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

Fri May 8 08:22:08 EDT 2020

/*May 8, 2020*/

[Amplification]
*How Climate Change Is Contributing to Skyrocketing Rates of Infectious 
Disease*
A catastrophic loss in biodiversity, reckless destruction of wildland 
and warming temperatures have allowed disease to explode. Ignoring the 
connection between climate change and pandemics would be "dangerous 
delusion," one scientist said.
by Abrahm Lustgarten May 7
The scientists who study how diseases emerge in a changing environment 
knew this moment was coming. Climate change is making outbreaks of 
disease more common and more dangerous.

Over the past few decades, the number of emerging infectious diseases 
that spread to people -- especially coronaviruses and other respiratory 
illnesses believed to have come from bats and birds -- has skyrocketed. 
A new emerging disease surfaces five times a year. One study estimates 
that more than 3,200 strains of coronaviruses already exist among bats, 
awaiting an opportunity to jump to people...
- - -
There are three ways climate influences emerging diseases. Roughly 60% 
of new pathogens come from animals -- including those pressured by 
diversity loss -- and roughly one-third of those can be directly 
attributed to changes in human land use, meaning deforestation, the 
introduction of farming, development or resource extraction in otherwise 
natural settings. Vector-borne diseases -- those carried by insects like 
mosquitoes and ticks and transferred in the blood of infected people -- 
are also on the rise as warming weather and erratic precipitation vastly 
expand the geographic regions vulnerable to contagion. Climate is even 
bringing old viruses back from the dead, thawing zombie contagions like 
the anthrax released from a frozen reindeer in 2016, which can come down 
from the arctic and haunt us from the past...
- -
Twelve months before the first COVID-19 case was diagnosed, a group of 
epidemiologists working with a U.S. Agency for International Development 
project called PREDICT, or Pandemic Influenza and other Emerging 
Threats, was deep in the remote leafy jungle of southern China's Yunnan 
province hunting for what it believed to be one of the greatest dangers 
to civilization: a wellspring of emerging viruses.

A decade of study there had identified a pattern of obscure illnesses 
affecting remote villagers who used bat guano as fertilizer and 
sometimes for medicine. Scientists traced dozens of unnamed, emerging 
viruses to caves inhabited by horseshoe bats. Any one of them might have 
triggered a global pandemic killing a million people. But luck -- and 
mostly luck alone -- had so far kept the viruses from leaping out of 
those remote communities and into the mainstream population...
- -
In late 2018, the Trump administration, as part of a sweeping effort to 
bring U.S. programs in China to a halt, abruptly shut down the research 
-- and its efforts to intercept the spread of a new novel coronavirus 
along with it. "We got a cease and desist," said Dennis Carroll, who 
founded the PREDICT program and has been instrumental in global work to 
address the risks from emerging viruses. By late 2019, USAID had cut the 
program's global funding.

USAID did not respond to a detailed list of questions from ProPublica...
- -
A White House spokesperson did not respond to an emailed request for 
comment.

What Daszak really wants -- in addition to restored funding to continue 
his work -- is the public and leaders to understand that it's human 
behavior driving the rise in disease, just as it drives the climate 
crisis. In China's forests, he looks past the destruction of trees and 
asks why they are being cut in the first place, and who is paying the 
cost. Metals for iPhones and palm oil for processed foods are among the 
products that come straight out of South Asian and African emerging 
disease hot spots.

"We turn a blind eye to the fact that our behavior is driving this," he 
said. "We get cheap goods through Walmart, and then we pay for it 
forever through the rise in pandemics. It's upside down."
- -
Abrahm Lustgarten covers energy, water, climate change and anything else 
having to do with the environment for ProPublica.
https://www.propublica.org/article/climate-infectious-diseases

[from the Center for Climate and Security]
*Pentagon and Northern Command: Climate Change Has Implications for 
National Security in the Arctic*
By Dr. Marc Kodack
In case you missed it, on March 3 the Senate Armed Services Committee, 
Sub-Committee on Readiness and Management Support, held a hearing on 
"U.S. Policy and Posture in Support of Artic readiness." Witnesses 
providing written statements and answering questions included the HON 
Dr. James Anderson, Performing the Duties of the Deputy Under Secretary 
of Defense for Policy and General Terrence O'Shaughnessy, Commander of 
U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command. Both 
witnesses identified climate change implications for national security 
in the Arctic region.

*Summary*
In both the witness written statements and in answer to Members 
questions, there was considerable emphasis on the threats from the 
Russians and Chinese to U.S national security interests in the Arctic. 
The Russians have significantly increased their military presence, both 
at sea and on land. While the U.S. has its own existing maritime and 
land-based Arctic capabilities, it is only now moving towards building 
additional ice breakers to supplement the only working ice breaker 
currently in the Coast Guard inventory. The need for additional ice 
breakers is driven by the effects of climate change whereby sea ice is 
considerably less extensive that in the past creating ice free sea lanes 
that will become more extensive in the future. The Russians are planning 
on exploiting these sea lanes to their economic and military advantage...
https://climateandsecurity.org/2020/04/29/pentagon-and-northern-command-climate-change-has-implications-for-national-security-in-the-arctic/
- - -
[video record]
*U.S. Policy and Posture in Support of Arctic Readiness*
SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS AND MANAGEMENT SUPPORT
Date: Tuesday, March 3, 2020
Agenda
To receive testimony on U.S. policy and posture in support of Arctic 
readiness.
Witnesses
Dr. James H. Anderson
Performing The Duties Of Deputy Under Secretary Of Defense For Policy
General Terrence J. O'Shaughnessy, USAF
Commander, United States Northern Command And North American Aerospace 
Defense Command
https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/hearings/20-03-03-us-policy-and-posture-in-support-of-arctic-readiness

[Take a deep breath now]
*This is your brain on carbon emissions*
By the end of the century, indoor carbon dioxide could reach levels 
known to impair cognition..
By Sarah DeWeerdt - April 28, 2020
Lots of climate change literature points out that atmospheric carbon 
dioxide levels have never in the entire history of the human species 
been as high as they are today. Over the past 800,000 years, until the 
start of the Industrial Revolution, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere 
varied from about 200 to 300 parts per million (ppm). Since the early 
1800s, the concentration has increased nearly 50%, from 280 ppm to 411 
ppm in 2019.

This change, and even the whole idea of conditions unprecedented in our 
evolutionary history, often seems rather abstract. But carbon dioxide 
levels in the atmosphere could have direct effects on human physiology - 
perhaps eroding the keen intelligence and capacity for abstract thinking 
that we like to think of as a hallmark of our species, a new study suggests.

There's a fair bit of research on carbon dioxide and cognitive function 
in humans. This started out because scientists wanted to know about the 
effects on people in tight quarters like submarines and aircraft. More 
recently, they've looked at how carbon dioxide accumulates in densely 
populated, sometimes poorly ventilated indoor spaces such as schools and 
office buildings.

Broadly speaking, such studies suggest that people's cognitive 
functioning suffers when they are in a space with increased carbon 
dioxide in the air. Sometimes the relationship is linear (as in the case 
of overall decision-making ability) and sometimes there is a big drop 
off at higher concentrations (as with complex strategizing).

But this research has received little attention from climate scientists 
until now, perhaps because climate scientists are mostly concerned with 
outdoor carbon dioxide levels and carbon dioxide-cognition research has 
focused on the indoor environment...
- -
Better building ventilation could help reduce indoor carbon dioxide 
levels, ameliorating some of the effects predicted in the new analysis. 
But that won't help if the outdoor air is polluted, and of course more 
building ventilation requires…more energy.

It's also possible--though by no means guaranteed--that people's bodies 
(and minds) could get used to higher ambient carbon dioxide levels in 
the future. "Society's uncertain energy future provides a compelling set 
of grand experiments," the researchers observe --"some version of which 
will definitely be conducted."

Source: Karnauskas K. et al. "Fossil fuel combustion is driving indoor 
CO2 toward levels harmful to human cognition." GeoHealth 2020.
https://anthropocenemagazine.org/2020/04/your-brain-on-carbon-emissions/
- - -
[Source material]
*Fossil fuel combustion is driving indoor CO2 toward levels harmful to 
human cognition*
*Abstract*

    Human activities are elevating atmospheric carbon dioxide
    concentrations to levels unprecedented in human history. The
    majority of anticipated impacts of anthropogenic CO2 emissions are
    mediated by climate warming. Recent experimental studies in the
    fields of indoor air quality and cognitive psychology and
    neuroscience, however, have revealed significant direct effects of
    indoor CO2 levels on cognitive function. Here we shed light on this
    connection, and estimate the impact of continued fossil fuel
    emissions on human cognition. We conclude that indoor CO2 levels may
    indeed reach levels harmful to cognition by the end of this century,
    and the best way to prevent this hidden consequence of climate
    change is to reduce fossil fuel emissions. Finally, we offer
    recommendations for a broad, interdisciplinary approach to improving
    such understanding and prediction.

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2019GH000237
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1029/2019GH000237

[new science]
*Cold air rises--what that means for Earth's climate*
by UC Davis
This graphic illustrates the vapor buoyancy effect, in which cold, humid 
air rises because it is lighter than dry air. Credit: Da Yang/UC Davis
Conventional knowledge has it that warm air rises while cold air sinks. 
But a study from the University of California, Davis, found that in the 
tropical atmosphere, cold air rises due to an overlooked effect--the 
lightness of water vapor. This effect helps to stabilize tropical 
climates and buffer some of the impacts of a warming climate.

The study, published today in the journal Science Advances, is among the 
first to show the profound implications water vapor buoyancy has on 
Earth's climate and energy balance.

"It's well-known that water vapor is an important greenhouse gas that 
warms the planet," said senior author Da Yang, an assistant professor of 
atmospheric sciences at UC Davis and a joint faculty scientist with 
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. "But on the other hand, water 
vapor has a buoyancy effect which helps release the heat of the 
atmosphere to space and reduce the degree of warming. Without this 
lightness of water vapor, the climate warming would be even worse."

Humid air is lighter than dry air under the same temperature and 
pressure conditions. This is called the vapor buoyancy effect. This 
study discovered this effect allows cold, humid air to rise, forming 
clouds and thunderstorms in Earth's tropics. Meanwhile, warm, dry air 
sinks in clear skies. Earth's atmosphere then emits more energy to space 
than it otherwise would without vapor buoyancy.

The study found that the lightness of water vapor increases Earth's 
thermal emission by about 1-3 watts per square meter over the tropics. 
That value compares with the amount of energy captured by doubling 
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The authors' calculations further 
suggest that the radiative effects of vapor buoyancy increase 
exponentially with climate warming.
https://phys.org/news/2020-05-cold-air-riseswhat-earth-climate.html

[Wildfire Today]
*BLM issues preemptive Moses letter to all employees*
https://wildfiretoday.com/2020/05/05/blm-issues-preemptive-moses-letter-to-all-employees/

[and also]
*Future of the human climate niche*
PNAS first published May 4, 2020 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1910114117
Contributed by Marten Scheffer, October 27, 2019
Significance
We show that for thousands of years, humans have concentrated in a 
surprisingly narrow subset of Earth's available climates, characterized 
by mean annual temperatures around ∼13 C. This distribution likely 
reflects a human temperature niche related to fundamental constraints. 
We demonstrate that depending on scenarios of population growth and 
warming, over the coming 50 y, 1 to 3 billion people are projected to be 
left outside the climate conditions that have served humanity well over 
the past 6,000 y. Absent climate mitigation or migration, a substantial 
part of humanity will be exposed to mean annual temperatures warmer than 
nearly anywhere today.
https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/04/28/1910114117

[book]
*CATHEDRAL ON FIRE | A CHURCH HANDBOOK FOR THE CLIMATE CRISIS*
The urgency of the climate crisis requires that we act as if our 
cathedrals and churches are on fire. Indeed, God's creation can be seen 
as one grand cathedral on fire with burning forests and rising 
temperatures. Amid this dire situation, Brooks Berndt focuses our 
attention on the unique and vitally needed gifts that churches can 
offer. He writes with poetic passion but also with an eye toward the 
practical as every chapter ends with suggested, field-tested actions.

Chapters in the book explore the following areas in which churches 
possess immense potential:

a commitment to care for God's creation as our first calling
a scriptural basis in pursuing justice for a planet and its people
a moral foundation for understanding the climate crisis as an inequality 
crisis
a powerful, sacred language for articulating what fundamentally 
motivates people to act
a hope-giving history found in the faith leaders who launched the 
environmental justice movement
a rich tradition of theology in times of crisis
a countercultural ethic of generational justice found in the Bible
a recognition of youth as the climate prophets of today
sample text https://www.uccfiles.com/pdf/Cathedral-on-Fire_SAMPLE_PAGES.pdf
https://www.uccresources.com/products/cathedral-on-fire-a-church-handbook-for-the-climate-crisis?variant=31676326117439

[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming - May 8, 1989 *
The New York Times reports that the Office of Management and Budget in 
the George H. W. Bush administration altered NASA climate scientist 
James Hansen's upcoming Senate testimony to emphasize alleged 
uncertainties in climate science.
http://www.nytimes.com/1989/05/08/us/scientist-says-budget-office-altered-his-testimony.html

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