[TheClimate.Vote] May 16, 2020 - Daily Global Warming News Digest.

[Richard Pauli]

/*May 16, 2020*/

[miscalculation]
*California's budget cuts include canceling billions in climate change 
spending*
California Gov. Gavin Newsom's proposed budget cuts include canceling 
billions of dollars in climate change spending, a blow to environmental 
advocates who look to the state as a stopgap for the Trump 
administration's weakening of federal protections...
- -
"Oil and gas won," said Kathryn Phillips, director of Sierra Club 
California. "But people who breathe and live near ports are losing."

State Oil and Gas Supervisor Uduak-Joe Ntuk said the economic downturn 
and "historically low demand for oil and gas" has impacted operators, 
"many of whom are facing layoffs and cutbacks.

"Requesting additional fees during this crisis would be a difficult 
challenge," he said. "We all need to stretch our limited resources, and 
CalGEM is committed to continuing its critical core enforcement and 
regulatory work with its current resources."
https://ktla.com/news/california/californias-budget-cuts-include-cancelling-billions-in-climate-change-spending/



[Florida text and listen]
*Climate change, pollution impacts hurricane formation in the Atlantic, 
NOAA study says*
The study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 
examined every storm from 1980 to 2018 and found that the buildup of 
greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, along with changes in other human 
pollution, has changed how often storms form in certain locations. Some 
spots, like the Atlantic basin, saw a "substantial increase" in storms, 
but other spots, like the southern Indian Ocean, saw far fewer...
- - -
For the Atlantic basin, the birthplace of the storms that threaten 
Florida, Murakami's team found that lower levels of aerosol pollution 
played a large role in the frequency of storms. Aerosols are small 
particles in the air and can be naturally occurring, like dust or sand, 
or human-caused like the thick smoke caused by burning diesel fuel. 
Clouds of air pollution shade ocean waters and keep temperatures down, 
making it harder for hurricanes to strengthen...
- - -
Attribution science, as the field is known, is about discovering if 
climate change makes something more or less common. Murakami said that's 
simpler to do over a long period of time, like the 40 years analyzed in 
the study.

"Statistically speaking we can find some significant trends," he said. 
"But when you look at a specific tropical cyclone it's really difficult 
to figure out how climate change affected it."

Some connections, like hotter oceans fueling more powerful storms, are 
simple enough. As sea levels rise, hurricanes have more water to shove 
ashore, making storm surge higher and deadlier.

But as the air above the oceans warms, it actually makes the atmosphere 
more stable and complicates storm formation. That's why the NOAA study 
found that toward the end of the century the average annual number of 
tropical cyclones around the world could drop from 86 to 69.
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/weather/hurricane/article242597556.html


[$-Science of sea level]
*Earth's orbit controlled sea-level rise for millennia but now it's 
driven by man-made climate change, study reaffirms*
Earth's history of glaciation far more complex than previously thought, 
according to researchers at Rutgers University, reports Louise Boyle
Current sea-level rise is linked to human activities and not changes in 
Earth's orbit, according to a new study, reaffirming scientific 
consensus on the effects of human-induced climate change...
https://www.independent.co.uk/independentpremium/us/sea-level-rise-global-warming-climate-change-a9517726.html



[four min video]
*Why beef is the worst food for the climate
*May 13, 2020
Vox
Avoiding high-emission foods can have a bigger climate impact than any 
other consumption change.
Our consumption habits emit billions of tons of greenhouse gases into 
the atmosphere. Our diets account for one-fourth of those emissions.

The food we eat emits so many greenhouse emissions because of the land 
it takes to grow it, but it also has something to do with biology. This 
video explains why the production of some foods emit more than others, 
and which foods to avoid to be a more climate-conscious consumer.

This video was based on this chart, created by the University of 
Oxford's Our World in Data: 
https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local
https://youtu.be/3lrJYTsKdUM
- - - -
[from VOX]*
**The food to avoid if you care about climate change*
Avoiding high-emissions foods can have a huge climate impact.
Roughly half of the habitable land on Earth is devoted to growing the 
food we eat. Of that land, nearly 80 percent is for grazing livestock.

Raising livestock for food takes up a lot of space, and that explains a 
big reason why animal products create far more greenhouse gas than 
fruits and vegetables -- making way for animals to release all the 
carbon once stored in trees, other plants, and soil. Much of the 
deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, for example, is due to clearing 
land for grazing cattle.

But it doesn't explain everything -- the farming process for some foods, 
like coffee, uses fertilizers that emit the powerful greenhouse gas, 
nitrous oxide. And the biology of some animals, known as ruminants, is 
responsible for emitting tons of methane into the atmosphere.

Land use and the farming process are the two biggest factors that 
determine the emissions that go into growing or producing a food 
product. That's what a team of researchers at the University of Oxford 
found when it looked at data from more than 38,000 commercial farms in 
119 countries. The result is the most comprehensive study comparing 
greenhouse gas emissions from the production and distribution of common 
foods.
https://www.vox.com/videos/2020/5/14/21257118/food-avoid-climate-change-emissions-beef
- -
[BBC]
*Climate change food calculator: What's your diet's carbon footprint?*
image 
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/FC67/production/_104751646_food_emissions_proportions_640_3x-optimised-nc.png
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46459714
---
[source material from 2018]
*Reducing food's environmental impacts through producers and consumers*
The global impacts of food production
Food is produced and processed by millions of farmers and intermediaries 
globally, with substantial associated environmental costs. Given the 
heterogeneity of producers, what is the best way to reduce food's 
environmental impacts? Poore and Nemecek consolidated data on the 
multiple environmental impacts of ∼38,000 farms producing 40 different 
agricultural goods around the world in a meta-analysis comparing various 
types of food production systems. The environmental cost of producing 
the same goods can be highly variable. However, this heterogeneity 
creates opportunities to target the small numbers of producers that have 
the most impact.

*Abstract*
Food's environmental impacts are created by millions of diverse 
producers. To identify solutions that are effective under this 
heterogeneity, we consolidated data covering five environmental 
indicators; 38,700 farms; and 1600 processors, packaging types, and 
retailers. Impact can vary 50-fold among producers of the same product, 
creating substantial mitigation opportunities. However, mitigation is 
complicated by trade-offs, multiple ways for producers to achieve low 
impacts, and interactions throughout the supply chain. Producers have 
limits on how far they can reduce impacts. Most strikingly, impacts of 
the lowest-impact animal products typically exceed those of vegetable 
substitutes, providing new evidence for the importance of dietary 
change. Cumulatively, our findings support an approach where producers 
monitor their own impacts, flexibly meet environmental targets by 
choosing from multiple practices, and communicate their impacts to 
consumers...
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6392/987



[Reading list from ScienceNews]
*These 6 books explore climate change science and solutions*
Climate change is increasingly becoming part of everyday conversations. 
For those who want to join the discussions, there is no shortage of 
books that give detailed background and context on the subject. The 
question is, which to read?

Science News staff members have reviewed several books published this 
year to guide you to which ones you might like. Many of these offerings 
address perhaps the most press­ing question: With limited time to act, 
what's the best way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to avert the most 
dire impacts of climate change?

*The Future We Choose*
Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac
Knopf, $23
Four and a half years after 195 nations agreed to limit global warming 
by 2100 to 2 degrees Celsius, the world has fallen behind on its 
commitments (SN: 11/26/19). But all is not yet lost, two architects of 
the 2015 Paris Agreement argue in this bracing call to arms aimed at 
those who fear it's too late. Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac 
paint two side-by-side visions of the world in 2050: a hot, 
pollution-choked hellscape rife with water wars and nationalist 
paranoia, and a hopeful, forested world of high-speed trains, energy 
efficiency and community-based agriculture.

Achieving that second future requires a mind-set shift away from 
pessimism and the idea of resource availability as a zero-sum game, 
Figueres and Rivett-Carnac say. They offer 10 general actions for 
readers to take, including avoiding fossil fuels and engaging in 
politics. The final chapter provides a template for actions readers can 
take today, this week and all the way out to 2050.

*The Future Earth*
Eric Holthaus
HarperOne, $22.99
In this imagined history of the next 30 years, meteorologist Eric 
Holthaus plots a path toward zero carbon emissions (SN: 1/31/20). We 
won't get there with solar panels and electric vehicles alone, he says, 
criticizing those as market-based mechanisms that reinforce the status 
quo. Instead, success requires a political and economic revolution. 
Holthaus imagines natural disasters as catalysts for collective action, 
global systems for climate migration and reparations, and economies 
driven by human need rather than want.

Critics have long dismissed such a vision, arguing that it would upend 
society, cost too much and require an ambitious global agreement that 
seems politically impossible. But those arguments ignore the fact that 
doing nothing to address climate change will be even costlier and more 
politically damaging down the road, Holthaus says. (And those criticisms 
may be crumbling now as the coronavirus pandemic shows societies engaged 
in expensive and disruptive collective action for the public good.)

The book ends with a series of tips, exercises and checklists to help 
readers imagine this new future and create their own action plans.

*The 100% Solution*
Solomon Goldstein-Rose
Melville House, $17.99
After running a campaign focused on climate change, Solomon 
Goldstein-Rose was elected to the Massachusetts Legislature in 2016 at 
the age of 22. He served one term and then turned to climate activism 
full time. In this concise book, he draws on his experiences to draft a 
five-pillar framework for reaching negative carbon emissions by 2050.

Because most new emissions come from rapidly developing countries, 
solutions must be economically viable for everyone, Goldstein-Rose 
points out. He argues that a "World War II-style mobilization" of 
technology development can get us there. Central to his plans, which he 
claims are feasible to achieve in the next 30 years, are scaling up 
nuclear power, improving battery storage and rolling out "greener" 
industrial processes.

*A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety*
Sarah Jaquette Ray
Univ. of California, $16.95
If thinking about climate change makes you (a) depressed, (b) worried, 
(c) guilty or (d) all of the above, this book might be for you. Drawing 
on her expertise as an environmental humanities scholar, Sarah Jaquette 
Ray outlines how environmentally conscious citizens can cultivate a 
healthy mind-set and strong interpersonal relationships for taking 
action on climate change.

To deal with climate change-related fear and sadness, she suggests 
mindfulness practices. To avoid burnout, she advocates setting 
attainable goals, like reducing personal emissions or collaborating on 
environmental projects with local community members.

Emotional intelligence is important for engaging with other people's 
feelings about climate change, too. Ray reminds readers that people 
react to information based more on how they feel about the messenger 
than the message. So prioritize building trust and common ground -- 
perhaps by focusing on local issues or framing climate change as a 
public health problem -- over simply winning debates with skeptics.

*The Story of More*
Hope Jahren
Vintage, $15
Paleobiologist Hope Jahren's succinct examination of "how we got to 
climate change" is both sweeping and straightforward. Ranging across 
human history, and everywhere from Mesopotamia to Minnesota, the book 
explores how the same ingenuity and industrious spark that has allowed 
humans to squeeze ever more food and energy from the Earth also set the 
stage for the current climate crisis.

Jahren relays the enormous scale of human consumption conversationally: 
"Since 1969 the nations of the globe have burned enough coal to fill a 
grave the size of Texas." But she's frank about who exactly is 
responsible for the lion's share of this consumption and its 
consequences. Again and again, she ties the developed world's insatiable 
thirst for more to our imperiled planet.

The end of the book touches on several big interventions that might curb 
climate change, such as mass tree planting or geoengineering, but Jahren 
argues these won't fix the root cause of climate change: 
overconsumption. So she offers practical actions individuals can take 
that all fall under the umbrella of using less and sharing more.

*Beyond Global Warming*
Syukuro Manabe and Anthony J. Broccoli
Princeton Univ., $35
In 1894, Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius made a startling 
announcement. His calculations suggested that a two- or threefold 
increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide could alter global temperatures 
on a scale comparable to the difference between cold glacial and warm 
interglacial periods.

Climate scientists have since devised increasingly complex models to 
understand humans' impact on climate, weaving together observations and 
equations to simulate changes on land, in the oceans and in the 
atmosphere (SN: 1/7/20). Climate modeler Syukuro Manabe and atmospheric 
scientist Anthony J. Broccoli describe the evolution of these models.

Packed with data and graphs, and based on a graduate course taught by 
Manabe, the book is not a light read. But it gives an in-depth, 
science-rich understanding of this crucial field.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/climate-change-science-solutions-books



[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming - May 16, 2014 *
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman observes:

    "There are, obviously, some fundamental factors underlying G.O.P.
    climate skepticism: The influence of powerful vested interests
    (including, though by no means limited to, the Koch brothers), plus
    the party's hostility to any argument for government intervention.
    But there is clearly also some kind of cumulative process at work.
    As the evidence for a changing climate keeps accumulating, the
    Republican Party's commitment to denial just gets stronger.

    "Think of it this way: Once upon a time it was possible to take
    climate change seriously while remaining a Republican in good
    standing. Today, listening to climate scientists gets you
    excommunicated -- hence Mr. Rubio's statement, which was effectively
    a partisan pledge of allegiance.

    "And truly crazy positions are becoming the norm. A decade ago, only
    the G.O.P.'s extremist fringe asserted that global warming was a
    hoax concocted by a vast global conspiracy of scientists (although
    even then that fringe included some powerful politicians). Today,
    such conspiracy theorizing is mainstream within the party, and
    rapidly becoming mandatory; witch hunts against scientists reporting
    evidence of warming have become standard operating procedure, and
    skepticism about climate science is turning into hostility toward
    science in general.

    "It's hard to see what could reverse this growing hostility to
    inconvenient science. As I said, the process of intellectual
    devolution seems to have reached a point of no return. And that
    scares me more than the news about that ice sheet."

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/16/opinion/krugman-points-of-no-return.html

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