[TheClimate.Vote] June 23, 2020 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/*June 23, 2020*/

[Democrats after stimulus]
TheHill.com
*Democrats eye tax credit assistance for renewables in infrastructure bill*
BY RACHEL FRAZIN - 06/22/20
Democrats are pitching a series of environmental measures, including tax 
credit assistance for renewables and carbon capture technology, as part 
of a broad transportation bill released Monday.

The legislation, called the Moving Forward Act, would also restrict the 
transportation of liquified natural gas (LNG) by rail and create a grant 
program aimed at reducing consumption of a class of cancer-linked 
chemicals called PFAS.

House Democrats announced the $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan on 
Thursday, billing it as a major effort to fight climate change, and 
released the full text of the measure on Monday.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said last week that it would "make real 
the promise of building infrastructure in a green and resilient way."

The legislation also aims to increase funding for repairing roads and 
bridges and expand broadband access in rural communities.

In the energy sector, the bill would extend two tax credits that can be 
claimed by renewable energy producers.

It will allow companies that start construction on certain wind, biomass 
and hydropower facilities by the end of 2025 to claim the production tax 
credit, which can be claimed by companies that produce electricity from 
renewable sources.

The legislation would also expand the commercial use of the investment 
tax credit (ITC), which allows claimants to receive a portion of the 
cost of installing certain renewable energy facilities as a tax credit.

Democrats are proposing the extension of the ITC for solar and 
geothermal energy at a 30 percent rate through the end of 2025, phasing 
it down for a few years until it eventually reaches 10 percent. They 
also want to expand the credit to include energy storage technology.
Their legislation would also expand the tax credit for carbon capture 
and sequestration technology, which takes carbon out of the atmosphere, 
by two years until the end of 2025.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have called for some assistance for 
this industry. More than 600,000 clean energy jobs, including nearly 
100,000 renewable power generation jobs, have been lost since the start 
of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Moving Forward Act would also restrict the transportation of LNG by 
rail after the Trump administration recently issued a final rule 
authorizing the bulk transportation of the substance by rail.

Democrats detail their $1.5T green infrastructure plan
OVERNIGHT ENERGY: Internal watchdog probing Park Police actions...
It would require the Transportation Department to rescind any previous 
authorizations and halt any new ones until the department conducts 
further safety evaluations.

It would also direct the administration to start a probe into safety and 
environmental risks of transporting LNG.

The Democratic bill would also aim to tackle PFAS chemicals, which are 
often found in water and are known for their persistence in the 
environment and human body, by creating a grant program to help 
utilities pay for costs of treating them.
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/503923-democrats-eye-tax-credit-assistance-for-renewables-in



[And a political renewal ]
*Young U.S. conservatives speak out for post-pandemic environmentalism*
Matthew Lavietes
NEW YORK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - A group of young conservatives 
has urged the United States to rebuild the post-pandemic economy with 
clean energy to help combat climate change, joining the ranks of 
Republicans who say they are unhappy with U.S. efforts to slow global 
warming.

The American Conservation Coalition Campus bought a week-long series of 
television commercials on the conservative news outlet Fox News, asking 
President Donald Trump and the U.S. Congress to implement green measures 
as the nation's economy reopens.

The group wants low- and zero-emissions technology integrated into 
transportation infrastructure, incentives for private land owners to 
capture and store planet-warming gases underground and funding of 
affordable clean energy.

Since the coronavirus lockdowns shut down the U.S. economy in mid-March, 
Trump has called for investing as much as $2 trillion to jumpstart the 
world's largest economy back to life.
"Why not kill two birds with one stone and create a sustainable path to 
the future?" Benji Backer, founder of the group known as ACC Campus, 
told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

ACC Campus is an organization of conservative college students who 
advocate for limited-government environmental reform.

"Right now, at the federal government level, they're investing trillions 
of dollars into the American economy. That's something that doesn't 
happen very often."

The ads show images of wildfires, storms and people waiting in lines at 
food banks, with recorded narration by several Republican presidents, 
including Ronald Reagan and George H. Bush, on the importance of 
environmental preservation.

"How we rebuild is how we will be remembered," it says. "Join the young 
conservatives in fighting for a clean future."

The ads ran last week, the group said.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-climate-conservati/young-u-s-conservatives-speak-out-for-post-pandemic-environmentalism-idUSKBN23T3A7



[Not always cold in the Arctic]
*Arctic Circle sees 'highest-ever' recorded temperatures*
Temperatures in the Arctic Circle are likely to have hit an all-time 
record on Saturday, reaching a scorching 38C (100F) in Verkhoyansk, a 
Siberian town.

The record still needs to be verified, but it appears to have been 18C 
higher than the average maximum daily temperature in June.

Hot summer weather is not uncommon in the Arctic Circle, but recent 
months have seen abnormally high temperatures.

The Arctic is believed to be warming twice as fast as the global average.

Verkhoyansk, home to about 1,300 people, sits just inside the Arctic 
Circle, in remote Siberia. It has an extreme climate with temperatures 
plunging in January to an average maximum of -42C and then surging in 
June to 20C.

But a persistent heatwave this year in the Arctic Circle has worried 
meteorologists. In March, April and May, the Copernicus Climate Change 
service reported that the average temperature was around 10C above normal...
- -
"We've upset the energy balance of the entire planet," cautions Prof 
Chris Rapley of University College London. Year after year we see 
temperature records being broken, the eminent climate scientist says.

"This is a warning message from the Earth itself," he tells me. "We 
ignore it at our peril."
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-53140069



[Wildfire smoke]
*Wildfire smoke affects Arizona, New Mexico, and western Texas*
map - 
https://wildfiretoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Smoke-forecast-for-9-pm-MDT-June-22-2020.jpg
The forecast for wildfire smoke at 9 p.m. MDT Monday indicates that 
areas of Arizona, New Mexico, and western Texas will see significant 
impacts.
https://wildfiretoday.com/2020/06/22/wildfire-smoke-affects-arizona-new-mexico-and-western-texas/

- - -

[Giant Saguaro Cactus burns]
*Invasive buffelgrass may have helped Bighorn Fire take out saguaros*
Saguaros, which usually don't burn, exploded into flames
Tony Davis Jun 13, 2020 ...
It will be awhile before an actual saguaro death toll from this blaze is 
known. But Wilder estimated Friday that the fire took out as many as 
2,000 saguaros, from both the front range of the Catalinas and the Pusch 
Ridge area near Oro Valley.

Some of those saguaros were amidst stands of buffelgrass, an invasive, 
non-native grass that is known to spread and intensify wildfires to the 
point where they can burn saguaros that normally don't burn. But the 
vast majority, maybe 75%, burned in higher elevation grasslands, above 
where the buffelgrass has spread rapidly over the past 20 years across 
the Catalina Foothills, Wilder said.

In short, this was a near-miss for those like Wilder and other 
scientists who have long feared that the encroachment of buffelgrass 
into the Sonoran Desert would trigger massive, destructive fires from 
which native desert plants would never recover.

The buffelgrass lying higher up, directly in the fire's path, is "still 
fairly spotty. It wasn't continuous, wasn't dense enough to be able to 
pull that fire all the way down, to make happen what we really fear," 
Wilder said.

But he and other scientists remain concerned that if the buffelgrass 
keeps spreading without more controls, the next big blaze could cause 
more destruction and filter into the homes lying in the upper reaches of 
the Catalina Foothills -- homes that this time were evacuated for a day 
and a half...
https://tucson.com/news/local/invasive-buffelgrass-may-have-helped-bighorn-fire-take-out-saguaros/article_35fe42e6-fa56-597e-ab6d-46ebe1c63ea4.html


[The Week reports]
*There's a big problem with the tree-planting climate strategy...*
It's unclear whether this trillion-tree initiative is going anywhere. 
But the general idea is just part of a developing climate policy 
strategy based on forests. Corporations, countries, and some U.S. states 
have begun working up systems that would take up carbon from the 
atmosphere, usually through a market system allowing companies to 
purchase offsets for their emissions in the form of trees.

However, as a new Science paper by University of Utah climate scientist 
William Anderegg and several other authors shows in detail, the offset 
model is likely to backfire and make climate change worse. Forests can 
and should be part of climate policy -- but only if the best science is 
carefully taken into consideration, something that is unlikely to happen 
along the current track.
- -
By the same token, climate policy on forests requires careful and 
constantly updated reference to the best science -- to measure the 
potential and the actual amount of carbon uptake, the future risks of 
forest loss, the amount of leakage, interactions with the rest of the 
climate system, and possible negative effects on existing human 
communities. In particular, preservation of existing forest (as opposed 
to planting more) deserves high priority. According to the 
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, land use changes produce 
about 5.2 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide annually, mostly from 
deforestation. That is mostly thanks to clearing land for crops or 
pasture, or logging, or other industrial uses like palm oil plantations 
(which are a climate nightmare, incidentally). But conversely, 
preventing deforestation is perhaps the easiest and most broadly 
beneficial climate strategy available.

It is generally wiser to simply protect and manage forests directly as 
wilderness lands rather than tying them into a marketplace for carbon 
offsets that shows little sign of ever working.
https://theweek.com/articles/920806/theres-big-problem-treeplanting-climate-strategy
- - -
[BBC report about planting the wrong kind of trees]
*Climate change: Planting new forests 'can do more harm than good'*
Rather than benefiting the environment, large-scale tree planting may do 
the opposite, two new studies have found.

One paper says that financial incentives to plant trees can backfire and 
reduce biodiversity with little impact on carbon emissions.

A separate project found that the amount of carbon that new forests can 
absorb may be overestimated.

The key message from both papers is that planting trees is not a simple 
climate solution.

Will millions more trees really stop climate change?
'A trillion trees to the rescue'
Trees 'most effective solution' for climate change
Is there any point in planting new trees?
Over the past few years, the idea of planting trees as a low cost, high 
impact solution to climate change has really taken hold...
- -
"If policies to incentivise tree plantations are poorly designed or 
poorly enforced, there is a high risk of not only wasting public money 
but also releasing more carbon and losing biodiversity," said co-author 
Prof Eric Lambin, from Stanford University.

"That's the exact opposite of what these policies are aiming for."

A second study set out to examine how much carbon a newly planted forest 
would be able to absorb from the atmosphere.

Up until now, many scientists have calculated the amount of carbon that 
trees can pull down from the air using a fixed ratio.

Suspecting that this ratio would depend on local conditions, the 
researchers looked at northern China, which has seen intensive tree 
planting by the government because of climate change but also in an 
effort to reduce dust from the Gobi desert.

Looking at 11,000 soil samples taken from afforested plots, the 
scientists found that in carbon poor soils, adding new trees did 
increase the density of organic carbon.

But where soils were already rich in carbon, adding new trees decreased 
this density.

The authors say that previous assumptions about how much organic carbon 
can be fixed by planting new trees is likely an overestimate.

"We hope that people can understand that afforestation practices are not 
one single thing," said Dr Anping Chen, from Colorado State University 
and a lead author on the study.

"Afforestation involves many technical details and balances of different 
parts, and it cannot solve all our climate problems."
Both papers have been published in the journal Nature Sustainability.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-53138178



[Video on weather events]
*The Five Main Jet Stream Blocking Configurations and Consequences of 
Abrupt Climate Change*
Jun 22, 2020
Paul Beckwith
With slowing, wavier jet streams (less zonal; more meridional waves) the 
likelihood of atmospheric blocks is much greater. As I explained from a 
boat in the middle of a lake in my recent CTV News interview, blocking 
explains Ottawa's present heat wave and the unbelievable, unprecedented 
Siberian heat wave. I explain five main  blocking configurations: summer 
block (basic ridge); omega block; anti-cyclonic wave breaking block; 
cyclonic wave breaking block; and Rex block. I chat about how blocking 
changes with rapid climate change ac
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gta9rWE7-bE



[Anthropogenic climate change meets numerical astrobiology - video 
discussion]
*Can We Solve Fermi's Paradox? with Dr. Duncan Forgan*
Event Horizon
What is Fermi's Paradox?
Do aliens exist?

Can it be solved. Dr. Duncan Forgan explores that in his new book 
"Solving Fermi's Paradox", asking if aliens and alien civilizations 
exist. Where are they? Why aren't they here yet? And what factors can 
keep a civilization from advancing. What if they are long since dead, 
how do we look for ancient alien civilizations.

John Michael Godier also spoke to Dr. Forgan on Event Horizon about the 
protocols for what we should do if we find intelligent life. Especially 
life that is far more advanced, what do we do if we see a Dyson sphere? 
How will the world react, and how should that information be shared.

"Solving Fermi's Paradox" by Dr. Duncan Forgan
https://amzn.to/2YbUjp2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEmCYv8QII0


[Clean Energy for Biden]
*Washington State Clean Energy for Biden Fundraiser*
You are invited to join us in helping elect Joe Biden for President
Featuring a "fireside chat" with Maggie Thomas, a former climate advisor 
to the
presidential campaigns of Governor Jay Inslee and Senator Elizabeth Warren.
Gregg Small, Executive Director of Climate Solutions is the moderator.
Thursday, June 25th 5:00-6:00 PM PST
Virtual platform with opportunity for participant questions
To register for the event, go to https://www.givegreen.com/BBIDENEVT2006V



[Digging back into the internet news archive - this from NYTimes]
*On this day in the history of global warming - June 23,  1998*
NASA scientist James Hansen warns the US Senate about the risks of 
human-caused climate change:
Until now, scientists have been cautious about attributing rising global 
temperatures of recent years to the predicted global warming caused by 
pollutants in the atmosphere, known as the ''greenhouse effect.'' But 
today Dr. James E. Hansen of the National Aeronautics and Space 
Administration told a Congressional committee that it was 99 percent 
certain that the warming trend was not a natural variation but was 
caused by a buildup of carbon dioxide and other artificial gases in the 
atmosphere.

Dr. Hansen, a leading expert on climate change, said in an interview 
that there was no ''magic number'' that showed when the greenhouse 
effect was actually starting to cause changes in climate and weather. 
But he added, ''It is time to stop waffling so much and say that the 
evidence is pretty strong that the greenhouse effect is here.'' An 
Impact Lasting Centuries

If Dr. Hansen and other scientists are correct, then humans, by burning 
of fossil fuels and other activities, have altered the global climate in 
a manner that will affect life on earth for centuries to come.
Dr. Hansen, director of NASA's Institute for Space Studies in Manhattan, 
testifed before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

He and other scientists testifying before the Senate panel today said 
that projections of the climate change that is now apparently occurring 
mean that the Southeastern and Midwestern sections of the United States 
will be subject to frequent episodes of very high temperatures and 
drought in the next decade and beyond. But they cautioned that it was 
not possible to attribute a specific heat wave to the greenhouse effect, 
given the still limited state of knowledge on the subject. Some Dispute Link

Some scientists still argue that warmer temperatures in recent years may 
be a result of natural fluctuations rather than human-induced changes.

Several Senators on the Committee joined witnesses in calling for action 
now on a broad national and international program to slow the pace of 
global warming.

Senator Timothy E. Wirth, the Colorado Democrat who presided at hearing 
today, said: ''As I read it, the scientific evidence is compelling: the 
global climate is changing as the earth's atmosphere gets warmer. Now, 
the Congress must begin to consider how we are going to slow or halt 
that warming trend and how we are going to cope with the changes that 
may already be inevitable.'' Trapping of Solar Radiation

Mathematical models have predicted for some years now that a buildup of 
carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil and 
other gases emitted by human activities into the atmosphere would cause 
the earth's surface to warm by trapping infrared radiation from the sun, 
turning the entire earth into a kind of greenhouse.

If the current pace of the buildup of these gases continues, the effect 
is likely to be a warming of 3 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit from the year 
2025 to 2050, according to these projections. This rise in temperature 
is not expected to be uniform around the globe but to be greater in the 
higher latitudes, reaching as much as 20 degrees, and lower at the Equator.

The rise in global temperature is predicted to cause a thermal expansion 
of the oceans and to melt glaciers and polar ice, thus causing sea 
levels to rise by one to four feet by the middle of the next century. 
Scientists have already detected a slight rise in sea levels. At the 
same time, heat would cause inland waters to evaporate more rapidly, 
thus lowering the level of bodies of water such as the Great Lakes.

Dr. Hansen, who records temperatures from readings at monitoring 
stations around the world, had previously reported that four of the 
hottest years on record occurred in the 1980's. Compared with a 30-year 
base period from 1950 to 1980, when the global temperature averaged 59 
degrees Fahrenheit, the temperature was one-third of a degree higher 
last year. In the entire century before 1880, global temperature had 
risen by half a degree, rising in the late 1800's and early 20th 
century, then roughly stabilizing for unknown reasons for several 
decades in the middle of the century. Warmest Year Expected

In the first five months of this year, the temperature averaged about 
four-tenths of a degree above the base period, Dr. Hansen reported 
today. ''The first five months of 1988 are so warm globally that we 
conclude that 1988 will be the warmest year on record unless there is a 
remarkable, improbable cooling in the remainder of the year,'' he told 
the Senate committee.

He also said that current climate patterns were consistent with the 
projections of the greenhouse effect in several respects in addition to 
the rise in temperature. For example, he said, the rise in temperature 
is greater in high latitudes than in low, is greater over continents 
than oceans, and there is cooling in the upper atmosphere as the lower 
atmosphere warms up.

''Global warming has reached a level such that we can ascribe with a 
high degree of confidence a cause and effect relationship between the 
greenhouse effect and observed warming,'' Dr. Hansen said at the hearing 
today, adding, ''It is already happening now.''...

Dr. Syukuro Manabe of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory of the 
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration testified today that a 
number of factors, including an earlier snowmelt each year because of 
higher temperatures and a rain belt that moves farther north in the 
summer means that ''it is likely that severe mid-continental summer 
dryness will occur more frequently with increasing atmsopheric 
temperature.'' A Taste of the Future

While natural climate variability is the most likely chief cause of the 
current drought, Dr. Manabe said, the global warming trend is probably 
''aggravating the current dry condition.'' He added that the current 
drought was a foretaste of what the country would be facing in the years 
ahead.

Dr. George Woodwell, director of the Woods Hole Research Center in Woods 
Hole, Mass., said that while a slow warming trend would give human 
society time to respond, the rate of warming is uncertain. One factor 
that could speed up global warming is the widescale destruction of 
forests that are unable to adjust rapidly enough to rising temperatures. 
The dying forests would release the carbon dioxide they store in their 
organic matter, and thus greatly speed up the greenhouse effect. Sharp 
Cut in Fuel Use Urged

Dr. Woodwell, and other members of the panel, said that planning must 
begin now for a sharp reduction in the burning of coal, oil and other 
fossil fuels that release carbon dioxide. Because trees absorb and store 
carbon dioxide, he also proposed an end to the current rapid clearing of 
forests in many parts of the world and ''a vigorous program of 
reforestation.''

Some experts also believe that concern over global warming caused by the 
burning of fossil fuels warrants a renewed effort to develop safe 
nuclear power. Others stress the need for more efficient use of energy 
through conservation and other measures to curb fuel-burning.

Dr. Michael Oppenheimer, an atmospheric physicist with the Environmental 
Defense Fund, a national environmental group, said a number of steps can 
be taken immediately around the world, including the ratification and 
then strengthening of the treaty to reduce use of chlorofluorocarbons, 
which are widely used industrial chemicals that are said to contribute 
to the greenhouse effect. These chemicals have also been found to 
destroy ozone in the upper atmosphere that protects the earth's surface 
from harmful ultraviolet radiation from the sun.
https://www.nytimes.com/1988/06/24/us/global-warming-has-begun-expert-tells-senate.html 


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