[TheClimate.Vote] April 30, 2020 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

Thu Apr 30 09:17:04 EDT 2020

/*April 30, 2020*/

[NYT opinion]
*This Luxury Tower Has Everything: Pools. A Juice Bar. And Flood 
Resilience.*
Unless we learn to adapt, only the rich will be able to avoid the 
ravages of climate change.
- -
In fact, America's entire disaster-response strategy is designed to push 
back against nature, rather than adapt to it. Federal aid, like the 
Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, aims at recovery 
to pre-disaster conditions rather than preparedness to weather future 
storms, further entrenching the status quo and preventing adaptation at 
the structural or ecological level...
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/29/opinion/climate-change-architecture-design.html

[legal challenge]
*In Montana, Children File Suit to Protect 'the Last Best Place'*
Part of a 50-state strategy, the lawsuit highlights Montana's love of 
wild landscapes to force the state to address the climate impacts of 
fossil fuels.
BY JUDY FAHYS
She's identified only as Kathryn Grace S., one of 16 youths who've sued 
to keep the state of Montana from promoting the use of fossil fuels, 
threatening their future.

To read the 108-page complaint, filed in March, is to understand that 
they're fighting for what Montanans call "the last best place."

Grace, 16, says in the complaint that drought has dried up the Clark 
Fork River for rafting.

Georgianna F., 17, fears shortened winters have reduced snow she needs 
to train for Nordic skiing...
- -
The Montana case, led by the non-profit public interest firm, Our 
Children's Trust, is part of a 50-state campaign to put government 
policy contributing to climate change before the courts...
- -
Montana environmental lawyer Jack Tuholske said the case shines a 
compelling spotlight on the state constitution's healthy environment 
provision. The guarantee of environmental health, he said, was added in 
1972 because of historic mining pollution in a state where industry had 
outsized influence on lawmakers.

"This [case] is very much in a context of the history and culture of the 
state," he said. "It'll be interesting to see how the court approaches 
this case, based on the Constitution."
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/28042020/montana-children-lawsuit-climate-change
- -
[read the complaints]
*Proceedings in All 50 States*
https://www.ourchildrenstrust.org/montana

[The Motley Fool]
*Chevron Shareholders Want Action on Climate Change*
Shareholders want Chevron to produce a report on the risks to the 
climate associated with the company's petrochemical operations...
more at - 
https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/04/29/chevron-shareholders-want-action-on-climate-change.aspx

[to Plan Ahead]
*How a Warming Climate Could Affect the Spread of Diseases Similar to 
COVID-19*
A hotter planet could change the relationship among infectious agents, 
their hosts and the human body's defense mechanisms
By Sara Goudarzi on April 29, 2020
Scientists have long known that the rise in average global temperatures 
is expanding the geographical presence of vector-borne diseases such as 
malaria and dengue fever, because the animals that transmit them are 
adapting to more widespread areas. The link between respiratory 
illnesses, including influenza and COVID-19, and a warming planet is 
less clear. But some scientists are concerned that climate change could 
alter the relationship between our body's defenses and such pathogens. 
These modifications could include the adaptation of microbes to a 
warming world, changes in how viruses and bacteria interact with their 
animal hosts, and a weakened human immune response...
- -
Specifically, the researchers noted that the mice in the hottest room 
ate less than those in the cooler rooms and lost 10 percent of their 
body weight in the first 24 hours of being exposed to higher 
temperatures. "People often lose their appetite when they feel sick," 
said study author Takeshi Ichinohe, an associate professor at the 
University of Tokyo, in a press release. "If someone stops eating long 
enough to develop a nutritional deficit, that may weaken the immune 
system and increase the likelihood of getting sick again." When Ichinohe 
and his colleague Miyu Moriyama, then at the University of Tokyo, 
supplemented the mice's diet with sugar or short-chain fatty acids 
(which are commonly produced by intestinal bacteria), those animals were 
able to mount a normal immune response...
- -
Ellen F. Foxman, an assistant professor of laboratory medicine and 
immunobiology at the Yale School of Medicine, who was not involved in 
the study, expresses caution about making a direct link between heat and 
the mice's immune response. "The temperature had an effect on the 
animals' behavior, which had an effect on immunity," and the mice 
"didn't form as good of an antiviral immune response in this particular 
type of flu infection," she says. In contrast, Foxman's own 2015 PNAS 
study showed that the very first steps of the immune response to fight a 
cold virus were, in fact, boosted by higher temperatures and depressed 
by lower ones...
- -
"I think that climate change disrupts a lot of patterns--of human 
behavior, of insect vectors and even [of] bats"--from which the COVID-19 
virus and other deadly coronaviruses likely originated, Foxman says. The 
disruptions could indirectly alter the interactions between diseases and 
human defenses in ways scientists have yet to fully understand.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-a-warming-climate-could-affect-the-spread-of-diseases-similar-to-covid-19/

[Looking ahead]
*Don't look now, but the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season could break records*
By Zoya Teirstein on Apr 29, 2020
Parts of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans saw record-high 
temperatures last month. Meanwhile, the average ocean temperature 
worldwide came in just shy of the record set in 2016.

On Saturday morning, a tropical depression formed in the eastern Pacific 
Ocean -- the earliest tropical cyclone in that area since reliable 
record-keeping began in the early 1970s.

These two facts are related: Warming water is changing the size and 
frequency of tropical storms. And new forecasts show that this year's 
Atlantic hurricane season, which will take place between June and 
November, is shaping up to be among the worst we've ever experienced.
Last week, Penn State's Earth System Science Center released its 
predictions for the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season. The team of 
scientists, which include renowned climate scientist Michael E. Mann, 
said we could be looking at between 15 and 24 named tropical storms this 
year. Their best estimate is 20 storms. It could be one of the most 
active hurricane seasons on record...
- - -
Just because the forecast says the Atlantic is going to have an active 
hurricane season doesn't mean that each of those predicted storms will 
hit land -- there's no way to predict that this far out. But we do know 
that the storm-suppressing El Niño looks like it's going to take a 
sabbatical this year. The news couldn't come at a less opportune time. 
The United States and other countries bordering the Atlantic already 
have their hands full with the coronavirus pandemic. Another disaster on 
top of that could strain our already-buckling disaster response system.
https://grist.org/climate/dont-look-now-but-the-2020-atlantic-hurricane-season-could-break-records/

[video discussion]
*The Corona Oil Shock*
Apr 29, 2020
Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs
Join Professors Jeff Colgan and Mark Blyth for a discussion around the 
implications of COVID-19 on global politics and the environment, 
followed by an interactive Q&A.

Oil used to be a big story. If it rose we feared inflation. If it fell 
we celebrated a boost to consumption while worrying about green investments.

Over the past few months, the story about Oil has disappeared under an 
avalanche of COVID-19 concerns. But its price has collapsed and this 
time few are celebrating, or even worrying that much. Mark Blyth, 
Director of the Rhodes Center for International Economics and Finance at 
the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs talks with 
Professor Jeff Colgan, the Richard Holbrooke Associate Professor of 
Political Science and International and Public Affairs, about why Oil is 
still a big story and why we need to pay it more attention.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bllK2R9Xq1g

[new military thinking]
*Pentagon and Northern Command: Climate Change Has Implications for 
National Security in the Arctic*
GENERAL TERRENCE J. O'SHAUGHNESSY, USAF, COMMANDER OF UNITED STATES 
NORTHERN COMMAND AND NORTH AMERICAN AEROSPACE DEFENSE COMMAND, SPEAKS 
BEFORE THE SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE – MARCH 3, 2020
By Dr. Marc Kodack

On March 3, the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sub-Committee on 
Readiness and Management Support, held a hearing on "U.S. Policy and 
Posture in Support of Artic readiness." Witnesses providing written 
statements and answering questions included the HON Dr. James Anderson, 
Performing the Duties of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for 
Policy and General Terrence O'Shaughnessy, Commander of U.S. Northern 
Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command. Both witnesses 
identified climate change implications for national security in the 
Arctic region.

*Summary*
In both the witness written statements and in answer to Members 
questions, there was considerable emphasis on the threats from the 
Russians and Chinese to U.S national security interests in the Arctic. 
The Russians have significantly increased their military presence, both 
at sea and on land. While the U.S. has its own existing maritime and 
land-based Arctic capabilities, it is only now moving towards building 
additional ice breakers to supplement the only working ice breaker 
currently in the Coast Guard inventory. The need for additional ice 
breakers is driven by the effects of climate change whereby sea ice is 
considerably less extensive that in the past creating ice free sea lanes 
that will become more extensive in the future. The Russians are planning 
on exploiting these sea lanes to their economic and military advantage...
https://climateandsecurity.org/2020/04/29/pentagon-and-northern-command-climate-change-has-implications-for-national-security-in-the-arctic/

[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming  - April 30, 2001 *

Speaking in Toronto at an annual meeting of the Associated Press, Vice 
President Dick Cheney asserts, "Conservation may be a sign of personal 
virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive 
energy policy."

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2001-05-01-cheney-usat.htm

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