[TheClimate.Vote] August 27, 2020 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

Thu Aug 27 10:12:17 EDT 2020

/*August  27, 2020*/

[Serious hurricanes]
*Hurricane Laura Moves Inland Across Louisiana With Damaging Winds, 
Flooding Rain and Tornadoes After Category 4 Landfall
*https://weather.com/storms/hurricane/news/2020-08-27-hurricane-laura-landfall-forecast-louisiana-inland-flooding-wind*
*- -
*Oil Industry Shuts Platforms, Rigs, Refineries Before Storm*
The energy industry is bracing for catastrophic storm surges and winds 
as Hurricane Laura cuts a dangerous path toward the coastlines of Texas 
and Louisiana.
https://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2020-08-26/oil-industry-shuts-platforms-rigs-refineries-before-storm

[California Fires]
*Check incidents map*
https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/
- -
*Check interactive smoke map*
https://fire.airnow.gov/?lat=47.7167616&lng=-122.3262208&zoom=10
- -
[Colorado fire]
*Pine Gulch Fire could become largest in Colorado history*
https://wildfiretoday.com/2020/08/26/pine-gulch-fire-could-become-largest-in-colorado-history/

[Top opinion]
*On Climate Change, We've Run Out of Presidential Terms to Waste*
By Bill McKibben - Aug 26, 2020
- -
This is one of those terrifying moments in the early history of the 
global-warming era. As of this writing, Hurricane Laura is headed for 
the coasts of Texas and Louisiana as a monster storm; meanwhile, the 
West has been erupting in flames. In California, a heat wave that had 
produced record-high temperatures ran into a dry storm that, within a 
couple of days, produced a tenth of the state's average annual lightning 
discharges. (Increase the planet's temperature just a degree Celsius, by 
the way, and you increase lightning activity by about twelve per cent.) 
Authorities told all forty million people in California to be prepared 
to evacuate--indeed, they told them to park their cars facing out of the 
driveway, in case they had to leave in seconds. But the pandemic has 
made evacuation more complicated, because heading to a shelter might 
carry its own dangers, and it has left California's firefighting force 
depleted, because the state relies on prison inmates, a group that has 
been hit especially hard by covid-19, to fill out its ranks. And that's 
just California. The flooding crisis in China intensified again last 
week, as record amounts of water poured into the reservoir behind Three 
Gorges Dam.

Here's what this means: if Joe Biden and Kamala Harris take over the 
White House, in January, they're going to be dealing with an immediate 
and overwhelming climate crisis, not just the prospective dilemma that 
other Administrations have faced. It's not coming; it's here. The luxury 
of moving slowly, the margin for zigging and zagging to accommodate 
various interests, has disappeared. So, if the Democrats win, they will 
have to address the pandemic and the resulting economic dislocation, and 
tackle the climate mess all at the same time. Any climate plan must be, 
in some way or another, the solution to the current widespread loss of 
jobs...
https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-a-warming-planet/on-climate-change-weve-run-out-of-presidential-terms-to-waste

[video travelogue]
*Greenland Surface Air Temperature Changes and Implications for Melt and 
Mass Balance Change*
Aug 26, 2020
Paul Beckwith
A new paper by Hanna et al. shows how weather stations on Greenland 
operating over 3 decades (1991-2019) show 4.4C warming in winters and 
1.7C warming in summers. For each 1C of summer warming, there is 91GT of 
surface mass loss (Melt - Snowfall) and 26GT of discharge (Calving + 
Submarine Melt). The Greenland Blocking Index shows that high pressure 
blocking has strengthened in Spring and Summer in recent decades, 
greatly increasing net ice mass loss. Previously solid surface ice in 
regions like Swiss Camp now have crevasses, one of which Konrad Steffen 
recently perished in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2G7nfywF9AI

[Arctic as military theater - THE CENTER FOR CLIMATE & SECURITY]
*Emerging Threat: As the Arctic Melts, Russian Plans to Militarize Could 
Create a Nuclear Hotspot*
By Jasmine Owens
New opportunities are arising for various countries as climate change 
devastates the Arctic. However, Russia has already begun to stake its 
claim by increasing its military presence in the region.

The Arctic is experiencing momentous transformations as climate change 
wreaks havoc in the region. It is warming at twice the rate than the 
rest of the world. This is creating a positive feedback loop: as the 
temperatures rise in the Arctic, the sea ice that used to reflect 
sunlight back into the atmosphere is melting more, which causes the 
darker ocean water or land to absorb more light and thus increases the 
temperatures in the region. Due to the rising temperatures, the Arctic 
is predicted to be completely ice-free during the summer by 2050, even 
if significant international action is taken now to reduce carbon 
emissions. There is also a major concern that over time, the Arctic will 
lose all ability to produce ice, leaving it ice-free year-round.
*
**Russia & Climate Change*
However, the effects of climate change in the region are not limited to 
the Arctic. Russia has been warming at a rate of 2.5 times faster than 
the entire planet since the mid-1970's. Large parts of Russia are- and 
will continue to be- greatly impacted by climate change.
An extensive report published by the Center for Strategic and 
International Studies detailed how Russia plans to utilize the melting 
of the Arctic to further its own national security interests. According 
to the report, there are three overarching goals of Russia's military 
presence in the Arctic: to boost defense along its northern border, 
especially as interest in the Arctic begins to rise due to ice melt and 
potential new passageways; to protect its economic future; and, to 
establish a stage upon which it can project power.

*Arctic Territory & Russia's Nuclear Posture*
The main issue lies with the fact that Russia views the Northern Sea 
Route (NSR), its maritime passage, as a domestic passageway, while other 
countries see it as an international passageway. As Russia increases its 
control over the area, tensions will surely rise as other countries seek 
to use the passageway as well. China has already expressed interest, 
creating plans for a "Polar Silk Road" once the Arctic becomes ice free...
- -
As Russia increases its military and nuclear presence in the Arctic, it 
will become increasingly difficult for other countries to utilize the 
region without conflict arising. It is important to watch this region as 
climate change persists, to see how Russian actions in the name of 
national security will influence broader international security.

https://climateandsecurity.org/2020/08/emerging-threat-as-the-arctic-melts-russian-plans-to-militarize-could-create-a-nuclear-hotspot/

[Boston - Sen Ed Markey ]
*The climate case against Ed Markey*
As a senator, Markey has played a big role fighting the climate crisis. 
As one of the main congressional critics of nuclear power in the 1980s, 
he also played a big role creating it.
When Ed Markey arrived in Congress, in 1976, American utility companies 
were in the early stages of a major transition, building the next 
generation of electric power plants. Decades before wind and solar 
became viable, and after the early '70s oil crisis scared utilities and 
regulators away from oil-fired plants, most utilities had only two 
viable options: coal or nuclear power.

At around the same time, scientists began ramping up their warnings that 
coal had a downside -- even beyond pollution that causes thousands of 
annual deaths. Burning coal also releases carbon dioxide that causes 
global warming.

"We may have to limit our burning of fossil fuel because of a possible 
C02 catastrophe," Alvin Weinberg, former head of the Oak Ridge National 
Laboratory, wrote in 1977, citing studies predicting a noticeable 
increase in world temperatures by 2025. "It may result in a complete 
destruction of the Arctic sea-ice," said the first issue of Climate 
Change, published the same year...
- -
As the "establishment" predicted, the world is now in the grips of 
climate change, and faces almost unfathomable costs to limit the damage. 
Of all the what-ifs and could-have-beens, one of the greatest tragedies 
is that the technology existed to stop the crisis before it started, and 
New England and other parts of the world were even shifting in that 
direction -- but, under pressure from leaders like Markey, chose to stop.

So why does Markey get such a pass? The reality is that many 
environmentalists made the same miscalculation he did -- that the world 
could forgo nuclear power and still avoid catastrophe with renewables 
and energy conservation. Some of them even misled the public in the same 
way. At a separate 1980 hearing, for instance, a Union of Concerned 
Scientists witness testified that "the major barrier to the transition 
to coal which will take place is the perception that coal is a dirty 
fuel; if we move to more coal we are inevitably sacrificing our 
environment. This is not the case."

Honestly reckoning with the legacy of the anti-nuclear movement would 
also complicate the crop of lawsuits against the fossil fuel industry, 
which revolve around the narrative that climate change is a fate oil 
companies tricked us into -- rather than one that Americans, including 
environmentalists, chose. Doug Foy, who as the head of the Conservation 
Law Foundation led the effort to derail Boston Edison's planned 
transition to a more decarbonized portfolio -- on the basis of its cost, 
ironically -- even claimed recently, "In the early '80s climate change 
wasn't on anyone's radar."

But that's not true. As Markey himself said, by 1980 the greenhouse 
effect had "turned a lot of people off to coal." Markey and his allies 
just weren't yet among them. The world is living with the consequences.

Alan Wirzbick is Globe deputy editor for editorials.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/08/26/opinion/climate-case-against-ed-markey/

[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in various years of history of global warming - August 27 *

*1989: The New York Times reports:*
"Top Soviet and American scientists, environmentalists, policymakers, 
industry leaders and artists today urged President Bush and President 
Mikhail S. Gorbachev of the Soviet Union to form an 'environmental 
security alliance' to reverse what they fear could be a catastrophic 
warming of the planet.

"The gathering urged that the superpowers promote energy-efficient 
technologies and phase out production and use of chlorofluorocarbons no 
later than the year 2000. The group said the countries should 
'substantially reduce' carbon dioxide emissions, reduce the loss of 
forests and promote tree planting worldwide. Participants asked that the 
two leaders appeal directly to their citizens to help.

"The joint letter avoided specific goals to achieve a compromise between 
the Soviet and American participants and within the American contingent, 
even though some participants had wanted specific numerical and time 
goals on cutting emissions. But it represented the most concerted 
Soviet-American action yet over fears that the emission of industrial 
chemicals into the atmosphere is causing a worldwide warming trend, or 
'greenhouse effect.'

"'Soviet and U.S. scientists agreed that continued buildup of greenhouse 
gases at present rates will insure that global temperatures rise before 
the middle of the next century above anything in human history,' an 
accompanying report stated. The report said disruptions in agriculture 
and rising sea levels would cause 'massive refugee problems.'"

http://www.nytimes.com/1989/08/27/us/summit-of-sorts-on-global-warming.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm 

*2004: The New York Times reports that in an interview the previous day 
with President George W. Bush*, he "appeared unfamiliar with an 
administration report delivered to Congress on Wednesday that indicated 
that emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases were the 
only likely explanation for global warming over the last three decades. 
Previously, Mr. Bush and other officials had emphasized uncertainties in 
understanding the causes and consequences of global warming.

"The new report was signed by Mr. Bush's secretaries of energy and 
commerce and his science adviser. Asked why the administration had 
changed its position on what causes global warming, Mr. Bush replied, 
'Ah, we did? I don't think so.'

"Scott McClellan, Mr. Bush's press secretary, said later that the 
administration was not changing its position on global warming and that 
Mr. Bush continued to be guided by continuing research at the National 
Academy of Sciences."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/27/us/the-2004-campaign-the-president-bush-dismisses-idea-that-kerry-lied-on-vietnam.html 

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/27/politics/campaign/bush_excerpts.html?pagewanted=all 

*2007: MSNBC's Keith Olbermann mocks a shameless climate lie from Fox 
News Channel's Brit Hume:*
"New Scientist magazine reporting University of Washington mathematics 
and atmospheric science Professor Ka-Kit Tung's very complex findings 
about solar activity and the heating atmosphere. It writes, 'Climate 
change skeptics may seize on the findings as evidence that the sun's 
variability can explain global warming, but Professor Tung says quite 
the contrary is true.' So, of course, Brit Hume seizes on the findings 
as evidence that the sun's variability can explain global warming.

"'Skeptics,' Hume mumbled, 'are increasingly certain that the scare is 
vastly overblown. New research by University of Washington 
mathematicians shows a correlation between high solar activity and 
periods of global warming.' Come on, Brit, don't make these so easy for me."

http://mediamatters.org/research/2007/08/28/hannity-is-olbermanns-worst-person-for-defendin/139696 

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