[TheClimate.Vote] June 1, 2020 - Daily Global Warming News Digest.

Mon Jun 1 10:45:36 EDT 2020

/*June 1, 2020*/

[Hurricane season - eyes out to the horizon]
*Kerry Emanuel PhD: I Don't Make Hurricane Forecasts*
Hurricane Expert Kerry Emanuel says forecasts of a "quiet" hurricane 
season can be deadly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hkidk8rFmA
- - -
[don't mess with hurricanes - :52 video]
*Kerry Emanuel PhD: The Danger of Storm Surge*
May 31, 2020
greenmanbucket
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV9yYbDU9Lo
- - -
[US has negative adaptation - 3:30 video]
*Kerry Emanuel PhD: We are Subsidizing Risky Coastal Real Estate*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flowEvZTPuw

[money talks]
*ExxonMobil Defeats All Shareholder Resolutions, while Chevron Investors 
Favor Climate Risk Reporting*
Carolyn Davis - May 27, 2020
U.S. Energy Leaders BP, ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell Join Forces with 
Peers to Continue Advocating Climate Change Initiatives
ExxonMobil Prevails in New York Climate Change Investigation

ExxonMobil and Chevron Corp. investors on Wednesday were generally 
unswayed by the historic downturn in oil prices and voted against nearly 
all shareholder-backed resolutions at their annual meetings. However, a 
push for more information about climate risks was given the green light 
by Chevron shareholders.

At ExxonMobil's virtual meeting, shareholders approved all of the 
board-supported actions, which included voting for all directors, the 
executive compensation program and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as 
independent auditors. Investors defeated, per board recommendations, six 
shareholder-led proposals.

"Despite the current volatility and near-term uncertainty, the long-term 
fundamentals that drive our business remain strong and unchanged," CEO 
Darren Woods said. "Our objective is to strengthen the structure and 
earnings power of our business through industry-advantaged projects to 
provide a solid foundation for generating cash, reliably growing the 
dividend and maintaining a strong balance sheet."...
https://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/122109-exxonmobil-defeats-all-shareholder-resolutions-while-chevron-investors-favor-climate-risk-reporting

[Down under and buried]
*Australia's national environment laws 'actually allow extinction to 
happen'*
Carnaby's black-cockatoo, the grey range thick-billed grasswren and the 
swift parrot just three species in deep trouble after laws fail them
- - -
"It's not an overreach to say a lot of that work is being undermined if 
we keep taking habitat out of the Tasmanian forests and out of the south 
coast forests in NSW where they feed," he says.

In Tasmania, researchers from the Australian National University 
examined forest loss from logging in important swift parrot breeding 
areas in the southern forest between 2007 and 2016. They found a third 
of the forest - 15,271ha - had been cleared.
When they narrowed their research to hollow-bearing trees and the areas 
most likely to be used by swift parrots, they found 23% of the most 
suitable habitat had been cleared.

Dejan Stojanovic, one of the researchers, says the exemption granted to 
forestry was "the big failing" of the EPBC Act. The extinction of the 
swift parrot is "inevitable" if it continues on its current path.

"It's a priority species and [the government is] actively seeking ways 
to address sugar glider predations, which is exacerbated by logging," he 
says. "The fact it's exempt is laughable."

This week the federal court made a landmark judgment in relation to 
forestry operations in the central highlands of Victoria. Justice Debra 
Mortimer ruled the Victorian state-owned forestry agency, VicForests, 
had breached the code of practice in its regional forestry agreement 
and, as a result, its exemption from national laws should not apply.

Mortimer's judgment found logging by VicForests was having a significant 
impact on the critically endangered Leadbeater's possum and the 
vulnerable greater glider.

Although the judgment applies only to the central highlands agreement, 
experts will be examining whether it could have implications for other 
agreements and the species they affect, including the swift parrot.

In 2017 Tasmania's agreement was rolled over for another 20 years.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/31/australias-national-environment-laws-actually-allow-extinction-to-happen

[Coal]
*Climate activists protest Germany's new Datteln 4 coal power plant*
Germany has pledged to phase out coal production by 2038. Protesters 
think the new Datteln 4 coal power plant in the western state of North 
Rhine-Westphalia should not have been fired up.
The protests were reported to be largely peaceful, despite several 
actions during the day-long event. One action included members of Ende 
Gelande swimming and using canoes in a canal used for cooling, while 
holding a floating banner with the slogan: "Shut it down."...
- -
*Germany's coal phaseout*
Earlier this year, Germany announced a roadmap to see coal phased out, 
at the latest by 2038. It laid out plans for eight coal-fired power 
plants to be taken off the grid in 2020.

It was an important step for the largest contributor of carbon emissions 
in the EU -- accounting for over 22% of the bloc's CO2 emissions. Over a 
third of the electricity generated in Germany comes from burning coal.
- - -
Germany's coal commission has recommended that solutions be found for 
coal plants that are already built but not-yet-in-use to keep them from 
operating.

The state of North-Rhine Westphalia insisted that the additional carbon 
dioxide emissions from the new plant would be compensated by the closure 
of four other power plants.
https://www.dw.com/en/climate-activists-protest-germanys-new-datteln-4-coal-power-plant/a-53632887

[Tim Ball rolls away]
*Canadian Court Slams Trump Climate Advisor in Successful Libel Case*
https://www.desmogblog.com/2020/05/27/canadian-court-slams-trump-climate-advisor-successful-libel-case

[suggesting faster ice melt in the past]
*Antarctic Ocean Reveals New Signs of Rapid Melt of Ancient Ice, Clues 
About Future Sea Level Rise*
A study of seafloor ripples suggests that ice shelves can retreat six 
miles per year, a quantum increase over today's rates.
BY BOB BERWYN, INSIDECLIMATE NEWS
MAY 28, 2020
Climate researchers racing to calculate how fast and how high the sea 
level will rise found new clues on the seafloor around Antarctica. A 
study released today suggests that some of the continent's floating ice 
shelves can, during eras of rapid warming, melt back by six miles per 
year, far faster than any ice retreat observed by satellites.

As global warming speeds up the Antarctic meltdown, the findings "set a 
new upper limit for what the worst-case might be," said lead author 
Julian Dowdeswell, director of the Scott Polar Research Institute at the 
University of Cambridge.

The estimate of ice shelf retreat is based on a pattern of ridges 
discovered on the seafloor near the Larsen Ice Shelf. The spacing and 
size of the ridges suggest they were created as the floating ice shelves 
rose and fell with the tides while rapidly shrinking back from the 
ocean. In findings published today in Science, the researchers estimate 
that to corrugate the seafloor in this way, the ice would have retreated 
by more than 150 feet per day for at least 90 days...
- -
"With such retreat rates, the sea level rise contribution from 
Antarctica could be a lot higher and quicker than expected, as the 
models are tuned to represent the current observed retreat rates," he said.

Currently, the fastest retreat rates are more than half a mile per year 
for the ice shelves extending from the Pine Island and Thwaites 
glaciers, and 1.2 miles per year for the one below the Smith Glacier, 
which is also in West Antarctica...
- - -
"We need to both decrease emissions to stave off the worst rates of sea 
level rise, and we have to start adapting for the amount that is already 
guaranteed," she said. "I do worry that most communities and societies 
are behind the ball on both fronts."...
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/28052020/antarctic-ocean-ice-melt-climate-change

[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming - June 1, 2004 *
The Boston Phoenix's Dan Kennedy calls out the Boston Globe for running 
an op-ed by Jim Taylor of the Heartland Institute attacking the film 
"The Day After Tomorrow" without disclosing that the Heartland Institute 
is a front group for the fossil-fuel industry.
http://medialogarchives.blogspot.com/2004/06/and-now-rest-of-story.asp

/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------/

/Archive of Daily Global Warming News 
<https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote/2017-October/date.html> 
/
https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote

/To receive daily mailings - click to Subscribe 
<mailto:subscribe at theClimate.Vote?subject=Click%20SEND%20to%20process%20your%20request> 
to news digest./

*** Privacy and Security:*This is a text-only mailing that carries no 
images which may originate from remote servers. Text-only messages 
provide greater privacy to the receiver and sender.
By regulation, the .VOTE top-level domain must be used for democratic 
and election purposes and cannot be used for commercial purposes.
To subscribe, email: contact at theclimate.vote 
<mailto:contact at theclimate.vote> with subject subscribe, To Unsubscribe, 
subject: unsubscribe
Also you may subscribe/unsubscribe at 
https://pairlist10.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/theclimate.vote
Links and headlines assembled and curated by Richard Pauli for 
http://TheClimate.Vote <http://TheClimate.Vote/> delivering succinct 
information for citizens and responsible governments of all levels. List 
membership is confidential and records are scrupulously restricted to 
this mailing list.