[TheClimate.Vote] February 17, 2020 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/*February 17, 2020*/

[The Guardian conjecture]
*'The only uncertainty is how long we'll last': a worst case scenario 
for the climate in 2050*
Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac - 15 Feb 2020

The Future We Choose, a new book by the architects of the Paris climate 
accords, offers two contrasting visions for how the world might look in 
thirty years (read the best case scenario here)

It is 2050. Beyond the emissions reductions registered in 2015, no 
further efforts were made to control emissions. We are heading for a 
world that will be more than 3C warmer by 2100The first thing that hits 
you is the air. In many places around the world, the air is hot, heavy 
and, depending on the day, clogged with particulate pollution. Your eyes 
often water. Your cough never seems to disappear. You think about some 
countries in Asia, where, out of consideration, sick people used to wear 
white masks to protect others from airborne infection. Now you often 
wear a mask to protect yourself from air pollution. You can no longer 
simply walk out your front door and breathe fresh air: there might not 
be any. Instead, before opening doors or windows in the morning, you 
check your phone to see what the air quality will be. Fewer people work 
outdoors and even indoors the air can taste slightly acidic, sometimes 
making you feel nauseated. The last coal furnaces closed 10 years ago, 
but that hasn't made much difference in air quality around the world 
because you are still breathing dangerous exhaust fumes from millions of 
cars and buses everywhere. Our world is getting hotter. Over the next 
two decades, projections tell us that temperatures in some areas of the 
globe will rise even higher, an irreversible development now utterly 
beyond our control. Oceans, forests, plants, trees and soil had for many 
years absorbed half the carbon dioxide we spewed out. Now there are few 
forests left, most of them either logged or consumed by wildfire, and 
the permafrost is belching greenhouse gases into an already overburdened 
atmosphere. The increasing heat of the Earth is suffocating us and in 
five to 10 years, vast swaths of the planet will be increasingly 
inhospitable to humans. We don't know how hospitable the arid regions of 
Australia, South Africa and the western United States will be by 2100. 
No one knows what the future holds for their children and grandchildren: 
tipping point after tipping point is being reached, casting doubt on the 
form of future civilisation. Some say that humans will be cast to the 
winds again, gathering in small tribes, hunkered down and living on 
whatever patch of land might sustain them.

More moisture in the air and higher sea surface temperatures have caused 
a surge in extreme hurricanes and tropical storms. Recently, coastal 
cities in Bangladesh, Mexico, the United States and elsewhere have 
suffered brutal infrastructure destruction and extreme flooding, killing 
many thousands and displacing millions. This happens with increasing 
frequency now. Every day, because of rising water levels, some part of 
the world must evacuate to higher ground. Every day, the news shows 
images of mothers with babies strapped to their backs, wading through 
floodwaters and homes ripped apart by vicious currents that resemble 
mountain rivers. News stories tell of people living in houses with water 
up to their ankles because they have nowhere else to go, their children 
coughing and wheezing because of the mould growing in their beds, 
insurance companies declaring bankruptcy, leaving survivors without 
resources to rebuild their lives. Contaminated water supplies, sea salt 
intrusions and agricultural runoff are the order of the day. Because 
multiple disasters are often happening simultaneously, it can take weeks 
or even months for basic food and water relief to reach areas pummelled 
by extreme floods. Diseases such as malaria, dengue, cholera, 
respiratory illnesses and malnutrition are rampant.

You try not to think about the 2 billion people who live in the hottest 
parts of the world, where, for upwards of 45 days per year, temperatures 
skyrocket to 60C (140F), a point at which the human body cannot be 
outside for longer than about six hours because it loses the ability to 
cool itself down. Places such as central India are becoming increasingly 
challenging to inhabit. Mass migrations to less hot rural areas are 
beset by a host of refugee problems, civil unrest and bloodshed over 
diminished water availability.

Food production swings wildly from month to month, season to season, 
depending on where you live. More people are starving than ever before. 
Climate zones have shifted, so some new areas have become available for 
agriculture (Alaska, the Arctic), while others have dried up (Mexico, 
California). Still others are unstable because of the extreme heat, 
never mind flooding, wildfire and tornadoes. This makes the food supply 
in general highly unpredictable. Global trade has slowed as countries 
seek to hold on to their own resources.

Countries with enough food are resolute about holding on to it. As a 
result, food riots, coups and civil wars are throwing the world's most 
vulnerable from the frying pan into the fire. As developed countries 
seek to seal their borders from mass migration, they too feel the 
consequences. Most countries' armies are now just highly militarised 
border patrols. Some countries are letting people in, but only under 
conditions approaching indentured servitude.Those living within stable 
countries may be physically safe, yes, but the psychological toll is 
mounting. With each new tipping point passed, they feel hope slipping 
away. There is no chance of stopping the runaway warming of our planet 
and no doubt we are slowly but surely heading towards some kind of 
collapse. And not just because it's too hot. Melting permafrost is also 
releasing ancient microbes that today's humans have never been exposed 
to and, as a result, have no resistance to. Diseases spread by 
mosquitoes and ticks are rampant as these species flourish in the 
changed climate, spreading to previously safe parts of the planet, 
increasingly overwhelming us. Worse still, the public health crisis of 
antibiotic resistance has only intensified as the population has grown 
denser in inhabitable areas and temperatures continue to rise.

The demise of the human species is being discussed more and more. For 
many, the only uncertainty is how long we'll last, how many more 
generations will see the light of day. Suicides are the most obvious 
manifestation of the prevailing despair, but there are other 
indications: a sense of bottomless loss, unbearable guilt and fierce 
resentment at previous generations who didn't do what was necessary to 
ward off this unstoppable calamity.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/15/worst-case-scenario-2050-climate-crisis-future-we-choose-christiana-figueres-tom-rivett-carnac



[This video - text interaction seems to be the new standard for media 
reporting ]
*Inside Australia's climate emergency: the new fire zone*
This fire season, areas of Australia have burnt that used to be too wet 
to burn

Binna Burra Lodge in the Gold Coast hinterland was 81-year-old Tony 
Groom's life. His father founded the mountain hiking retreat in the 
1930s, Tony ran it in the 60s and 70s, and his daughter, Lisa, 52, grew 
up there.

The lodge's wooden cabins, bordered by rainforest on one side and 
eucalypts on the other, were a touchstone for people's lives: for 
weddings, wakes and walks around the ancient world heritage forests of 
Lamington national park.

Next door, Tony and his late wife, Connie, lived for almost 40 years in 
Alcheringa, a stone-walled house with a deck where Lisa and her brother 
would dangle their feet out over the Coomera Valley

On the morning of 8 September 2019 the lodge, the heritage-listed cabins 
and the Grooms' family homestead were razed to the ground by a bushfire. 
About 450 hectares of rainforest burned around Binna Burra that day – 
the kind of lush forest that doesn't usually burn...
Firefighters use the forest fire danger index to tell them how bad 
conditions are. The index combines the key ingredients that influence a 
bushfire – temperature, wind speed, humidity and the dryness of the 
"fuel", including grasses and fallen wood from trees.

Human-caused climate change has pushed the index higher in recent 
decades. The trends show not only that conditions are becoming more 
dangerous, but that the fire season is starting earlier.

Australia's spring months are September, October and November. The 
spring of 2019 was the worst year on record for high-risk bushfire 
weather in south-east Queensland, and for the entire country.

The conditions that helped a fire take hold at Sarabah, north-west of 
Binna Burra, had been building since the beginning of the year.

Rainfall was well below average, the ground was unusually dry and, in 
the days before the fire struck, daytime maximum temperatures were at 
near-record levels after months of hotter-than-average weather.

Then came the winds...
Many factors influence a fire and its impact but scientists are clear 
that human-caused climate change has already made things worse.

"At this point, the science is quite clear," says Dr Karl Braganza, head 
of climate monitoring at the Bureau of Meteorology. "As we add 
greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, the models show more severe bushfire 
conditions for Australia."

Australia's devastating fire season of 2019 and 2020 has so far burned 
through more than 7.7 million hectares in the south-eastern states, 
claiming 33 lives and almost 3,000 homes. Firefighters have never 
experienced anything like it.
Neither has Australia. 2019 was the hottest and driest year on record...
The kind of conditions that have delivered devastating and deadly major 
bushfires in the recent past are going to increase, according to Dr 
Richard Thornton, the chief executive of the Bushfire and Natural 
Hazards Cooperative Research Centre.

"People tend to base their risk perception on what they've experienced 
before – a bushfire every 50 or 100 years," Thornton says. "Their risk 
perception is based on history. But history is not a good predictor of 
the future.

"Those days will become more regular and the time between them will 
become less. But it's the extremes that cause the damage. Climate change 
makes the extremes worse."

Tony and Lisa have travelled the world. They run a tour company, giving 
guided walks across glaciers that are now receding and in national parks 
with increasingly unpredictable seasons.

"I've been watching it happen all my life," Tony says. "I thought 
climate change was happening to the world but not to me."

As for the home at Alcheringa, and Binna Burra Lodge, there are plans to 
rebuild in a way that will minimise damage from future fires. But they 
know the future will be different.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2020/feb/12/living-in-the-climate-emergency-australias-new-fire-zone



[technical analysis]
*Exxon Mobil Cannot Cover Its Dividend, And That's Great News*
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4324090-exxon-mobil-cannot-cover-dividend-and-great-news



[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming  - February 17,  2013*
An estimated 50,000 climate activists attend the Forward on Climate 
rally in Washington, D.C. Media coverage of the event goes backward on 
climate, with "NBC Nightly News" and the "CBS Evening News" each showing 
just seconds of footage.
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/311046-1
http://ens-newswire.com/2013/02/17/forward-on-climate-rally-draws-nearly-50000/
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/thousands-march-in-dc-to-protest-keystone-pipeline/
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/17/16996283-thousands-rally-in-dc-against-keystone-pipeline?lite

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