[TheClimate.Vote] March 22, 2020 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/*March 22, 2020*/

[expected]
*Viruses expected to increase with global warming - expert*
Population growth, loss of natural habitats likely to bring wild animals 
into more contact with humans, easing way for infectious diseases to 
jump between species...
- -
"Many emerging infectious diseases are the result of animal-human 
contact," Prof. Manfred Green of Haifa University's Department of 
Epidemiology, a former head of the university's School of Public Health, 
told The Times of Israel...
- -
AIDS originated with chimpanzees and Ebola is suspected to have come 
from African fruit bats, for example. Bats are also suspected in the 
current coronavirus outbreak, in light of the genetic similarity between 
bat viruses and human coronaviruses, including the SARS-CoV (Severe 
Acute Respiratory Syndrome virus) and MERS-CoV (Middle East Respiratory 
Syndrome virus). The latter, which began in Saudi Arabia, has been found 
in several countries in camels....
https://www.timesofisrael.com/viruses-expected-to-increase-with-global-warming-expert/


[NYTimes says]
*How the Coronavirus Crisis May Hinder Efforts to Fight Wildfires*
By Kendra Pierre-Louis - March 20, 2020

In San Jose, Calif., just under 10 percent of the city's firefighters, 
some of whom also help battle the state's wildfires, this week found 
themselves either infected with the coronavirus or in quarantine.

And firefighters across the country, in states including Georgia, 
Indiana and Washington, are under quarantine amid the coronavirus crisis.

Much of the Western United States remains under drought conditions as 
fire season, which typically ramps up in mid-May and lasts through 
November, approaches. Arizona and New Mexico have had rain, but parts of 
California have already seen an increase in reported fires, according to 
The California Department of Fire. The state has received roughly half 
the amount of snow and rainfall that is normal for this time of year.

The coronavirus pandemic is already straining resources around the 
country, and the federal government has limited gatherings to fewer than 
10 people to slow the spread of the virus. Firefighters are finding 
themselves squeezed from both sides: their close living and working 
conditions often allow for viruses to spread, but if they are subject to 
a quarantine, they are not available for emergency calls.
"There's a risk of a reduction in force even as we go into fire season 
in the West right now," said George Geissler, the state forester at the 
Washington State Department of Natural Resources.

Despite hopes that Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, might 
peter out by summer, "I think it's reasonable to expect that you have to 
factor Covid into emergency response preparation for this summer," said 
Dr. David Lee Thomas, a professor of medicine in the division of 
infectious diseases at Johns Hopkins University.

This new reality raises questions about how existing processes and 
structures that have been developed over a century will affect staffing 
needs, the health and safety of firefighters, and the health and safety 
of the communities they serve.

Fighting wildfires relies on many agencies working together, Mr. 
Geissler said. The United States Forest Service and the Department of 
Interior, as well as state agencies and local responders are all 
involved in some part of wildland fire response. Many of these same 
groups are being asked to respond to the coronavirus emergency...
- - -
On Thursday, Washington State's Department of National Resources 
announced it was canceling the first of three fire academies that the 
agency holds to train some 1,500 firefighters a year. Instead, 
firefighters will train in smaller groups at local units...
- -
Dan O'Brien, the Center Coordinator for the Northwest Interagency 
Coordinating Center, said its meeting, at which more than 300 people 
were expected, was called off. "We're leaving the option open for 
individual teams to meet virtually or otherwise with their command and 
general staff," he said.

The center coordinates wildfire response in Oregon and Washington. It is 
one of seven such centers out west, and 10 nationwide. Three centers 
confirmed that they had canceled coordination meetings as of Thursday. 
The phone number for the office of the Southwest Coordination center 
played a recorded message stating that it was closed...
- -
To fight large fires, a "fire camp" is usually set up, which is 
essentially a large campground for everyone working on the fire. And in 
such a setting, there is risk of contagion...
"One of the things we often talk about in the fire service is camp 
crud," Ms. Scopa said, referring to the infections that frequently race 
through fire camps, which feature people working long hours and living 
in close quarters with less than ideal hygiene. It's these sorts of 
conditions that lead to regular outbreaks of colds and other infections, 
as well as more serious ones such as the norovirus outbreak in 2009 
Nevada's Red Rock Fire.

The risks aren't limited to firefighters. After 2018's Camp Fire, people 
who evacuated to shelters also found themselves dealing with a norovirus 
outbreak.

Two guiding documents for firefighters to plan for the coronavirus 
outbreak are based on the avian flu outbreak in 2008 and the norovirus 
2009 outbreak. And the 2020 National Interagency Mobilization Guide, 
released March 1 by the National Interagency Fire Center, doesn't 
mention coronavirus or infectious diseases. On Thursday, the Interior 
Department said they had mobilized three Area Command Teams to develop 
wildland fire response plans for coronavirus planning...
   "If you are standing in the middle of a pandemic asking what the plan 
is," she said, "it's too late."
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/climate/coronavirus-firefighters-wildfires.html



[Two months is too fast for this]
*Greenland's melting ice raised global sea level by 2.2mm in two months**
*Analysis of satellite data reveals astounding loss of 600bn tons of ice 
last summer as Arctic experienced hottest year on record

Last year's summer was so warm that it helped trigger the loss of 600bn 
tons of ice from Greenland - enough to raise global sea levels by 2.2mm 
in just two months, new research has found.

The analysis of satellite data has revealed the astounding loss of ice 
in just a few months of abnormally high temperatures around the northern 
pole. Last year was the hottest on record for the Arctic, with the 
annual minimum extent of sea ice in the region its second-lowest on record.

Unlike the retreat of sea ice, the loss of land-based glaciers directly 
causes the seas to rise, imperiling coastal cities and towns around the 
world. Scientists have calculated that Greenland's enormous ice sheet 
lost an average of 268bn tons of ice between 2002 and 2019 - less than 
half of what was shed last summer. By contrast, Los Angeles county, 
which has more than 10 million residents, consumes 1bn tons of water a year.

"We knew this past summer had been particularly warm in Greenland, 
melting every corner of the ice sheet, but the numbers are enormous," 
said Isabella Velicogna, a professor of Earth system science at 
University of California Irvine and lead author of the new study, which 
drew upon measurements taken by Nasa's Gravity Recovery and Climate 
Experiment (Grace) satellite mission and its upgraded successor, Grace 
Follow-On.

Glaciers are melting away around the world due to global heating caused 
by the human-induced climate crisis. Ice is reflective of sunlight so as 
it retreats the dark surfaces underneath absorb yet more heat, causing a 
further acceleration in melting.

Ice is being lost from Greenland seven times faster than it was in the 
1990s, scientists revealed last year, pushing up previous estimates of 
global sea level rise and putting 400 million people at risk of flooding 
every year by the end of the century.
More recent research has found that Antarctica, the largest ice sheet on 
Earth, is also losing mass at a galloping rate, although the latest 
University of California and Nasa works reveals a nuanced picture.

"In Antarctica, the mass loss in the west proceeds unabated, which is 
very bad news for sea level rise," Velicogna said. "But we also observe 
a mass gain in the Atlantic sector of east Antarctica caused by an 
increase in snowfall, which helps mitigate the enormous increase in mass 
loss that we've seen in the last two decades in other parts of the 
continent."

The research has further illustrated the existential dangers posed by 
runaway global heating, even as the world's attention is gripped by the 
coronavirus crisis. Crucial climate talks are set to be held later this 
year in Glasgow, although the wave of cancellations triggered by the 
virus has threatened to undermine this diplomatic effort.

"The technical brilliance involved in weighing the ice sheets using 
satellites in space is just amazing," said Richard Alley, a glaciologist 
at Penn State University who was not involved in the study.

"It is easy for us to be distracted by fluctuations, so the highly 
reliable long data sets from Grace and other sensors are important in 
clarifying what is really going on, showing us both the big signal and 
the wiggles that help us understand the processes that contribute to the 
big signal."
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/mar/19/greenland-ice-melt-sea-level-rise-climate-crisis


[fast deployment of risky financial investments]
*Federal regulators approve Jordan Cove LNG project in Coos Bay and 230 
mile feeder pipeline**
*https://www.oregonlive.com/business/2020/03/federal-energy-regulators-approve-jordan-cove-lng-project-in-coos-bay-and-230-mile-feeder-pipeline.html


[Yes there are]
*Book clinic: are there any novels about the climate crisis?*
Novelist Melissa Harrison recommends the best 'cli-fi' fiction
*Q: Can you recommend some climate crisis fiction? *The nonfiction is 
too depressing and fiction often helps the heart cope with the world
Peggy Duesenberry, 61, Massachusetts, US

*A: Melissa Harrison is a novelist and nature writer whose books include 
At Hawthorn Time and All Among the Barley. She writes:*

There are plenty of dystopian cli-fi novels out there, designed to jolt 
us out of our current complacency - but it doesn't sound as though 
that's what you need. The American poet and climate activist Kate 
Schapira believes we must "imagine - and learn about! there are 
precedents! - the structures that would allow us to live well enough 
without hurting ourselves and each other, and without helping the people 
currently hurting us".
Fiction can help us do that imaginative work.

The brilliant Jenny Offill's new novel Weather is a great place to 
start, as it explores what it's like for ordinary people to move from 
fear and denial to concrete action. Emily St John Mandel's haunting 
Station Eleven (2014) takes us into a near future where disease has led 
to a breakdown of society, but not a world devoid of hope, for 
Shakespeare's plays survive, and art and love remain central to the 
human experience. Set in an Australia ravaged by climate change, Alexis 
Wright's richly strange, genre-bending The Swan Book (2016) is a 
reminder that other, older cultures may have healthier and more 
connected relationships to the natural world than the destructive 
western capitalism currently in the ascendant. Since writing The 
Dispossessed (1975), Ursula K Le Guin has concluded that an "anarchist 
utopia" such as the one she describes would eventually destroy itself - 
but as a way of envisioning a society organised on different principles 
to ours, it continues to inspire.

Finally, Tove Jansson's gorgeous, sparklingly simple The Summer Book 
(1972), in which a little girl and her grandmother spend a season on a 
Finnish island, has two vital lessons for today: how to live a rich, 
creative life with very few resources, and how to remain clear-eyed and 
full of courage in the face of grief and loss.

The work we need to do now is as much moral and imaginative as it is 
practical. These are novels that can shift our values and priorities, if 
we allow them to.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/mar/21/book-clinic-melissa-harrison-climate-crisis-fiction



[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming  - March 22, 1970 *
"NBC Nightly News" anchor Frank Blair, covering the events of the first 
Earth Day, cites global warming as a concern.
http://www.nbcnews.com/video/icue/29901277


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