[TheClimate.Vote] May 9, 2020 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

Sat May 9 09:12:51 EDT 2020

/*May 9, 2020*/

[top story this time]
*Big Oil's Reign Is Finally Weakening*
By Bill McKibben - May 7, 2020
- - -
Even before covid-19 really bit, Exxon had been "humbled," according to 
Bloomberg Businessweek, becoming a "mediocre" company. Now it seems 
entirely likely that we have seen peak oil demand, a moment that the oil 
companies had predicted wouldn't come for decades. Here's the energy 
analyst Kingsmill Bond's precis: "If demand for fossil fuels bounces 
back in 2021 by half the amount it fell in 2020, and grows at 0.5% a 
year, it would take 8 years to get back to where the industry started. 
And in the meantime, the renewable energy revolution has not stopped."...
"The ability of the industry to dictate to governments will weaken," 
Bond said, "and the capacity of incumbents to frustrate the growth of 
renewables will reduce." Exit Lee Raymond, stage right.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-a-warming-planet/big-oils-reign-is-finally-weakening

[already]
*It's already getting too hot and humid in some places for humans to 
survive*
Extreme conditions are happening more often than scientists previously 
thought...
- -
A combination of heat and humidity so extreme that it's unendurable 
isn't just a problem for the future -- those conditions are already 
here, a new study finds. Off-the-chart readings that were previously 
thought to be nearly nonexistent on the planet today have popped up 
around the globe, and unyielding temperatures are becoming more common.

Extreme conditions reaching roughly 115 degrees Fahrenheit on the 
heat-index scale -- a measurement of both heat and humidity that's often 
referred to as what the temperature "feels like" -- doubled between 1979 
and 2017, the study found. Humidity and heat are a particularly deadly 
combination, since humidity messes with the body's ability to cool 
itself off by sweating. The findings imply that harsh conditions that 
scientists foresaw as an impending result of climate change are becoming 
reality sooner than expected.
- -
https://www.theverge.com/21252174/heat-humidity-human-survival-climate-change-science-advances
- - - -
[Source material from AAAA Science Advances]
*The emergence of heat and humidity too severe for human tolerance*
Abstract

    Humans' ability to efficiently shed heat has enabled us to range
    over every continent, but a wet-bulb temperature (TW) of 35 C marks
    our upper physiological limit, and much lower values have serious
    health and productivity impacts. Climate models project the first 35
    C TW occurrences by the mid-21st century. However, a comprehensive
    evaluation of weather station data shows that some coastal
    subtropical locations have already reported a TW of 35 C and that
    extreme humid heat overall has more than doubled in frequency since
    1979. Recent exceedances of 35 C in global maximum sea surface
    temperature provide further support for the validity of these
    dangerously high TW values. We find the most extreme humid heat is
    highly localized in both space and time and is correspondingly
    substantially underestimated in reanalysis products. Our findings
    thus underscore the serious challenge posed by humid heat that is
    more intense than previously reported and increasingly severe.

Read more: 
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2242855-climate-change-has-already-made-parts-of-the-world-too-hot-for-humans/#ixzz6Lu8njEhC 

[highly recommended book]
*A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety*
How to Keep Your Cool on a Warming Planet
Reviews
"Not surprisingly ... this small book reads like the distillation of 
simple folk wisdom."--Geography Realm
"It would be foolish not to freak out over climate change. But it would 
be sad if that despair kept you from working hard on this crisis, not to 
mention enjoying life on what is still a beautiful planet. This book has 
some wise strategies for finding a useful balance."--Bill McKibben, 
author of Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?

"Ever laid awake at night gripped with panic about the future? Ever 
wondered how to make sense of your path in light of the forecasted 
climate futures? Bold and beautiful, this hands-on companion is 
essential reading for wrestling with the most important issue of our 
time."--Kari Marie Norgaard, author of Living in Denial: Climate Change, 
Emotions, and Everyday Life

"Written for the Gen Z 'climate generation,' this book is essential 
reading for anyone despairing over our current climate emergency and 
future of turbulent change. Ray's strategies offer deep and practical 
ways to cultivate collective resilience and creative adaptation, and 
even thrive in a climate-changed world."--Leslie Davenport, author of 
Emotional Resiliency in the Era of Climate Change
https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520343306/a-field-guide-to-climate-anxiety
- - -
[video interview]
*Sarah Jaquette Ray on "A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety: How to Keep 
Your Cool on a Warming Planet"*
https://youtu.be/adNUFvsHwio

[Two Beckwith videos on aerosols]
*How the Absence and Presence of Anthropogenic Aerosols is Affecting Our 
Skies and Climate*
May 7, 2020
Paul Beckwith
Anthropogenic Aerosols have a large effect on our climate, and due to 
global economic shutdowns from coronavirus have been much reduced for 
several months. Here, and in the next few videos I get delve into the 
science of direct aerosol effects (scattering; blocking sunlight) and 
indirect aerosol effects (smaller cloud droplets increasing reflectivity 
in the Twomey Effect, suppressing drizzle, increasing cloud heights and 
cloud lifetimes in the Albrecht Effect, and Heating Effects dissipating 
clouds). Scientists need a good understanding of these effects to reduce 
uncertainties in climate models and projections.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ruCxowpuug
- - -
[second half]
*Science of Aerosol-Cloud Interactions Vital to Reduce Uncertainty in 
Climate Models and Projections*
In this video and the next I explain the basic science of direct aerosol 
effects (scattering; blocking sunlight) and indirect effects (smaller 
cloud droplets increasing reflectivity in the Twomey Effect, suppressing 
drizzle, increasing cloud heights and cloud lifetimes in the Albrecht 
Effect, and Heating Effects dissipating clouds). Scientists can 
determine the number of droplets Nd and the vertical updraft velocity 
(Wb) at the base of Marine Stratospheric Clouds from satellite 
measurements, allowing determination of the number of Cloud Condensation 
Nuclei (CCN) which is key to understanding aerosol and cloud climate 
interactions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcwTiXfCNsA

[good question]
*How did Michael Moore become a hero to climate deniers and the far right?**
*George Monbiot
- -
We have been here many times before. Dozens of films have spread 
falsehoods about environmental activists and ripped into green 
technologies, while letting fossil fuels off the hook. But never before 
have these attacks come from a famous campaigner for social justice, 
rubbing our faces in the dirt.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/07/michael-moore-far-right-climate-crisis-deniers-film-environment-falsehoods

[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming - May 9, 2007 *
Grist.org reports on News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch's plans to make his 
company carbon-neutral and conscious of climate risk, plans that 
apparently did not involve ending the Fox News Channel's fixation on 
attacking climate science.
http://grist.org/article/murdoch/

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