[TheClimate.Vote] October 4, 2020 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Sun Oct 4 08:08:07 EDT 2020
/*October 4, 2020*/
[fires still burning, but...]
*After Wildfires Stop Burning, a Danger in the Drinking Water*
Experts are warning that existing water safety rules are not suitable to
a world where wildfires destroy more residential areas than in the past...
- -
After the fire that destroyed Paradise, for example, tests reported in a
new study showed benzene levels in drinking water at 2,217 parts per
billion. The Tubbs Fire led to levels as high as 40,000 parts per
billion. California health authorities say 1 part per billion is
dangerous over the long-term, and 26 parts per billion is dangerous for
short-term exposure. And many other compounds that end up in water after
fire can also create health risks...
- -
After a fire, water in houses and in the underlying pipes "can become
contaminated with an array of volatile organic compounds and
semi-volatile organic compounds" at levels that exceed the regulatory
limits set by the state of California as well as the federal
Environmental Protection Agency, said Amisha Shah, a water quality
engineer at Purdue University. "It's very clear it needs to be
addressed."...
- -
During the chaotic aftermath of a wildfire's destruction, members of
water districts can feel overwhelmed and confused about the best course
toward ruling a system safe to use again. While many local water
districts and other water utilities test for volatiles, most are not
looking for semi-volatiles.
In the case of the San Lorenzo Valley pipes, for instance, regulators
have been told to test only for the 80 or so compounds in the E.P.A.'s
volatile organic compounds screening, despite evidence that burning
plastic pipes release some semi-volatiles, too.
Advice for residents has also been inconsistent. While the state
recommends "do not use" orders when there is "an unknown contaminant,"
most utilities are being told to issue "do not drink, do not boil"
orders to prevent ingestion. But scientists worry that even taking a
shower or washing may not be safe if the water has high levels of the
compounds. Some toxins can be inhaled when the water is aerosolized...
- -
As wildfires worsen and grow increasingly common, experts like Dr. Shah
are calling for clear federal or state guidelines that local water
utilities can follow.
They recommend testing for a wide range of compounds, throughout entire
water systems, and the need to issue "do not use" orders for residential
water until results are available. Pre-emptive measures, like installing
one-way valves at home water meters and shutting off water systems ahead
of a fire's encroaching threat, could isolate contamination. San Lorenzo
Valley Water District shut down part of its system, for example, which
might have helped avoid some spread.
Mr. Phillips said that as wildfire dangers persisted, states and towns
needed to be more "prepared for the unknown.
"You have to put the worst-case scenario into a stress test and then
build a response around that."
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/02/science/wildfires-water-toxins.html
- - -
[2 pages, one state]
*Post-wildfire VOC sampling guidance*
Oregon Drinking Water Services
September 2020
https://www.oregon.gov/oha/PH/HEALTHYENVIRONMENTS/DRINKINGWATER/PREPAREDNESS/Documents/post-wildfire-VOC-sampling-guidance.pdf
[Future legal conjectures]
*Trump's Pick for the Supreme Court Could Deepen the Risk for Its Most
Crucial Climate Change Ruling*
Amy Coney Barrett's views on precedent could undermine Massachusetts vs.
EPA, the case ruling that greenhouse gases are pollutants under the
Clean Air Act.
- -
Barrett practiced law briefly, then spent 15 years as a law professor at
Notre Dame before she was picked in 2017 in the first tranche of
Federalist Society-endorsed nominees in Trump's project to remake the
federal courts. She was confirmed in October 2017 for a seat on the 7th
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago by a 55-43, mostly party-line
vote, after a contentious hearing. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.)
grilled Barrett on whether her judicial decisions would be influenced by
religion. "The dogma lives loudly within you," said Feinstein.
Less remembered, but at least as important, was the questioning of
Barrett on her views on stare decisis, or legal precedent. In a number
of law review articles, Barrett examined cases in which she argued that
other principles--such as a jurist's view of Constitutional
intent--could outweigh the imperative for a court to abide by its
previous rulings...
- -
Some environmental law experts think there's another factor that could
encourage the justices to be more receptive to climate cases, even on a
high court that is dominated by Trump appointees.
"The effects of climate change are much more in evidence around us"
than they were when Massachusetts v. EPA case was heard 13 years ago,
said Ann Carlson, co-director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change
and the Environment at UCLA Law School. "When you read that case, the
Massachusetts coastline getting inundated seems a bit far off. Today,
you have hurricanes, wildfires and heat waves like we've never seen before.
"I do think when we're getting slammed like this, it's going to be
harder for the court to say, 'No one action will solve the climate
problem,'" as its reasoning for rejecting a case on climate change, said
Carlson.
The fact that the Supreme Court, even with conservatives in the
majority, delivered surprising rulings this past term in cases involving
transgender rights, abortion, and the so-called "Dreamers" who
immigrated to the U.S. as children of undocumented parents, shows that
societal and cultural change can make a difference in how justices
address legal questions, said Lazarus. "Climate change is a much bigger
deal and the science of cause and effect is much more clear than it was
13 years ago," he said. "That's why I'm not quite ready to surrender yet
on Massachusetts v. EPA."
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/29092020/amy-coney-barrett
[ice melts, seas rise]
*Climate change responsible for record sea temperature levels, says study*
by Taylor & Francis
Global warming is driving an unprecedented rise in sea temperatures
including in the Mediterranean, according to a major new report
published by the peer-reviewed Journal of Operational Oceanography.
https://phys.org/news/2020-10-climate-responsible-sea-temperature.html
- -
*Copernicus Marine Service Ocean State Report, Issue 4*
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1755876X.2020.1785097
[risk of further loss]
*Battered, Flooded and Submerged: Many Superfund Sites are Dangerously
Threatened by Climate Change*
The Obama administration directed the EPA to focus on climate-related
threats. Now, the Trump administration refuses to even use the word.
BY DAVID HASEMYER, INSIDECLIMATE NEWS, AND LISE OLSEN, TEXAS OBSERVER
SEP 24, 2020...
- -
The most notorious of the sites, the San Jacinto Waste Pits, was smashed
by 16 feet of water that undermined a concrete cap covering the site's
toxic contents, washing dioxin downriver. A dive team from the
Environmental Protection Agency later found the potent human carcinogen
in river sediment at 2,300 times the agency's standard for cleanup.
Several miles upriver, Barrett, a historically Black town, shares a
wooded area with the French Limited Superfund site. That toxic dump was
built so close to the Barrett family homestead that, as a young man,
Fred Barrett could hear the rumble of tractor-trailers hauling chemical
waste, including carcinogens, down the Gulf Pump Road to a foul pond...
- -
Among the findings:
-- More than 700 of the 945 sites vulnerable to climate change are in
100-year flood plains, meaning they have a chance of 1 percent or more
of flooding in any given year, and over 80 regularly flood at high tide
or are already permanently submerged. Forty-nine of the sites face
triple threats--they are in 100-year flood plains, regularly flood and
are vulnerable to hurricanes, according to EPA and GAO data. The San
Jacinto Waste Pits site is on the triple threat list, as is the LCP
Chemical site on coastal marshlands in Glynn County, Georgia, which is
contaminated by mercury and PCBs.
-- Seventy-four sites threatened by climate change nationwide contain
toxic wastes that remain uncontrolled and could damage human health,
according to the EPA's own risk assessments. Nine of those sites are in
New Jersey, including the Diamond Alkali site in Newark, a shuttered
chemical plant that pumped the herbicide Agent Orange into the Passaic
River.
-- The Trump administration has largely abandoned plans written by all
10 EPA regional offices that factored climate change risks into
Superfund planning and remediation, former officials say. The plans were
written in response to a 2012 Obama administration directive; the
following year, President Barack Obama issued an executive order that
made climate change preparedness a national priority. President Donald
Trump rescinded the order in March 2017. The GAO found that the EPA's
current five-year strategic plan makes no reference to climate-related
risks in relation to Superfund site management, planning or cleanups.
-- Rather than cleaning up toxic waste at Superfund sites, the EPA began
in the 1990s to cap the sites with soil, clay or even concrete, a less
expensive method that leaves the chemicals in place. Experts and former
EPA officials argue that practice has left those sites increasingly
vulnerable to hurricanes, sea level rise, flooding and wildfires. At the
San Jacinto Waste Pits, a concrete cap that was installed in 2011 after
a previous hurricane didn't stop the site from flooding and leaching
chemicals during Hurricane Harvey, the EPA's own inspectors found.
Molly Block, an EPA spokeswoman, said in response to written questions
that none of the 76 Superfund sites within the path of Hurricane Laura
in late August were damaged, providing evidence that "our remedies over
the years are demonstrating to be storm resilient in the field."...
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/23092020/climate-change-epa-superfund-sites-hurricanes-floods-fires-sea-level-rise
[Follow the money]
*Deloitte scraps report on climate change benefit for GDP*
Global accounting and consulting firm Deloitte said Friday it had
withdrawn a report that had concluded extreme climate change would
benefit a third of the world's economies over the course of the 21st
century.
Published online by Deloitte's Prague office last week, the analysis
said that countries in colder latitudes such as Canada, Norway and
Russia "should benefit the most from rising temperatures."
The Czech Republic's GDP, for example, would likely rise 25 percent by
2100 "in the fastest warming scenarios," according to a summary of the
report.
In a statement obtained by AFP on Friday, Deloitte, one of the world's
"Big Four" accounting firms, said it had withdrawn the report from its
website.
"The unfortunate wording does not represent Deloitte's global viewpoint
on the impact of climate change, therefore the report has been withdrawn
and is no longer publicly available," the firm said in the statement.
"Deloitte believes it's essential that everyone -- from governments to
businesses to NGOs and individuals -- act to protect our planet," it added.
The findings of the report, based on the relationship between average
annual temperatures and GDP, ran counter to most research on the
long-term economic impacts of climate change.
Recent studies in peer-reviewed journals show the world economy taking a
huge hit from global warming by century's end, shrinking up to 20
percent by 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced.
Experts asked by AFP last week called the report "naive and misleading"
as well as "perfectly insane".
Deloitte's worldwide operations pulled in more than $45 billion for the
fiscal year ending in May 2019.
https://today.rtl.lu/news/science-and-environment/a/1589307.html
- -
[read the Deloitte report]
*Climate Change and Business*
Responding to the pressing crisis
https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/my/Documents/risk/my-risk-sustainability-risk-climate-change-business.pdf
[Important breakthrough invention for electric power]
*Physicists build circuit that generates clean, limitless power from
graphene*
Researchers harnessed the atomic motion of graphene to generate an
electrical current that could lead to a chip to replace batteries.
October 2, 2020
University of Arkansas
Summary:
Physicists have successfully generated an electrical current from the
atomic motion of graphene, discovering a new source of clean, limitless
power...
- -
A team of University of Arkansas physicists has successfully developed a
circuit capable of capturing graphene's thermal motion and converting it
into an electrical current.
"An energy-harvesting circuit based on graphene could be incorporated
into a chip to provide clean, limitless, low-voltage power for small
devices or sensors," said Paul Thibado, professor of physics and lead
researcher in the discovery.
The findings, published in the journal Physical Review E, are proof of a
theory the physicists developed at the U of A three years ago that
freestanding graphene -- a single layer of carbon atoms -- ripples and
buckles in a way that holds promise for energy harvesting.
The idea of harvesting energy from graphene is controversial because it
refutes physicist Richard Feynman's well-known assertion that the
thermal motion of atoms, known as Brownian motion, cannot do work.
Thibado's team found that at room temperature the thermal motion of
graphene does in fact induce an alternating current (AC) in a circuit,
an achievement thought to be impossible.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/10/201002091029.htm
- -
*Physicists build circuit that generates clean, limitless power from
graphene*
In the 1950s, physicist Leon Brillouin published a landmark paper
refuting the idea that adding a single diode, a one-way electrical gate,
to a circuit is the solution to harvesting energy from Brownian motion.
Knowing this, Thibado's group built their circuit with two diodes for
converting AC into a direct current (DC). With the diodes in opposition
allowing the current to flow both ways, they provide separate paths
through the circuit, producing a pulsing DC current that performs work
on a load resistor.
*video graphene animation* https://youtu.be/KiLTEjm8zLw
Additionally, they discovered that their design increased the amount of
power delivered. "We also found that the on-off, switch-like behavior of
the diodes actually amplifies the power delivered, rather than reducing
it, as previously thought," said Thibado. "The rate of change in
resistance provided by the diodes adds an extra factor to the power."
The team used a relatively new field of physics to prove the diodes
increased the circuit's power. "In proving this power enhancement, we
drew from the emergent field of stochastic thermodynamics and extended
the nearly century-old, celebrated theory of Nyquist," said coauthor
Pradeep Kumar, associate professor of physics and coauthor.
https://phys.org/news/2020-10-physicists-circuit-limitless-power-graphene.html
[Digging back into the internet news archive]
*On this day in the history of global warming - October 4, 2014*
New York Times columnist Gail Collins observes:
"There was a time when Republicans were leaders in the fight to slow
climate change -- particularly for the concept called 'cap and trade,'
which had a marketplace-friendly tilt. Among the co-sponsors of a
cap-and-trade bill in 2007 was Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican of
Alaska. Murkoswki had to run for re-election as an independent in 2010,
having lost her party's nomination to a Tea Party favorite who complains
about 'climate-change alarmists.'
"These days, it takes courage for a Republican to acknowledge that human
beings have anything to do with climate change at all."
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/04/opinion/gail-collins-the-walrus-and-the-politicians.html
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