[TheClimate.Vote] March 14, 2020 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Sat Mar 14 09:38:03 EDT 2020
/*March 14, 2020*/
[The bigger picture]
*Social Distancing? You Might Be Fighting Climate Change, Too*
Isolation and other shifts in behavior during the coronavirus outbreak
could also alter our greenhouse gas emissions. But will the changes stick?
By John Schwartz
March 13, 2020
As the nation shifts abruptly into the fight against coronavirus, a
question arises: could social isolation help reduce an individual's
production of greenhouse gases and end up having unexpected consequences
for climate change?
The biggest sources of carbon emissions caused by our lifestyles come
from three activities, said Kimberly Nicholas, a researcher at the Lund
University Center for Sustainability Studies in Sweden: "Any time you
can avoid getting on a plane, getting in a car or eating animal
products, that's a substantial climate savings." Many people trying to
avoid the coronavirus are already two-thirds of the way there...
- - -
*Transportation: Big Reductions*
People are staying home and flying less. That's good for the planet, Dr.
Nicholas said. "For average Americans, the biggest source of greenhouse
gas emissions is driving," she said. Anything that reduces driving,
including working from home, "has a big impact on our climate
pollution." Avoiding air travel can have a large effect as well: one
round-trip flight from New York to London, she said, produces as much
greenhouse gas emissions as the preventive climate impact of nearly
eight years of recycling. Dr. Nicholas was an author of a 2018 study
that examines greenhouse gas emissions reductions in actions people take
to fight climate change, and is currently writing a book about personal
action and the climate crisis...
- - -
*Food: A Big Maybe*
Dr. Jones has done research into the relative carbon footprints of
dining at home or dining out, but, so far, the results are fuzzy. "We
don't have conclusive evidence yet," he said, citing the comparative
efficiency benefits of eating out and the waste involved in making meals
at home. "We waste about 25 percent of the food that we buy," he said.
If you drive long distances to go to a favorite place -- like Austinites
who drive more than 30 miles to Lockhart, Tex., for excellent barbecue,
"that's going to swamp the emissions from your food."...
- -
*At Home: It's Still Location, Location, Location*
For people who turn their thermostats down while they are out of the
house, staying home means more heat, and more greenhouse gases. But when
it comes to the greenhouse gas impact of heating your home, "Where you
live is by far the biggest factor in determining your carbon footprint,"
Dr. Jones said. "If you live in a cold climate, heating your home can
more than offset the savings from driving your vehicle."...
- -
*Shopping: More, Less, Differently?**
*If you're at home staring at your computer without the prying eyes of
your co-workers, you may be tempted to shop online a bit more. Or maybe
you'll avoid the supermarket or mass transit by ordering your groceries.
A bump in online shopping might be bad for your wallet, but it could be
good for the planet, Dr. Nicholas said. She cited research suggesting
that people who decide to use online ordering and package delivery could
well be reducing their effect on climate change, thanks to the benefits
of logistically organized, centralized delivery routes and driving
less. "I would expect in general that having fewer vehicles on the road
is better for the climate," she said. (While online shopping can reduce
greenhouse gases, it is most effective when you order in bulk to limit
the number of trips delivery vehicles make to your home.)...
- - -
Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease
Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said that the
disease, for all of the pain and destruction it is causing, can teach
important lessons. "It's unfortunate to learn it this way, but we're
learning we can do a whole lot more today in terms of what we do, how we
do it and where we do it."
"Never waste even a tragic crisis," he said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/climate/coronavirus-habits-carbon-footprint.html
[simple explanation from Yale]
*Burning fossil fuels heats the climate. It also harms public health.*
It's a double whammy.
ir pollution kills people. This is not an abstract, faraway, or
uncertain conclusion.
Public health researchers are beginning to conclude there is no safe
level of air pollution. Even small doses trigger health problems. And
the greater the concentration, the worse the health outcomes. All told,
outdoor air pollution is among the world's greatest public health risks,
responsible for nearly 4.5 million deaths worldwide in 2015.
Why is this relevant to climate change? The primary solution to climate
change is also the most potent way to tackle air pollution: Burn less
fossil fuel. Resistance remains to taking action to address climate
change, particularly among Republican lawmakers, in part because some of
the worst consequences of climate change seem far away in time and
space. Some might see melting ice sheets, human migrations in other
parts of the world, or species extinctions in boreal forests as unlikely
or unimportant.
But shifting the topic to air pollution allows for a more direct way to
connect the problem with its consequences.
In the U.S., air pollution kills around 100,000 people every year. It's
the cause of 3% of all U.S. deaths, which is more deaths than traffic
accidents and homicides combined, and air pollution costs the American
economy up to $1 trillion per year. So while some still debate the
greenhouse effect, few can deny the importance of saving American lives
– and lungs...
- -
*The immediate benefits of addressing air pollution**
*Actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions can be a hard sell among
skeptical audiences. Common avenues of resistance are that it will cost
too much, or that China is the real culprit of climate change, or that
the effects of climate action are too intangible. But by shifting the
topic to air pollution, those arguments may fall away. Reducing air
pollution by burning less fossil fuels offers concrete, immediate, and
local benefits for people and for the economy.
Case in point: A worldwide phase-out of fossil fuels would prevent the
premature deaths of 3 to 4 million people each year, according to a 2019
study. Another study concluded that aggressive climate policy would
avert 150 million air-pollution deaths worldwide over the next 80 years
– and this is in addition to the social benefits of reducing the climate
impacts like heat stress, flooding, and crop loss.
As policymakers pencil out the costs for climate mitigation, it's worth
noting that the economic gains from reducing air pollution substantially
outweigh the cost of achieving greenhouse gas emissions targets at
either 1.5 degree Celsius or 2 degree Celsius thresholds. In some cases,
the savings from avoiding pollution would be more than double the costs
of emissions reduction, with the biggest benefits going to nations like
China and India. In the U.S., an estimated 10 to 41% of the price tag
for lowering greenhouse emissions could be offset by improvements in
public health.
A rhetorical advantage to talking about air pollution is that unlike
climate change, the issue dodges the steady drumbeat of dismissive
talking points. While cries of, "But the climate has changed before!"
resonate across any discussion of climate change, there are few
arguments that can be levied in support of air pollution.
Better yet, a fresh angle on climate solutions can pave the way for
building common ground. By sidestepping the land mines of tired talking
points, it's easier to direct the discussion to where it's needed most:
how to ease the burden of pollution on the planet and ourselves.
https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/03/burning-fossil-fuels-heats-the-climate-it-also-harms-public-health/
[safe strikes]
*ClimateStrikeOnline*
Greta Thunberg, who started the Fridays for Future movement as a
solitary striker in front of Sweden's parliament in 2018, reassured
climate activists that the fight for aggressive climate policies is
still on. On Wednesday, she told her Twitter followers to "do as the
experts say" by avoiding large crowds to avoid spreading the virus. In
place of in-person protest, she encouraged activists to "post a photo of
you striking with a sign and use the hashtag #ClimateStrikeOnline."
This morning, Twitter users using the hashtags #ClimateStrikeOnline or
#DigitalStrike did just that -- posting pictures of themselves holding
homemade signs with slogans like "There Is No Planet B" and "Stop Fossil
Fools." Thunberg posted a picture of herself flanked by her two dogs and
holding her famous "Skolstrejk för klimatet" ("School strike for
climate") sign.
"We listen to the science, and right now the science says that mass
gatherings will cause harm. But that won't stop us from striking,"
Fridays For Future said in a statement. "The climate emergency is the
biggest crisis we have ever faced, it won't wait until after COVID-19 is
dealt with -- so we can't either."
-- Rachel Ramirez
https://twitter.com/itsarigrace/status/1238550519615913984
[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming - March 14, 2012 *
"NBC Nightly News" reports on the risk of rising sea levels.
http://youtu.be/DSy2UCNwchM
/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------/
/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.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://pairlist10.pair.net/pipermail/theclimate.vote/attachments/20200314/4128d3f3/attachment.html>
More information about the TheClimate.Vote
mailing list