[TheClimate.Vote] March 26, 2020 - Daily Global Warming News Digest.

Thu Mar 26 11:20:11 EDT 2020

/*March 26, 2020*/

[significant win]
*STANDING ROCK SIOUX TRIBE PREVAILS AS FEDERAL JUDGE STRIKES DOWN DAPL 
PERMITS*
Victory: Decision cites risks of pipeline spills to Standing Rock Sioux 
Tribe
MARCH 25, 2020
Washington, D.C. -- A federal court today granted a request by the 
Standing Rock Sioux Tribe to strike down federal permits for the 
controversial Dakota Access Pipeline.
The Court found the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers violated the National 
Environmental Policy Act when it affirmed federal permits for the 
pipeline originally issued in 2016. Specifically, the Court found 
significant unresolved concerns about the potential impacts of oil 
spills and the likelihood that one could take place.
- -

    This validates everything the Tribe has been saying all along about
    the risk of oil spills to the people of Standing Rock. We will
    continue to see this through until DAPL has finally been shut down.
    Jan Hasselman
    Attorney, Earthjustice

- -
For example, the Court criticized the Corps for failing to address the 
Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's expert criticism of its analysis, citing 
issues like potential worst case discharge, the difficulty of detecting 
slow leaks, and responding to spills in winter. Similarly, the Court 
observed that DAPL's parent company's abysmal safety record "does not 
inspire confidence," finding that it should have been considered more 
closely.

The Court's decision relies heavily on the technical analyses conducted 
by the Tribe's agency directors and expert consultants, repeatedly 
citing the Tribe's evidence that the risk of a spill, and the 
consequences should one occur, are far more serious than ever 
recognized. The Court ruling validates the Tribe's hard work over 
several years to provide technical input into the remand process.
- -
The Court ordered the Corps to prepare a full environmental impact 
statement on the pipeline, something that the Tribe has sought from the 
beginning of this controversy. The Court asked the parties to submit 
additional briefing on the question of whether to shut down the pipeline 
in the interim.

"After years of commitment to defending our water and earth, we welcome 
this news of a significant legal win," said Standing Rock Sioux Tribe 
Chairman Mike Faith. "It's humbling to see how actions we took four 
years ago to defend our ancestral homeland continue to inspire national 
conversations about how our choices ultimately affect this planet. 
Perhaps in the wake of this court ruling the federal government will 
begin to catch on, too, starting by actually listening to us when we 
voice our concerns."

"This validates everything the Tribe has been saying all along about the 
risk of oil spills to the people of Standing Rock," said Earthjustice 
attorney Jan Hasselman. "The Obama administration had it right when it 
moved to deny the permits in 2016, and this is the second time the Court 
has ruled that the government ran afoul of environmental laws when it 
permitted this pipeline. We will continue to see this through until DAPL 
has finally been shut down."...
Read the Court decision- 
https://earthjustice.org/sites/default/files/files/standing-rock-sj.pdf
https://earthjustice.org/news/press/2020/standing-rock-sioux-tribe-prevails-as-federal-judge-strikes-down-dapl-permits

[current news]
*Delay is deadly: what Covid-19 tells us about tackling the climate crisis*
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/24/covid-19-climate-crisis-governments-coronavirus

[MIT audio podcast and transcript]
*Podcast: Yes, you can blame climate change for extreme weather*
MIT Technology Review's energy editor explains the new science of 
extreme weather event attribution.
by Wade Roush - Mar 25, 2020
https://megaphone.link/MIT2246175594
"You can't attribute any specific weather event to climate change." For 
years, that was the party line among meteorologists and climate 
scientists; while they were alarmed by global warming, they were also 
sensitive to the bafflingly complex and multicausal origins of events 
like hurricanes and droughts. But thanks to improved climate 
simulations, accumulating weather data, and more powerful computers, 
it's now possible to model worlds with and without the greenhouse gases 
we've added to the atmosphere over the past 150 years. And that lets 
researchers conclude that specific weather events, such as the 
devastating bushfires in Australia, were--within certain upper and lower 
bounds--more likely and more damaging thanks to global temperature 
increases. For the March/April 2020 issue, Technology Review senior 
energy editor James Temple surveyed the work of a number of groups doing 
this work, including World Weather Attribution, co-led by University of 
Oxford professor Friederike Otto.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/615403/podcast-blame-climate-change-weather-attribution/
audio https://megaphone.link/MIT2246175594

[future]
*Our Growing Food Demands Will Lead to More Corona-like Viruses*
As agriculture expands, habitats will shrink. That will likely lead to 
higher numbers of the species that transmit deadly diseases...
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/23032020/coronavirus-zoonotic-diseases-climate-change-agriculture

[dual aspects]
*Coronavirus may get America to pass its biggest climate bill yet*
March 25, 2020 By Michael J. Coren, Climate reporter..
https://qz.com/1824804/coronavirus-could-lead-america-to-pass-its-biggest-climate-bill-ever/

[viewing the science]
MARCH 18, 2020
*Global warming influence on extreme weather events has been frequently 
underestimated*
by Stanford University
https://phys.org/news/2020-03-global-extreme-weather-events-frequently.html

[future]
*Climate change set to make extreme heat more common - and costly*
by Laurie Goering | @lauriegoering | Thomson Reuters Foundation
Wednesday, 25 March 2020
Dangerous heat and humidity could affect 1.2 billion people by the turn 
of the century if global warming goes unchecked, scientists say
By Laurie Goering

LONDON, March 25 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The number of people 
worldwide struggling with extreme heat and humidity by the end of the 
century could be more than four times as many as today if planet-warming 
emissions continue to rise, hiking economic losses and health costs, 
scientists have warned.

Spending on mental health, in particular, could soar as more families 
have trouble sleeping and working, and heat aggravates existing mental 
health problems, one of two new studies found.

"Heat and humidity extremes have real impacts on health and 
productivity," said Bob Kopp, director of the Institute of Earth, Ocean 
& Atmospheric Sciences at Rutgers University, and an author of one of 
the studies.

"What our work shows is that there is a real increase in the frequency 
of these rare heat and humidity extremes, and limiting global warming is 
the best measure we can take to prevent them," the climate scientist 
told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Previous research has examined the potential increase in extreme heat 
days as the Earth's climate changes.
https://news.trust.org/item/20200325190023-4sq37/

[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming  - March 26, 2006 *

TIME Magazine releases its April 3, 2006 cover-dated issue, with the 
cover story: "Be Worried. Be Very Worried."

http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20060403,00.html
http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1176980,00.html

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