[TheClimate.Vote] June 8, 2020 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

Mon Jun 8 10:13:48 EDT 2020

/*June 8, 2020*/

[Financial Times warning]
*Threat from climate change to financial stability bigger than Covid-19*
Report urges capital requirement rules for banks lending to fossil fuel 
groups to be tightened

Climate change poses a bigger threat to financial stability than the 
coronavirus pandemic and the rules on bank lending to fossil fuel groups 
must be tightened to address it, a new report has warned...
- -
Finance Watch is calling on the European Commission to impose its higher 
risk weightings now, and hopes the Basel Committee and the Financial 
Stability Board will promote a similar approach globally.

"Given the short time available, there is a need for decisive and 
immediate regulatory action, using prudential tools already available," 
Mr Philipponnat said.
  https://www.ft.com/content/710cc474-15f7-4db0-8d54-a50f161f76bb

[Agence France-Presse]
*As Permafrost Melts It's Unleashing Ancient Viruses, Carbon - And Now 
Fuel Spills*
JEAN-PHILIPPE CHOGNOT - 7 JUNE 2020
Melting permafrost, suspected by Russia of being behind an unprecedented 
fuel spill that has polluted huge stretches of Arctic rivers, is a time 
bomb threatening health and the environment, and risks speeding up 
global warming.

On May 29, 21,000 tonnes of diesel fuel spilled from a reservoir that 
collapsed which Russian metals giant Norilsk Nickel owns through a 
subsidiary.

Norilsk, one of the country's biggest industrial centres, lies above the 
Arctic circle and Norilsk Nickel and Russian officials have said they 
had suspect permafrost thawing.
- -
A permafrost thaw could be a boon for the oil and mining industries, 
providing access to previously difficult-to-reach reserves in the 
Arctic. But in disturbing the subsoil too deeply, they could awake the 
viruses, scientists warn.

The melting permafrost also presents a serious and costly threat to 
infrastructure, risking mudslides and damage to buildings, roads and oil 
pipelines.
https://www.sciencealert.com/as-permafrost-melts-ancient-viruses-and-now-fuel-spills-are-being-unleashed

[Video opinion]
*David Brooks: America Is In The Middle Of A Climactic Shift,*
video https://youtu.be/2gyJZHEtSWk
partial transcript:

    DAVID BROOKS: I sort of think of it as a hurricane that's happening
    in an earthquake. The earthquake started in 2014 with Ferguson, with
    a lot of terrorist killings, then with the election of Donald Trump.
    And we saw ravines open up in our society. We saw divides in
    politics. We saw racial divides, economic divides, obviously.

    And into this comes first a pandemic, just pouring water and
    exposing all the divides, and then this killing, this murder, which
    exposes them more. And then you get this generational turnover. You
    have had a generation of people under 35 who've seen the financial
    crisis, who've seen a bit of the war in Iraq maybe, but who've seen
    nothing on global warming.

    And so this is a generation that is fed up. And, frankly, a lot of
    people in the African-American community are fed up. The word I keep
    hearing is exhausted.

    And so I do think, when you calculate the depth of the ravines that
    are being exposed, with a generational change, with a sense of
    America finally turning to race as maybe the central storyline in
    our history or our story right now, these are just big, epic shifts.

    And I do think it's like one of those big shifts that happen
    periodically in American history, '68 or 1890 or 1830. And I think
    we're in the middle of something -- I agree with Mark. I think it's
    not just a moment. It's a climactic shift...

    Yes, I look at the polls.

    And we never used to get polls where it was 50 -- where it was above
    55 percent for anything. We were completely an evenly divided
    country. And now we had a poll, PBS/Marist poll, 67 percent
    disapproving of the way Donald Trump is reacting to this moment, 67
    percent reaction to the lockdown.

    We had 67, 77 percent. Again and over the course of the last three
    months, we have had polls in the 60s and 70s. It looks to me like
    we're a less divided country than they were, Joe Biden opening up
    now an eight-point lead on the average polls.

    So, I mean, the dumb thing to say is, we're moving left. And the
    pandemic and this event have just underlined the inequalities in
    America. And whether you like it or not, I just think that's the
    reality, if you look at the evidence...

    I do. I mentioned the polling.

    But, listen, he's been a bully for a long time, but he was a bully
    over Twitter, and maybe he was a bully to the press. But now he's
    using U.S. troops to be a bully.

    I think what set General Mattis off was just watching the military,
    which is a fine, unprofessional and unpoliticized -- I mean,
    professional, but unpoliticized organization, suddenly turned into a
    prop in a campaign video. And I think that turned his stomach, as it
    should turn all our stomachs.

    But I think what mystifies me -- and it goes back to what you were
    talking about with Mayor Garcetti -- is, you have a president who's
    taken this authoritarian line of domination, be dominant, unleash
    vicious dogs and dangerous weapons.

    And that's not only just talk anymore. And it swings through the
    Republican Party and Senator Tom Cotton's tweets about no quarter
    given. We're going to dominate our fellow citizens, as if they are
    enemy.

    And then I think it bleeds down to the police and the videos we have
    already seen tonight. It's a theme that is coming from the top, from
    the White House, a theme of brutalism, of mental brutalism. And it
    affects people.

    And what we have seen coming out of the White House has been a more
    dangerous contagion than even with all the outrages of the past.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2020/06/06/david_brooks_america_is_in_the_middle_of_a_climactic_shift.html

[I once lived in Phoenix]
*Study says Phoenix reservoirs are resilient to warming, scientists warn 
risks remain*
Ian James, Arizona Republic - June 7, 2020
Scientists have found that climate change is playing a big role in 
shrinking the flow of the Colorado River, but recent research suggests 
Arizona's reservoirs on the Salt and Verde rivers could fare better as 
temperatures continue to rise.

The findings back the assurances of water managers at Salt River Project 
that their system of reservoirs appears to be relatively resilient in 
the face of climate change.

Some climate scientists still caution that uncertainties remain and that 
the Salt and Verde rivers could be hit hard as the burning of fossil 
fuels continues to heat up the planet.

Across the American West, rising temperatures have begun to intensify 
droughts and add to the strains on water supplies. To assess the 
potential effects and worst-case scenarios in central Arizona, Salt 
River Project's hydrologists and meteorologists teamed up with the 
federal Bureau of Reclamation to study how higher temperatures in the 
coming decades will likely affect reservoirs that supply cities in the 
Phoenix area.
- -
Murphy has studied megadroughts of the past using tree rings, and those 
droughts have lasted up to about 30 years. He said the latest series of 
dry years began in 1995, and the past two wet years suggest that 
probably "this could be the end of the megadrought."

Other climate scientists pointed out that warming is projected to 
continue to increase the odds of drought and megadrought across the 
region. They said that likely means trouble for the Salt and Verde 
rivers, as well as the entire Southwest.

Jonathan Overpeck, a climate scientist at the University of Michigan, 
said he defers to SRP's experts on their findings but that the big 
caveat is what will happen with winter precipitation as temperatures 
continue to climb.

"It's exactly that decrease in precipitation during the cool season, 
which is when you really need it, that is going to endanger water 
supplies in those watersheds," Overpeck said.

Climate models have projected that cool-season storm tracks would move 
north, and that shift has begun to be observed as the planet gets 
warmer, Overpeck said.

"Climate models indicate it could get a lot worse if greenhouse gas 
emissions continue. The more fossil fuels we burn, the more carbon 
dioxide we put in the atmosphere, and the less it will snow and rain in 
Arizona," he said, and other parts of the Southwest during the cooler 
months.
https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-environment/2020/06/07/phoenix-srp-reservoirs-resilient-climate-change/3136369001/

[Sea level rise - 42 minute video]
*Rising threat from the seas | DW Documentary*
Jun 6, 2020
DW Documentary
How high will the oceans rise due to climate change? The projections are 
the subject of dispute, with scientists continually correcting their 
estimates upward. Is this just panic-mongering or are these scenarios 
within the realm of possibility?

Can we make any reliable predictions about the world's oceans? If all 
the ice in Antarctica and Greenland were to melt, sea levels would rise 
by more than 66 meters. The consequences for coastal populations are 
gradually becoming clear. By 2100, coastlines around the world could 
change radically. The research being conducted by marine scientists will 
decide how affected regions can prepare for the disaster on the horizon. 
At what point will governments have to consider evacuating areas on the 
basis of cost-damage analyses? It is a process that has already begun in 
places like the United Kingdom.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foXMXCAgKq4

[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming - June 8, 1990 *

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology hosts a global-warming debate 
between climate scientist Stephen Schneider and climate denier Dick 
Lindzen. Reporting on the debate the next day, the Boston Globe notes:

    "A long-anticipated showdown at the Massachusetts Institute of
    Technology yesterday between two prominent voices in the
    global-warming debate brought little agreement about the reliability
    of current predictions for the rate and magnitude of climate change.
    But despite the seriousness of the topic, the event did provide a
    theatrical and sometimes humorous presentation of the arguments on
    either side.

    "Underscoring the range of scientific opinion on the issue, the
    organizers put MIT meteorologist Richard Lindzen on one side and
    climate researcher Stephen Schneider of the National Center for
    Atmospheric Research on the other side of a table divided down the
    middle. Schneider, who believes there is a better-than-even chance
    of 'unprecedentedly fast climate change' in the next century, sat at
    the red end in front of a palm tree, while Lindzen, one the most
    vocal skeptics, commanded the blue extreme before a scraggly spruce.
    The moderator straddled the border.

    "These models are made up of equations that are meant to represent
    the important physical processes -- such as motion and heat
    transport in the atmosphere -- that work together to create weather
    and climate. Based on the work of five climate modeling teams in the
    United States and Britain and forecasts of energy use, scientists
    have projected that the earth's average temperature will rise
    between 3 and 9 degrees Fahrenheit by the middle of the next
    century. While such a temperature rise might not sound like much,
    climate researchers say that such a sharp rise in global temperature
    in such a short time almost certainly would cause major shifts in
    climate."

Ref - 
https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/1520-0477%281990%29071%3C1292%3ATGWDHU%3E2.0.CO%3B2

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