[TheClimate.Vote] February 21, 2020 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Fri Feb 21 08:23:28 EST 2020
/*February 21, 2020*/
[free weekly climate crisis newsletter]
*The New Yorker's new weekly newsletter on climate change will try to
break through the daily noise*
"Climate is one of those big, overarching topics that feels essential to
understand and also very overwhelming. The newsletter form seems like
the right way to approach it because it narrows the focus."
By SARAH SCIRE
What's the right pace for journalism about climate change to maximize
its impact?
Hammering people with a constant torrent of stories can make some people
feel helpless and overwhelmed by the onslaught -- not to mention the
sheer scope of the problem. But checking in only sporadically, like when
there's a major new international report, leaves the story too far off
the public's agenda. A crisis many years in the making -- with both its
impacts and solutions often measured in decades -- is hard to align with
the rhythms of a newsroom.
The New Yorker is betting that weekly -- and in your inbox rather than
as just another link in your Twitter feed -- might be right. The
magazine announced this week that it's moving deeper into
newsletter-only content with a weekly email dedicated to climate change
-- written by perhaps the biggest name in environmental journalism, Bill
McKibben...
- - -
Each issue of The Climate Crisis will consist of a short essay, links,
and an interview section called "Pass the Mic" to highlight emerging
perspectives on climate change. The name is a nod to the NAACP
publication co-founded by W.E.B. Du Bois a little more than a century ago.
The Climate Crisis is hardly the first newsletter dedicated to climate
change. From established institutions, there's the weekly Climate Fwd:
from The New York Times. More 2020 is Emily Atkin's HEATED, a
subscriber-only daily on Substack...
https://www.niemanlab.org/2020/02/the-new-yorkers-new-weekly-newsletter-on-climate-change-will-try-to-break-through-the-daily-noise/
*Sign Up for The New Yorker's Climate Crisis Newsletter*
Updates from inside the climate movement, from the activist and author
Bill McKibben.
https://www.newyorker.com/home/newsletters/sign-up-for-the-new-yorkers-climate-crisis-newsletter
[Everyone has an idea]
*How climate scientists, activists, and NGOs want to spend Jeff Bezos'
money*
Bezos pledged to give $10 billion to take action on climate change
When Jeff Bezos -- Amazon's CEO and the richest person alive --
announced his new $10 billion Bezos Earth Fund on Tuesday, he said he
would start doling out that cash to scientists, NGOs, and activists as
early as this summer. There aren't a ton of details yet about what kind
of charitable giving the Bezos Earth Fund will be focused on, but
researchers and advocacy groups have a few ideas for how all that green
could be spent.
The Verge spoke with leading environmental organizations and scientists
about what that $10 billion could accomplish. While it represents just
under 8 percent of Bezos' net worth, the sum alone is 10 times as much
as foundations across the globe gave in 2018 to try to stop climate
change. In the US, just $500 million in grants is given to climate
efforts each year, Noah Deich, executive director of the nonprofit
Carbon 180, told The Verge.
- - -
"Bezos is a tycoon whose company is inherently unsustainable and
damaging to the planet and people," Sen Oglesby, 17-year-old finance
coordinator for the activist group Extinction Rebellion Youth New York,
said in an email to The Verge. "While this sum of money is huge, it
comes with the caveat that Amazon continues to exacerbate the issue
Bezos is donating to fix."
*Investing in science**
*
How much climate change can we handle? That's a central question to the
climate crisis, according to Duffy. Researchers need to understand what
the world will look like under differing degrees of warming. Which
cities will be underwater? How big of a punch will future superstorms
pack? The answers to those questions can help people figure out how to
adapt to the altered world.
"UNDERSTANDING THE BIG, BIG THREATS"
"The research should be aimed at understanding the big, big threats,"
Duffy says. That includes extreme weather, vanishing ice sheets pushing
sea levels up, and greenhouse gases from melting permafrost amplifying
global warming...
- - -
Amazon employees and activists have long sought to hold Amazon
accountable for its environmental footprint. That includes the air
pollution it generates to get packages from distribution centers to
online shoppers' front doors. They've also criticized Amazon for
providing cloud services to fossil fuel companies. Environmental
organization 350.org and Amazon Employees for Climate Justice both
responded to Bezos' announcement by urging him to fulfill demands to
slash Amazon's greenhouse gas emissions and stop doing business with Big
Oil and Gas...
https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/19/21143044/jeff-bezos-climate-change-donation-scientists-earth-fund-activists-ngo
[Beckwith video talk #2]
*How Southern Ocean Warming Drives Substantial Ice Mass Loss from
Antarctica; Part 2 of 3*
Feb 20, 2020
Paul Beckwith
I continue to discuss a new paper that examines how southern ocean
warming drove substantial ice mass loss from Antarctica early in the
last interglacial period (129 to 116 thousand years ago), and the
implications of this today. Back then, with warmer polar temperatures,
global mean sea level was +6 to 9 m (roughly 20 to 30 feet) higher than
today. With Greenland ice sheet melt contributing about 2 m, and ocean
thermal expansion and melting mountain glaciers contributing about 1 m;
that means Antarctica would have contributed between 3 to 6 m, mostly
from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iam0hMEpEMo
- - -
[Beckwith video #3]
How close are Southern Ocean Temperatures to a West Antarctic Ice Sheet
Tipping Point? Part 3 of 3
Paul Beckwith
I continue chatting on the new paper examining how southern ocean
warming drove substantial ice mass loss from Antarctica early in the
last interglacial period (129 to 116 thousand years ago), and the
implications for us today of accelerated melt and sea level rise.
According to the paper, an early last-interglacial warning of
Sea-Surface Temperature (SST) of 1.6 C relative to present day occurred;
meanwhile SST temperatures bracketing coastlines of the most vulnerable
West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) increased as much as 1 C between 1981
and 2010. Not good; we may be very close to a tipping point.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DA1CjqNyBx0
[Boston has been paying attention]
*Boston harbor brings ashore a new enemy: Rising seas*
Facing climate change, Boston must gird itself for an era of rising
water -- or be inundated
- - -
They concluded that sea-level rise in Boston began to pick up speed only
after 1940. One-third of the 100 most extreme storm events have taken
place in the past dozen years, including in 2018, which saw some of the
highest water levels measured since European colonization, they wrote.
By the 2030s, the city will face an "abruptly" elevated risk of coastal
flooding when tides shift, the scientists said.
For many cities, floods that once occurred every 100 years are expected
to become annual events -- or even more frequent -- by 2050, said
Princeton University's Michael Oppenheimer, a professor of geosciences
and international affairs.
"Enough is known to start formulating policies to make the coast more
resilient and to adapt to anticipated sea-level rise," he said.
Boston is one of 94 cities worldwide sharing information about how to
deal with climate change.
In the end, Oppenheimer warned, retreat might be the only option. "It is
what a lot of cities will have to do because a lot of neighborhoods are
not defensible," he said. Sea levels will continue to rise, no matter
how high the coastal barriers might be, he said.
"You either protect people or you get them out of the way," he said.
"There just isn't a choice."...
more at -
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2020/02/19/boston-prepares-rising-seas-climate-change/?arc404=true
[Wildfire in politics]
*Statements from five presidential candidates about wildland fire*
Author Bill Gabbert - Feb 19, 2020
They were asked about how to break the cycle of more severe weather,
homes in fire-prone areas, and fire suppression that puts forests at
greater risk for more catastrophic fires in the future...
https://wildfiretoday.com/2020/02/19/statements-from-five-presidential-candidates-about-wildland-fire/
*[Two dramatic fire videos, one terrifying, one hilarious]*
[O]f all the videos of the fires, the one I was most compelled to watch
repeatedly was filmed by an inanimate object. Specifically, it was
recorded by a Garmin dashboard camera inside a fire truck belonging to
the Dunmore Rural Fire Brigade, one of the many local volunteer teams
left, amid the fecklessness of Prime Minister Scott Morrison's
government, to more or less single-handedly fight what may well be the
largest-yet climate catastrophe visited upon an affluent, developed
country. At the beginning of the video, we see a fire engine and a light
truck parked along a country road. The crew members -- like volunteer
fire crews everywhere, a mix of stocky middle-aged men and
farm-boy-looking youths -- are ambling around, checking radios and
finishing canned drinks. Then a plume of smoke starts spreading from the
upper right-hand corner of the screen.
We see the firefighters climb into their trucks and retreat down the
road. The smoke is thickening now, faster than you would imagine if you
have not seen wildfires and are not acquainted with the improbable,
astonishing speed they can achieve, matching that of a car on the
highway. The last flashing lights vanish into the smoke, and with them
the last trace of humanity in view. Seconds later, the trees alongside
the road explode. The sky is gone. The landscape recedes into its basic
geometry -- the road, a driveway, telephone poles -- and then even the
geometry blurs into a directionless swirl of fire, ember and smoke.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2435387696711232
-- -
then the funny one from 2018:
*Fire Tornado Sucks Fire Hose Into Air*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eWv3cUzJvA
[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming - February 21, 2012 *
Conservative blogger Steven L. Taylor calls out GOP presidential
candidate Rick Santorum for his repeated denials of climate change:
"[C]onservatives ultimately see any attempt at environment
regulation as really not about the environment anyway, but about an
excuse for increased government control. Not only does this pay
into general concerns about 'big government' but this strand of the
argument asserts that all this researchy/sciencey talk is just a
ruse: those guys aren't really scientists interested in
understanding the environment. No! They are Marxists in lab coats
looking to fool you all into socialism!
"Now, understand: I do not consider myself an expert on climate
change. I do not even have especially strong views on the subject,
although I do accept the rather overwhelming scientific consensus
that we have a climate change problem. What this means in terms of
policy is another issue. However, I find it problematic when
politicians hand-wave over serious issues [due to] some inherent
belief that they understand topics that would otherwise require a
lifetime of study to understand...Further, while I understand
concerns over taxes and regulations, that doesn't make issues like
pollution go away.
"In short: if one is going to make arguments on this topic (and
seek to influence policy in this arena) I would like to see more
than appeals to the Biblical creation story and fear mongering about
government control."
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/santorum-and-climate-change-theology/
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