[TheClimate.Vote] April 5, 2021 - Daily Global Warming News Digest
Richard Pauli
richard at theclimate.vote
Mon Apr 5 10:11:05 EDT 2021
/*April 5, 2021*/
[global warming means unstable weather]
*Arctic blast incoming ⚠️ A huge temperature shock is on the way for
Europe.*
Scott Duncan
@ScottDuncanWX
Apr 2
https://twitter.com/i/status/1377986569613799424
From record heat at the end of March, temperatures are going to tumble
well below normal early next week. Yes, there will also be snow for some ❄️
https://twitter.com/ScottDuncanWX/status/1377987050520125441
[Easter Sunday along the FAMOUS highway 61]
*Crews monitor wildfires along Highway 61 Sunday*
Multiple fires burned an estimated 45 acres on Saturday.
After closing down a portion of Minnesota Highway 61 north of Silver Bay
on Saturday due to multiple wildfires, wildland fire crews from the
Minnesota Department of Natural Resources continued to patrol for
wildfires on Sunday.
Residents and motorists traveling along Highway 61 can expect to
continue to see crews dousing lingering fire hotspots, according to a
news release from the DNR. It's not expected that planes will be called
back in to the fires, however helicopters may be brought in to help
crews calm down hot spots.
On Saturday, multiple fires burned an estimated 45 acres. Several
aircraft were called in to cool and slow down the wildfires. Six local
fire departments worked on the ground to suppress the wildfires. The
cause of the fires remains under investigation.
According to Leanne Langeberg, public information officer for the
Minnesota Interagency Fire Center, the fire activity is not surprising.
“Every spring, we see a rise in wildfire activity as the snowpack melts
and leaves behind dry vegetation like grasses, leaves and needles,”
Langeberg said. “We left last fall in abnormally dry conditions in
northeast Minnesota. Snow totals were less than normal, and lack of
measurable precipitation has left us in a persistent dry pattern.”
The DNR also urged caution as fire conditions remain high. Dragging
chains from vehicles, tossing cigarette butts out of windows and parking
along roadsides on dry vegetation can create a spark that can become a
wildfire...
https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/news/fires/6968104-Crews-monitor-wildfires-along-Highway-61-Sunday
- -
[Bob Dylan's Highway 61 lyrics]
Now the rovin' gambler he was very bored
He was tryin' to create a next world war
He found a promoter who nearly fell off the floor
He said I never engaged in this kind of thing before
But yes I think it can be very easily done
We'll just put some bleachers out in the sun
And have it on Highway 61
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hr3Stnk8_k
- -
[Wikipedia entry]
*Highway 61 Revisited (song)*
*Background*
Highway 61 runs from Duluth, Minnesota, where Bob Dylan grew up in the
1940s and 1950s down to New Orleans, Louisiana. It was a major transit
route out of the Deep South particularly for African Americans traveling
north to Chicago, St Louis and Memphis, following the Mississippi River
valley for most of its 1,400 miles (2,300 km).
The junction of highway 61 and highway 49 in Mississippi is said to be
the infamous "crossroads" where bluesman Robert Johnson allegedly sold
his soul to the devil in exchange for talent and fame.[citation needed]
*Lyrics*
The song has five stanzas. In each stanza, someone describes an unusual
problem that is ultimately resolved on Highway 61. In Verse 1, God tells
Abraham to "kill me a son".[2] God wants the killing done on Highway 61.
This stanza refers to Genesis 22, in which God commands Abraham to kill
one of his two sons, Isaac. Abram, the original name of the biblical
Abraham, is the name of Dylan's own father. Verse 2 describes a poor
fellow, Georgia Sam, who is beyond the helping of the welfare
department. He is told to go down Highway 61. Georgia Sam may be a
reference to Piedmont blues musician Blind Willie McTell, who
occasionally went by Georgia Sam when recording.[4]
In the third verse, "Mack the Finger" has the problem of getting rid of
particular absurd things: "I got forty red white and blue shoe strings /
And a thousand telephones that don't ring". "Louie the King" solves the
problem with Highway 61. Verse 4 is about the "fifth daughter" who on
the "twelfth night" told the "first father" that her complexion is too
pale. Agreeing, the father seeks to tell the "second mother," but she is
with the "seventh son," on Highway 61. The inspiration for this verse
may be drawn from the enumeration pattern at the beginning of the Old
Testament book of Ezekiel.[5]
The fifth and last verse is the story of a bored gambler, trying "to
create the next world war." His promoter tells him to "put some
bleachers out in the sun / And have it on Highway 61." There is an
evident political undertone in this absurd tale.[6]
There is a pause in each verse while Dylan waits for some event in the
story to finish; in the third verse, for example, the pause occurs while
Louie the King attempts to resolve the shoestring-and-telephones problem...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_61_Revisited_(song)
[Follow the money]
*The Powerful New Financial Argument for Fossil-Fuel Divestment*
A report by BlackRock, the world’s largest investment house, shows that
those who have divested have profited not only morally but also financially.
By Bill McKibben
-[snip]-
In short, the financial debate about divestment is as settled as the
ethical one—you shouldn’t try to profit off the end of the world and, in
any event, you won’t.
These findings will gradually filter out into the world’s markets,
doubtless pushing more investors to divest. But its impact will be more
immediate if its author—BlackRock—takes its own findings seriously and
acts on them. BlackRock handles more money than any firm in the world,
mostly in the form of passive investments—it basically buys some of
everything on the index. But, given the climate emergency, it would be
awfully useful if, over a few years, BlackRock eliminated the big
fossil-fuel companies from those indexes, something they could certainly
do. And, given its own research findings, doing so would make more money
for their clients—the pensioners whose money they invest.
BlackRock could accomplish even more than that. It is the biggest asset
manager on earth, with about eight trillion dollars in its digital
vaults. It also leases its Aladdin software system to other big
financial organizations; last year, the Financial Times called Aladdin
the “technology hub of modern finance.” BlackRock stopped revealing how
much money sat on its system in 2017, when the figure topped twenty
trillion dollars. Now, with stock prices soaring, the Financial Times
reported that public documents from just a third of Aladdin’s clients
show assets topping twenty-one trillion. Casey Harrell, who works with
Australia’s Sunrise Project, an N.G.O. that urges asset managers to
divest, believes that the BlackRock system likely directs at least
twenty-five trillion in assets. “BlackRock’s own research explains the
financial rationale for divestment,” Harrell told me. “BlackRock should
be bold and proactively offer this as a core piece of its financial advice.”
What would happen if the world’s largest investment firm issued that
advice and its clients followed it? Fifteen trillion dollars plus
twenty-five trillion is a lot of money. It’s roughly twice the size of
the current U.S. economy. It’s almost half the size of the total world
economy. It would show that a report issued by a small London think tank
a decade ago had turned the financial world’s view of climate upside down.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-powerful-new-financial-argument-for-fossil-fuel-divestment
- -
[March 22 release]
*IEEFA: Major investment advisors BlackRock and Meketa provide a
fiduciary path through the energy transition*
BlackRock and Meketa say divestment from fossil fuels improves, not
weakens, investment returns
Two major financial management firms, BlackRock and Meketa, have
separately concluded that investment funds have experienced no negative
financial impacts from divesting from fossil fuels. In fact, they found
evidence of modest improvement in fund return, according to draft
reports undertaken at the request of New York City’s comptroller on
behalf of three of the city’s pension funds.
Several of their core findings are noteworthy:
- Divestment actions by hundreds of funds worldwide have passed the
prudence tests required of fiduciaries.
- Fossil fuel stocks have underperformed for the last five years and
forward-looking analysis shows they are exposed to significant
regulatory, technological and market risks.
- Transition readiness standards allow Funds to improve their
targeting of how divestment can take place in a way that aligns with
the philosophy and mission of a specific Fund.
- There is no uniform model for divestment. Some funds divested from
coal but most adopted broader divestment strategies across the coal,
oil and gas sectors. All divestment options have proven to be
financially sound.
- The global trend in the investment world is toward more public
pension fund divestment from fossil fuels. In the past, such actions
were mostly consigned to university, foundations and other private
institutions. The size of individual Funds that are currently
divesting is increasing.
-[snip]-
https://ieefa.org/major-investment-advisors-blackrock-and-meketa-provide-a-fiduciary-path-through-the-energy-transition/
- -
[Classic study 2011]
*Unburnable Carbon: Are the World’s Financial Markets Carrying a Carbon
Bubble?*
13 July 2011
-- Already in 2011, the world has used over a third of its 50-year
carbon budget of 886GtCO2, leaving 565GtCO2
-- All of the proven reserves owned by private and public companies and
governments are equivalent to 2,795 GtCO2
-- Fossil fuel reserves owned by the top 100 listed coal and top 100
listed oil and gas companies represent total emissions of 745GtCO2
-- Only 20% of the total reserves can be burned unabated, leaving up to
80% of assets technically unburnable
https://carbontracker.org/reports/carbon-bubble/
[Last month demonstration]
*Scientist Rebellion Testimonies*
Mar 1, 2021
Scientist Rebellion
Global Scientist Rebellion 25th-28th March 2021!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rh2D9Oz4nH0
- -
[Scientist activism]
"There is a very big risk that we will just end our civilisation. The
human species will survive somehow but we will destroy almost everything
we have built up over the last 2000 years"
- Prof. Hans Schellnhuber, director emeritus of the Potsdam Institute.
*Show willingness to support non-violent civil disobedience*
The climate and ecological crises threaten every aspect of human
civilisation. Despite decades of warnings from scientists and others,
greenhouse gas emissions and temperatures continue to soar. A domino
effect of climate tipping points threatens to push the Earth into a
state that is alien and inhospitable to human civilisation.
Still, mega-corporations ransack the natural world with support from
their servants in public office. Governments who stray from protecting
corporate interest in favour of human need are attacked and
delegitimised in the billionaire press, face the prospect of
international capital flight, and of political or military coups. This
corruption of democracy sits at the heart of climate inaction.
Billions are threatened with starvation, displacement, drought and
inundation within the next few decades. Scientists know business as
usual cannot continue: it’s time to put our bodies where our mouths are
and resist, for truth and life.
https://scientistrebellion.com/
- - -
[Climate scientists declare rebellion]
*Our Demands Letter*
The letter below was written collectively by Scientist Rebellion, and
outlines our positions and demands.
We are scientists and academics who believe we should expose the reality
and severity of the climate and ecological emergency by engaging
in non-violent civil disobedience. Unless those best placed to
understand behave as if this is an emergency, we cannot expect
the public to do so. Some believe that appearing “alarmist” is
detrimental - but we are terrified by what we see, and believe
it is both vital and right to express our fears openly. The
population sizes of mammals, birds, fish, amphibians and
reptiles have seen an alarming average drop of 68% since 1970,
along with an apparent collapse in the pollinator populations.
At this rate, ecosystems around the world will collapse well
within the lifespan of current generations, with catastrophic
consequences for the human kind.Self-reinforcing feedbacks within the
climate system, in which hotter climates cause additional heating
(e.g. increased forest fires, thawing permafrost, melting ice) threaten
to drive the Earth irreversibly to a hot and uninhabitable state.
These effects are being observed decades earlier than predicted, in
line with the worst-case scenarios predicted. Increasingly severe
heatwaves, droughts and natural disasters are occurring year
after year, while sea levels may rise by several meters this
century, displacing hundreds of millions of people living in
coastal areas. There is a growing fear amongst scientists that
simultaneous extreme weather events in major agricultural areas could
cause global food shortages, thus triggering societal collapse. For
example, the drought in Syria (2011-2015) destroyed much of the
country’s agriculture and livestock, driving millions into cities
and sparking a civil war from which the world is still reeling.
We face a crisis possibly hundreds of times more severe. To be informed
is to be alarmed. Current actions and plans are grossly
inadequate, and even these obligations are not being met. The
rate of environmental destruction closely tracks economic growth,
which leads to us extracting more resources from Earth than are
regenerated. Governments and corporations aim to increase growth
and profits, inevitably accelerating the destruction of life on Earth.
•To achieve decarbonisation on the required scale demands economic
degrowth, at least in the short term. This does not
necessarily require a reduction in living standards.
•For a just transition, the cost of degrowth must be paid
for by the wealthiest, who have benefited enormously from
the current destructive world order, while others have faced
the consequences.
•A just transition to a sustainable system requires the wealth from
the 1% to be used for the common benefit.The most effective means of
achieving systemic change in modern history is through non-violent
civil resistance. We call on academics, scientists and the
public to join us in civil disobedience to demand emergency
decarbonisation and degrowth, facilitated by wealth redistribution.
https://scientistrebellion.com/our-positions-and-demands/
- -
"We are on course for 4°C of heating. “A 4°C future is incompatible with
an organised global community, is likely to go beyond ‘adaptation’, is
devastating to the majority of ecosystems and has a high probability of
not being stable” – Prof Kevin Anderson; “[at 4°C] it’s difficult to see
how we could accommodate eight billion people or maybe even half of
that" - Prof. Johan Rockstrom.
https://scientistrebellion.com/science/
APRIL 2, 2021
*Social cost of carbon: What is it, and why do we need to calculate it?*
https://phys.org/news/2021-04-social-carbon.html
[sneeze and tears]
*Allergy Season Will Grow Longer as Climate Warms Up*
By Chief Meteorologist Burton Fitzsimmons Texas
Apr. 03, 2021
What You Need To Know
-- Climate change means a longer growing season and more CO2, which
is food for plants
-- Pollen counts are expected to rise, and plants could get larger
and numerous if current warming trends continue
-- Texas has seen an increase in above-normal spring days in the
past four decades
https://spectrumlocalnews.com/tx/san-antonio/weather/2021/04/02/allergy-season-will-grow-longer-as-climate-warms-up
[Northumbria University]
*Evidence of Antarctic glacier’s tipping point confirmed for first time*
31st March 2021
Researchers have confirmed for the first time that Pine Island Glacier
in West Antarctica could cross tipping points, leading to a rapid and
irreversible retreat which would have significant consequences for
global sea level.
Pine Island Glacier is a region of fast-flowing ice draining an area of
West Antarctica approximately two thirds the size of the UK. The glacier
is a particular cause for concern as it is losing more ice than any
other glacier in Antarctica.
Currently, Pine Island Glacier together with its neighbouring Thwaites
glacier are responsible for about 10% of the ongoing increase in global
sea level.
Scientists have argued for some time that this region of Antarctica
could reach a tipping point and undergo an irreversible retreat from
which it could not recover. Such a retreat, once started, could lead to
the collapse of the entire West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which contains
enough ice to raise global sea level by over three metres.
While the general possibility of such a tipping point within ice sheets
has been raised before, showing that Pine Island Glacier has the
potential to enter unstable retreat is a very different question.
Now, researchers from Northumbria University have shown, for the first
time, that this is indeed the case.
Their findings are published in leading journal, The Cryosphere.
Using a state-of-the-art ice flow model developed by Northumbria’s
glaciology research group, the team have developed methods that allow
tipping points within ice sheets to be identified.
For Pine Island Glacier, their study shows that the glacier has at least
three distinct tipping points. The third and final event, triggered by
ocean temperatures increasing by 1.2C, leads to an irreversible retreat
of the entire glacier.
The researchers say that long-term warming and shoaling trends in
Circumpolar Deep Water, in combination with changing wind patterns in
the Amundsen Sea, could expose Pine Island Glacier’s ice shelf to warmer
waters for longer periods of time, making temperature changes of this
magnitude increasingly likely.
The lead author of the study, Dr Sebastian Rosier, is a
Vice-Chancellor’s Research Fellow in Northumbria’s Department of
Geography and Environmental Sciences. He specialises in the modelling
processes controlling ice flow in Antarctica with the goal of
understanding how the continent will contribute to future sea level rise.
Dr Rosier is a member of the University’s glaciology research group,
led by Professor Hilmar Gudmundsson, which is currently working on a
major £4million study to investigate if climate change will drive the
Antarctic Ice Sheet towards a tipping point.
Dr Rosier explained: “The potential for this region to cross a tipping
point has been raised in the past, but our study is the first to confirm
that Pine Island Glacier does indeed cross these critical thresholds.
“Many different computer simulations around the world are attempting to
quantify how a changing climate could affect the West Antarctic Ice
Sheet but identifying whether a period of retreat in these models is a
tipping point is challenging.
“However, it is a crucial question and the methodology we use in this
new study makes it much easier to identify potential future tipping points.”
Hilmar Gudmundsson, Professor of Glaciology and Extreme Environments
worked with Dr Rosier on the study. He added: “The possibility of Pine
Island Glacier entering an unstable retreat has been raised before but
this is the first time that this possibility is rigorously established
and quantified.
“This is a major forward step in our understanding of the dynamics of
this area and I’m thrilled that we have now been able to finally provide
firm answers to this important question.
“But the findings of this study also concern me. Should the glacier
enter unstable irreversible retreat, the impact on sea level could be
measured in metres, and as this study shows, once the retreat starts it
might be impossible to halt it.”
The paper, The tipping points and early warning indicators for Pine
island Glacier, West Antarctica, is now available to view in The
Cryosphere.
Northumbria is fast becoming the UK’s leading university for research
into Antarctic and extreme environments. As well as the £4m tipping
points study, known as TiPPACCs, Northumbria is also the only UK
university to play a part in two projects in the £20m International
Thwaites Glacier Collaboration – the largest joint project undertaken by
the UK and USA in Antarctica for more than 70 years. Northumbria is
leading the PROPHET and GHC projects within the Thwaites study. This
particular study was funded through both TiPPACCs and PROPHET.
https://www.northumbria.ac.uk/about-us/news-events/news/antarctic-tipping-point/
[keep in mind that seas rise about 3.4mm per year anyway - just from ice
melting]
There are a lot of people, but the oceans are very big.
*If everyone on Earth sat in the ocean at once, how much would sea level
rise?*
- -
But remember, this volume would be spread over the vast area of the
oceans. Using the same bathtub math as before, we divide the 40 billion
cubic feet of volume over the 140 million square miles of ocean.
The answer? The total rise in sea level would be about 0.00012 of an
inch, or less than 1/1000th of an inch. If everyone completely submerged
themselves, this would double the answer to 0.00024 inches, which is
still only about the width of a human hair.
It turns out the oceans are enormous – and humans are just a drop in the
bucket.
https://theconversation.com/if-everyone-on-earth-sat-in-the-ocean-at-once-how-much-would-sea-level-rise-156626
- -
[yet the sea levels rise of 1/8th of an inch per year from ice melting]
[Digging back into the internet news archive - "Have you no decency, sir?"]
*On this day in the history of global warming - April 5, 2002 *
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman denounces White House press
secretary Ari Fleischer
*At Long Last?*
By Paul Krugman - April 5, 2002
I almost had a Joseph Welch moment on Wednesday. I've calmed down a
bit since, but I'm still on the edge.
Joseph Welch represented the Army in the 1954 Army-McCarthy
hearings. It was a time, like the present, when the nation faced a
real external threat; alas, some people tried to use that threat to
gain political advantage and suppress dissent. When Senator Joseph
McCarthy tried to smear one more innocent victim, Welch burst out
with a heartfelt soliloquy that earned him a place in the pantheon
of liberty. It ended: ''Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long
last, have you left no sense of decency?''
But it wasn't a smear attack that set me off this time. It was Ari
Fleischer's use of a press conference on the crisis in the Middle
East to shill, once again, for the Bush energy plan.
Let me say for starters that energy policy isn't central to this
crisis -- and to be fair to Mr. Fleischer, he didn't say that it was
(he was responding to a question about oil prices). Even if the
United States weren't dependent on imported oil, the Middle East
would still be a strategically crucial region, and the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict would still be a world nightmare.
But to the extent that oil independence would help -- and it would,
a bit, by reducing the leverage of Persian Gulf producers -- the
Bush administration has long since forfeited the moral high ground.
It has done so by vigorously opposing any serious efforts at
conservation, which would have to be the centerpiece of any real
plan to reduce oil imports.
There are many ways to make this case; here are two more. Even at
its peak, a decade or so after drilling began, oil production from
the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would reduce imports by no more
than would a 3-mile-per-gallon increase in fuel efficiency --
something easily achievable, were it not for opposition from special
interest groups. Indeed, the Kerry-McCain fuel efficiency standards,
which the administration opposed, would have saved three times as
much oil as ANWR might produce. Or put it this way: Total world oil
production is about 75 million barrels per day, of which the United
States consumes almost 20; ANWR would produce, at maximum, a bit
more than 1 million.
Yet a few months ago, Republican activists ran ads with side-by-side
photos of Tom Daschle and Saddam Hussein, declaring that both men
oppose drilling in ANWR -- and Dick Cheney, when asked, stood behind
those ads. Administration critics could, with rather more
justification, run ads with side-by-side photos of George W. Bush
and Saddam Hussein, declaring that both men oppose increased fuel
efficiency standards. (Actually, I'm not aware that Iraq's ruler has
expressed an opinion on either issue.) Of course, if such ads did
run, there would be enormous outrage. After all, turnabout wouldn't
be fair play because, well, just because.
This isn't the first time the Bush administration has engaged in
''hitchhiking,'' using a crisis to promote a pre-existing agenda
that has nothing to do with that crisis. A year ago it was trying to
promote drilling in the wildlife refuge as the answer to electricity
shortages in California -- a connection as far-fetched, if you think
about it, as the alleged connection between arctic drilling and the
war on terror. And the administration has shamelessly exploited
Sept. 11 to cover its fiscal tracks, pretending -- in flat
contradiction of the facts -- that the war on terror is the reason
those huge projected surpluses have vanished, and that tax cuts have
nothing to do with it.
But this crisis is different, if only because it is so awful. The
unfolding tragedy in the Middle East reduces me and many others to
despair in a way that Sept. 11 never did.
Needless to say, I don't have the answer to that tragedy. Mr. Bush's
speech yesterday gave some reason for hope: at least, for now, he
has rejected the advice of sycophants who assure him that tough guys
never get caught in quagmires. (Tom DeLay recently declared that if
we'd had a leader like Mr. Bush, we would have won the Vietnam War.)
But one thing I'm sure of is that this is no time for hitchhiking.
The question is whether Mr. Fleischer and his colleagues understand
this. At long last, have they left any sense of decency?
https://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/05/opinion/at-long-last.html
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