[TheClimate.Vote] December 14, 2020 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/*December 14, 2020*/

[Blackrock warning]
*A $7 trillion climate change warning to the stock market from its 
biggest shareholder*
Eric Rosenbaum - SUN, DEC 13 20207
- BlackRock, which has significant influence on proxy battles against 
corporations, signalled this week it would support more shareholder 
resolutions on issues including climate change.
- The world’s biggest investor has been criticized in the past for not 
following the words of its CEO Larry Fink, who has said climate will 
“fundamentally reshape finance,” with enough action.
- In the past week, Exxon Mobil was targeted by activist investors and a 
$200 billion New York pension fund threatened to divest from fossil fuel 
companies...
- -
BlackRock has a large staff working on direct engagement with companies, 
and that will continue. In fact, the new report says it will more than 
double the number of companies with which it engages on climate issues 
to over 1,000. BlackRock announced a list last year of roughly 200 
companies that it put on “watch” for climate inaction. “That’s not an 
insignificant term to use,” Smith said, and he added that engagement 
remains a relevant tool for a company the size of BlackRock.

The new direction and attitude from BlackRock on voting is something 
investors will monitor carefully to make sure it is being 
institutionalized. “We’ve had resolutions to BlackRock on this topic and 
each time they put some new steps forward but the result in proxy season 
was they didn’t move, they voted for a minority of resolutions,” Smith 
said. “This year they need to improve their record and I think there’s a 
real chance.”

But shareholder advocates should not fall into their own narrow view 
that resolutions are the only way to move companies. Direct engagement, 
pressure from suppliers like a Walmart, as well as from a firm’s own 
employees and industry peers, are important mechanisms for change, Smith 
said.

“Maybe this report is their signal they will join the community of 
shareholder advocates that vote. I am hopeful, sincerely hopeful and 
think we will see action, but we will see,” Behar said. At this point, 
he added, it is just more “great words.”

General guidelines aren’t detailed enough to predict votes or changes in 
voting patterns. In fact, Cook had thought that one of BlackRock’s 
changes to the wording of its 2020 guidelines, about expecting companies 
to issue reports aligned with carbon accounting standards known as TCFD 
or SAS, signaled a stronger inclination to support climate risk 
disclosure resolutions.

“I was clearly wrong about that,” Cook said. “But after issuing this 
report, it would be very tricky for BlackRock to explain next year why 
they rubber-stamped management’s position on E&S resolutions yet again.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/13/climate-change-a-7-trillion-warning-from-markets-biggest-investor.html



[because everyone checks the weather]
*Bandwidth issues at the National Weather Service could reshape how we 
use weather apps*
How we use weather apps might soon change for the worse
By Shawn Knight on December 10, 2020

Why it matters: The National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) 
is considering putting restrictions in place that would limit how often 
its websites could be accessed by the public. Ultimately, it could 
result in less accurate forecasts and delays in delivering severe 
weather warnings.
In a memo dated November 18 that largely flew under the radar until now, 
Brian Gross, acting director at NCEP, proposed new limits to safeguard 
their web services. According to Gross, the frequency at which the 
public is accessing its services has created infrastructure constraints 
and limitations.

“To add new or upgraded streams of data, there has to be a reduction in 
the number of connections into our system,” Gross added.

For example, one potential mitigation would lower the number of 
connections to 60 per minute for users accessing specific NCEP sites and 
services.

That’s great, but what does all of it mean for you?

Many weather-focused sites and apps pull data from the NCEP to power 
their offerings. Limiting access by such “power users” could have a 
substantial impact on third parties’ ability to provide accurate and 
timely forecasts and severe weather warnings.

The logical solution would be for the NCEP to simply bolster their 
bandwidth / serving capabilities but without additional funding, that 
likely isn’t an option. Could this mean that third parties might have to 
start chipping in to pay for the data they access? How would they 
generate those funds? Would the end user wind up footing the bill and 
have to pay for access to weather apps?

The NCEP is seeking public comments on the matter through December 18.
https://www.techspot.com/news/87924-national-weather-service-bandwidth-restrictions-could-disrupt-how.html

- -

[Washington Post]
*Weather Service faces Internet bandwidth shortage, proposes limiting 
key data*
Agency floats a solution to problems that could hobble private companies 
and affect popular weather apps.
By Jason Samenow and Andrew Freedman
Dec. 9, 2020.
For the past decade, the National Weather Service has been plagued by 
failures in disseminating critical forecast and warning information that 
is aimed at protecting lives and saving property. In some cases, its 
websites have gone down during severe weather events, unable to handle 
the demand.

Other agency systems, including information and data streams that 
deliver vital weather modeling data to broadcast meteorologists and 
commercial users, have also suffered periodic outages.

‘This is not rocket science.’ Years after a fix was promised, National 
Weather Service website still unreliable.

Now, during a year that featured record California wildfires and the 
busiest Atlantic hurricane season on record, the Weather Service says it 
has an Internet bandwidth problem and is seeking to throttle back the 
amount of data its most demanding users can access. The Weather Service, 
which is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 
(NOAA), announced the proposed limits in a memo dated Nov. 18...
- - *
**Only $1.5 million to fix?*
The Weather Service held a public forum Tuesday to discuss the proposal 
and answer questions. When asked about the investment in computing 
infrastructure that would be required for these limits to not be 
necessary, agency officials said a one-time cost of about $1.5 million 
could avert rate limits. The NOAA budget for fiscal 2020 was $5.4 billion.

Buchanan, however, stated the actual cost to address the issue would be 
higher because the $1.5 million “would comprise just one component of 
what has to be a multifaceted solution.”

The officials at the forum also said that senior management at the 
Weather Service was aware of the relatively small cost of addressing the 
issue but that the agency faced “competing priorities.”

Buchanan said data dissemination is a priority for Weather Service 
leadership but that it is “continuously weighed” against others.

When officials at the forum were asked if Congress was aware of the 
agency’s data dissemination challenges, they said that they did not know.

Sen. Maria Cantwell (Wash.), ranking Democrat on the Senate Commerce 
Committee, which oversees NOAA, said a request to upgrade the Weather 
Service’s computing infrastructure would probably find bipartisan support.

“From wildfires in Washington to hurricanes on the Gulf Coast, seconds 
count to save lives and property, and weather data plays a critical role 
in getting our emergency managers and first responders the information 
they need,” she said. “The United States should be striving to be the 
best in the world when it comes to weather data and forecasts, and with 
everything we’ve seen this year, a request to upgrade servers at the 
National Weather Service would find support on both sides of the aisle 
in Congress. Telling people to limit their use of this critical data is 
not an acceptable answer.”

The House Science, Space and Technology Committee “is aware of the 
proposal” and monitoring its potential impacts, according to the 
committee’s staff. “We are looking into how these proposed restrictions 
could impact NOAA’s ability to ensure free and open public access to the 
Agency’s data and models,” a spokesperson said.

The Weather Service is accepting public comments on its proposal through 
Dec. 18. Buchanan said that the agency believes 75 percent of its users 
will not be affected by the proposed change.

“If we learn differently, we will change our approach,” Buchanan said. 
“We are committed to work with users to mitigate to the maximum extent 
feasible the impacts of any necessary changes.”

If changes are ultimately made, officials at the forum assured users 
they would be rolled out slowly with advanced notification, probably 
starting in about three months.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/12/09/nws-data-limits-internet-bandwidth/



[innovation - video]
*Fossil free steel. Another giant step towards net carbon zero?*
Dec 13, 2020
Just Have a Think
Steel has become an essential material in our modern world. But the 
steel making industry is responsible for 7% of all global greenhouse gas 
emissions. That has to be reduced by at least 60% by 2050 if we are to 
meet our net carbon zero targets. A solution has been found though, and 
it replaces carbon with hydrogen. The question is, can it be scaled up 
quickly enough?
Errata : Apologies for the formula on screen at 6:50 - the letter z 
should of course have been a number 2 and the Fe203 and H2 numbers 
should be subscripts.  Sadly my 52 year old eyes are getting worse every 
day, and I missed these errors!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywHJt88H5YQ


[part 1 of 3 videos]
*The End of the Road for a Cold Arctic: Arctic Report Card 2020 
Highlights & Lowlights: Part 1 of 3*
Dec 12, 2020
Paul Beckwith
Arctic Report Card 2020 (ARC2020):
Result: FAIL
Summary: Out with the Cold; in with the Hot
Consequences: Dire
1) Average annual land surface air temperature north of 60 degrees for 
October 2019 - September 2020 was the second highest on record since at 
least 1900.

2) Sea ice loss in Spring 2020 was particularly early in the east 
Siberian Sea and Laptev Sea regions; end of summer sea ice melt extent 
was second lowest behind 2012.

3) August mean sea surface temperatures in 2020 were 1 to 3 degrees C 
warmer than the 1982-2010 August mean over most of the Arctic Ocean, 
with exceptionally warm temperatures in the Laptev and Kara seas that 
coincided with the early loss of sea ice in this region.

4) During July and August 2020, regional ocean primary productivity in 
the Laptev Sea was 2 times higher for July and 6 times higher for August 
compared to their respective monthly averages.

5) Bowhead whale populations increased due to increased in ocean primary 
productivity.

6) Shifts in air temperatures, storminess, sea ice and ocean conditions 
have combined to increase coastal erosion rates circumventing the Arctic.

7) Exceptional warm Spring air temperatures across Siberia resulted in 
record low June snow cover extent across the Eurasian Arctic.

8) Extreme wildfires in 2020 in the Sakha Republic of northern Russia 
coincided with unparalleled warm air temperatures and record snow loss 
in the region.

9) Tundra greenness trends diverged strongly with a sharp decline in 
North America and rise above long-term average in Eurasia.

10) Greenland Ice Sheet experienced higher ice loss than 1981-2010 
average, but substantially lower than record 2018/19 loss.

11) Glaciers and ice sheets outside of Greenland have continued a trend 
of significant ice loss, dominated largely by ice loss from Alaska and 
Arctic Canada.

more in 3 videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOV9QB4c4BA
- -
*Arctic Report Card 2020 Results: Cold Snowy Icy Arctic Out; Hot Slushy 
Green Arctic In: Part 2 of 3*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnJHEsHqg4A
- -
*A tale of woe: Arctic Report Card 2020: Part 3 of 3*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2311oAEO3w



[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming - December 14, 2006 *
December 14, 2006: MSNBC's Keith Olbermann condemns the latest sleazy 
action by overrated novelist and climate-change denier Michael Crichton:

"In his last novel, he dismissed global warming.  So a political 
columnist for the 'New Republic' who went to Yale named Michael Crowley 
ripped him for it.  Now Crichton's got a new book out, in which he’s 
created a minor character who is a child rapist, and described as a 
political columnist who went to Yale, and who’s named Mick Crowley.  
Crichton’s publisher, Harper Collins, is owned by Rupert Murdoch.

"The real Michael Crowley is understandably upset that Crichton gave his 
name to a child rapist, but look, Mr. Crowley, it could have been worse; 
Crichton could have used your name for a character based on himself.  
Author Michael 'Vengeance is Mine' Crichton, today's Worst Person in the 
World."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIdoaaYklJ8

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