of job
performance by those who hold important positions of power and
responsibility. For instance, U.S. adults have relatively high levels of
confidence that these people will perform key aspects of their duties
(for example, that leaders of technology companies build products and
services that enhance people's lives) "some of the time" or more often,
and that they will handle resources responsibly...
- - -
Members of Congress and leaders of technology companies do not have the
same level of public confidence when it comes to several performance
attributes. For instance, 48% of adults think tech firm bosses care
about people "all or most of the time" or "some of the time," and 50%
feel that way about members of Congress. Similarly, 46% think members of
Congress provide fair and accurate information that often, and 61% think
this about leaders of tech firms. Some 47% think members of Congress
handle resources responsibly at least some of the time...
- - -
Democrats and those who lean Democratic are more likely than their
Republican counterparts to think K-12 public school principals
consistently perform key aspects of their jobs. For instance, Democrats
and leaners are more likely than Republicans and their leaners to
believe that principals handle resources in a responsible way (87% vs.
76%) and to think that principals do a good job ensuring that students
are developing critical thinking and problem-solving skills (76% vs. 68%).
The partisan gaps apply to people's judgments about military leaders,
with Republicans being more positive than Democrats. For example,
Republicans are 20 points more likely than Democrats to say military
leaders handle the resources available in a responsible way some of the
time or more often (89% vs. 69%).
In addition, Republicans and those who lean toward the Republican Party
are more likely than Democrats and those who lean toward the Democratic
Party to express positive opinions about religious leaders. For
instance, fully three-quarters of Republicans say religious leaders
provide fair and accurate information to the public at least some of
time, compared with just 54% of Democrats who say the same.
Racial and ethnic differences: Black Americans and Hispanics are more
skeptical than white people about the performance of police officers.
Roughly seven-in-ten white Americans (72%) say police officers treat
racial and ethnic groups equally at least some of the time. In
comparison, half of Hispanics and just 33% of black adults say the same.
Black people are also less likely than white Americans to believe that
local officials do their jobs well at least some of the time.
Gender differences: Women are more likely than men to have confidence in
members of Congress and journalists doing their jobs much of the time.
https://www.people-press.org/2019/09/19/why-americans-dont-fully-trust-many-who-hold-positions-of-power-and-responsibility/
[Tech Oligarch speaks to the future]
*Bill Gates on Global Inequality, Climate Change and Big Tech*
Published on Sep 16, 2019
Bloomberg Technology
Sep.16 -- Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Co-Chair and Microsoft
Co-Founder Bill Gates speaks to Bloomberg's Erik Schatzker at the
Foundation's HQ in Seattle. On Tuesday, the foundation released its
annual Goalkeepers report. The study seeks to monitor and aid the
progress of the United Nations in achieving in its Sustainable
Development Goals, which the foundation says are being hindered by
persistent inequality. They also discuss climate change, U.S. Tax policy
and calls for breaking up America's biggest technology companies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EagrIPTCqrg
- - -
[Here are some data sources for how many yearly deaths from global warming]
*Climate Change, Coming Home: Global warming's effects on populations*
150,000 excess deaths annually-deaths
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5019
- - -
*More Than 250,000 People May Die Each Year Due to Climate Change*
In 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that climate
change would lead to about 250,000 additional deaths each year between
2030 and 2050, from factors such as malnutrition, heat stress and malaria.
But the new review, published Jan. 17 in The New England Journal of
Medicine, said this is a "conservative estimate." That's because it
fails to take into account other climate-related factors that could
affect death rates -- such as population displacement and reductions in
labor productivity from farmers due to increased heat, study co-author
Dr. Andrew Haines, epidemiologist and former director of the London
School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, told CNN.
In addition, the WHO estimate didn't take into account illnesses and
deaths tied to disruptions in health services caused by extreme weather
and climate events, the review said...
https://www.livescience.com/64535-climate-change-health-deaths.html
- - -
[WHO is World Health Organization 2018 data]
*Climate change and health*
[Many millions from different causes related to global warming]
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/climate-change-and-health
- - -
[Free PDF download long read]
*COP24 special report: health and climate change*
World Health Organization. (2018). COP24 special report: health and
climate change. World Health Organization.
https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/276405.
"A highly conservative estimate of 250 000 additional
deaths each year due to climate change has been
projected between 2030 and 2050"
https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/276405
- - -
[data collection is difficult]
*Obama Is Right: Climate Change Kills More People Than Terrorism*
Twenty governments commissioned an independent report in 2012 from the
group DARA International to study the human and economic costs of
climate change. It linked 400,000 deaths worldwide to climate change
each year, projecting deaths to increase to over 600,000 per year by
2030. When scientists attribute deaths to climate change, they don't
just mean succumbing to a heat wave or, as Huckabee put it, to sunburn.
Heat waves kill many, to be sure, but global warming also devastates
food security, nutrition, and water safety. Since mosquitoes and other
pests thrive in hot, humid weather, scientists expect diseases like
malaria and dengue fever to rise. Floods threaten to contaminate
drinking water with bacteria and pollution.
- -
When the report looked at the added health consequences from burning
fossil fuels--aside from climate change--the number of deaths jumps from
400,000 to almost 5 million per year.
https://newrepublic.com/article/121032/map-climate-change-kills-more-people-worldwide-terrorism
- - -
[Yale estimates]
*Limiting Climate Change Would Prevent Thousands of Heat-Related Deaths
Annually in the U.S., Study Finds*
Research released earlier this week highlighted the health challenges
posed by climate change, including extreme weather events, the spread of
mosquito-borne diseases, and air pollution. The World Health
Organization has previously stated that tackling the climate crisis
would save at least a million lives a year globally, making it a moral
imperative to act.
"Strengthened climate actions are needed as they would substantially
benefit public health in the United States," said Eunice Lo, from the
University of Bristol's Cabot Institute and lead author of the heat study.
https://e360.yale.edu/digest/limiting-climate-change-would-prevent-thousands-of-heat-related-deaths-annually-in-the-u-s-study-finds
- - -
[theGuardian]
*Save millions of lives by tackling climate change, says WHO*
This article is more than 9 months old
Global warming and fossil fuel pollution already killing many, UN
climate summit told
Tackling climate change would save at least a million lives a year, the
World Health Organization has told the UN climate summit in Poland,
making it a moral imperative.
Cutting fossil fuel burning not only slows global warming but slashes
air pollution, which causes millions of early deaths a year, the WHO
says. In a report requested by UN climate summit leaders, the WHO says
the economic benefits of improved health are more than double the costs
of cutting emissions, and even higher in India and China, which are
plagued by toxic air...
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/05/save-millions-of-lives-by-tackling-climate-change-says-world-health-organization
- - - [just that measuring causal yearly deaths is difficult]
[trees as solution - video]
*Climate Change: can nature repair the planet? | The Economist*
Published on Sep 19, 2019
The Economist
997K subscribers
A closer look at one of the most familiar responses offered to the
climate crisis. What is the real story behind trees and climate change?
See our research here: https://econ.st/32HXvXY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRgv4V1ZxN4
*This Day in Climate History - September 22, 2009 - from D.R. Tucker*
September 22, 2009: President Obama addresses the UN on climate change.
http://youtu.be/QvDg4BMTGE8
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